Domino theory
Encyclopedia
The domino theory was a reason for war during the 1950s to 1980s, promoted at times by the government of the United States
, that speculated that if one state in a region came under the influence of communism
, then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect
. The domino theory was used by successive United States administrations during the Cold War
to clarify the need for American intervention around the world.
Referring to communism in Indochina
, U.S. President
Dwight D. Eisenhower
put the theory into words during an April 7, 1954 news conference:
brought most of the countries of Eastern Europe
and Central Europe
under its influence as part of the post-World War II
settlement, prompting Winston Churchill
to declare in a speech in 1946 at Westminster College
in Fulton, Missouri
that:
Following the Iran crisis of 1946, Harry Truman declared what became known as the Truman Doctrine
in 1947, promising to contribute financial aid to Greece
and Turkey
following World War II, in the hope that this would impede the advancement of Communism into Western Europe. Later that year, diplomat George Kennan
wrote an article in Foreign Affairs
magazine that became known as the "X Article
", which first articulated the policy of containment
, arguing that the further spread of Communism to countries outside a "buffer zone" around the USSR, even if it happened via democratic elections, was unacceptable and a threat to U.S. national security. Kennan was also involved, along with others in the Truman administration, in creating the Marshall Plan
, which also began in 1947, to give aid to the countries of Western Europe
(along with Greece and Turkey), in large part with the hope of keeping them from falling under Soviet domination.
In 1949, China
became a Communist country (officially the People's Republic of China
) after Chinese Communist rebels defeated the Nationalist Republican government in the conclusion of the Chinese Civil War
(1927~1949). Two Chinas were formed - mainland 'Communist China' (People's Republic of China) and 'Nationalist China' Taiwan (Republic of China
). The takeover by Communists of the world's most populous nation was seen in the West as a great strategic loss, prompting the popular question at the time, "Who lost China?"
Korea had also partially fallen under Soviet domination at the end of World War II, and in 1950 fighting broke out between Communists and Republicans that soon involved troops from China (on the Communists' side), and the United States and 15 allied countries (on the Republicans' side). The war ended in 1953 with an armistice that left Korea divided into two nations, North Korea
and South Korea
.
In March 1954, the Viet Minh
, a Communist and nationalist army, defeated French troops and took control of what became North Vietnam
. This caused the French to fully withdraw from the region then known as French Indochina
, a process they had begun earlier. The region now comprised four independent countries: North Vietnam, South Vietnam
, Cambodia
and Laos
.
President Eisenhower was the first to refer to countries in danger of Communist takeover as dominoes, in response to a journalist's question about Indochina in an April 7, 1954 news conference, though he did not use the term "domino theory". If Communists succeeded in taking over the rest of Indochina, Eisenhower argued, local groups would then have the encouragement, material support and momentum to take over Burma, Thailand
, Malaya
and Indonesia; all of these countries had large popular Communist movements and insurgencies within their borders at the time.
This would give them a geographical and economic strategic advantage, and it would make Japan
, Taiwan
, the Philippines
, Australia
, and New Zealand
the front-line defensive states. The loss of regions traditionally within the vital regional trading area of countries like Japan would encourage the front-line countries to compromise politically with communism.
Eisenhower's domino theory of 1954 was a specific description of the situation and conditions within Southeast Asia at the time, and he did not suggest a generalized domino theory as others did afterward.
The John F. Kennedy
administration intervened in Vietnam in the early 1960s to, among other reasons, keep the South Vietnamese "domino" from falling. When Kennedy came to power there was concern that the communist-led Pathet Lao
in Laos would provide the Viet Cong with bases, and that eventually they could take over Laos.
: South Vietnam (by the Viet Cong), Laos (by the Pathet Lao), and Cambodia (by the Khmer Rouge
). It can further be argued that the U.S. entry into war in Vietnam stalled the prior 1950s domino impact in Southeast Asia until the end of the war. Note the Malayan Emergency
, the Huk Rebellion in the Philippines
, and the increasing involvement with Communists by Sukarno
of Indonesia from the late 1950s until he was deposed in 1965. All of these were unsuccessful Communist attempts to take over Southeast Asian countries which stalled as U.S. military involvement in Vietnam ramped up.
Walt Rostow and Lee Kuan Yew
have argued that the U.S. intervention in Indochina, by giving the nations of ASEAN time to consolidate and engage in economic growth, prevented a wider domino effect. McGeorge Bundy
argues that the prospects for a domino effect, though high in the 1950s and early 1960s, were weakened in 1965 when the Indonesian communist party was destroyed. However, proponents ultimately believe that the efforts during the containment (i.e. Domino Theory) period, ultimately led the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.
Some supporters of the domino theory note the history of communist governments supplying aid to communist revolutionaries in neighboring countries. For instance, China supplied the Vietminh, the North Vietnamese army, with troops and supplies, and the Soviet Union supplied them with tanks and heavy weapons. The fact that the Pathet Lao and Khmer Rouge were both originally part of the Vietminh, not to mention Hanoi's support for both in conjunction with the Viet Cong, also give credence to the theory. The Soviet Union also heavily supplied Sukarno with military supplies and advisors from the time of the Guided Democracy in Indonesia, especially during and after the 1958 civil war in Sumatra.
Noam Chomsky
, a linguist, writes that he believes the Domino theory is roughly accurate, although he put a more positive spin on the threat. If a people in a poor country see another poor country take control of its own economy and succeed, the former will of course want to emulate the latter. This is why, he claims, the US put so much effort into suppressing so-called "people's movements" in Chile
, Vietnam, Nicaragua
, Laos, Grenada
, El Salvador
, Guatemala
, etc. "The weaker and poorer a country is, the more dangerous it is as an example. If a tiny, poor country like Grenada can succeed in bringing about a better life for its people, some other place that has more resources will ask, 'Why not us?'" Chomsky refers to this as the "threat of a good example." Chomsky claims there are two domino effects, one internally discussed between US policy makers, which is that of the "Good Example", and another for public consumption, that of the spread of Communism.
Critics of the theory charged that the Indochinese wars were largely indigenous
or nationalist
in nature (such as the Vietnamese driving out the French
), and that no such monolithic force as "world communism" existed. There was already fracturing of communist states at the time, the most serious of which was the rivalry between the Soviet Union and China, known as the Sino-Soviet split
, which began in the 1950s.
Indeed, Vietnam and Cambodia were at odds from the very beginning. Rivalry between China and the USSR may have exacerbated tensions between them, since Vietnam had affiliated itself with the USSR and Cambodia with China, but nationalism and territorial disputes were obviously more significant factors. Border conflicts, mostly in the form of massacres of Vietnamese peasants carried out by the Khmer Rouge, occurred frequently for the duration of their nearly four years in power, eventually leading to the Cambodian-Vietnamese War
of 1978-1979, when Vietnam overthrew the Khmer Rouge and took control of Cambodia. This in turn led China to attack Vietnam in 1979 in the brief Sino-Vietnamese War
, and to U.S. and Thai support for the Khmer Rouge, who renounced communism and continued to fight as a guerrilla force against the Vietnamese-backed government until the mid 1990s.
In the cases of both Laos and Cambodia, the adoption of communism was directly attributable to the Vietnam War, which had spread over the borders of Vietnam into these countries, and to Vietnam's political regional ambitions, which included directly organizing communist parties in both countries. The fall of Laos was essentially due to repeated outright invasions by Vietnam and the inability of the army of Laos to defend the country. The fall of Cambodia had more complex causes but ultimately also resulted from the country being dragged into the Vietnam war, first by the Viet Cong who operated bases in the country and used it as part of the Ho Chi Minh trail, and then by the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces that invaded and heavily bombed Cambodia in an attempt to root out those bases, causing an upsurge of popular resentment against the pro-U.S. Lon Nol republic.
Opponents also argued that the domino theory misrepresented the real nature of the widespread and growing civil opposition that the previous, U.S.-backed regimes in these countries had generated because of entrenched official corruption and widespread human rights abuses, notably in South Vietnam.
has argued that though the domino theory failed regionally, there was a global wave, as communist or Marxist-Leninist
regimes came to power in Benin
, Ethiopia
, Guinea-Bissau
, Madagascar
, Cape Verde
, Mozambique
, Angola
, Afghanistan
, Grenada
, and Nicaragua
during the 1970s. The global interpretation of the domino effect relies heavily upon the "prestige" interpretation of the theory, meaning that the success of Communist revolutions in some countries, though it did not provide material support to revolutionary forces in other countries, did contribute morale and rhetorical support.
In this vein, Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara
wrote an essay, the "Message to the Tricontinental", in 1967, calling for "two, three ... many Vietnams" across the world. Historian Max Boot
wrote, "In the late 1970s, America's enemies seized power in countries from Mozambique to Iran to Nicaragua. American hostages were seized aboard the SS Mayaguez (off Cambodia) and in Tehran. The Red Army
invaded Afghanistan. There is no obvious connection with the Vietnam War, but there is little doubt that the defeat of a superpower encouraged our enemies to undertake acts of aggression that they might otherwise have shied away from."
In addition, this theory can be further bolstered by the rise in terrorist incidents by left-wing terrorist groups in Western Europe, funded in part by Communist governments, between the 1960s and 1980s. In Italy
, this includes the kidnapping and assassination of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro
, and the kidnapping of former US Brigadier General James L. Dozier
, by the Red Brigades
.
In West Germany
, this includes the terrorist actions of the Red Army Faction
. In the far east the Japanese Red Army
carried out similar acts. All four, as well as others worked with various Arab and Palestinian terrorists, which like the red brigades were backed by the Soviet Bloc.
In the 1977 Frost/Nixon interviews, Richard Nixon
defended America's destabilization of the Salvador Allende
regime in Chile on domino theory grounds. Borrowing a metaphor he had heard, he stated that a Communist Chile and Cuba
would create a "red sandwich" that could entrap Latin America
between them. In the 1980s, the domino theory was used again to justify the Reagan
administration's interventions in Central America
and the Caribbean region
.
In his memoirs, former Rhodesian Prime Minister
Ian Smith
described the successive rise of authoritarian left-wing governments in Sub-Saharan Africa during decolonization
as "the communists' domino tactic". The establishment of pro-communist governments in Tanzania
(1961-64) and Zambia
(1964) and explicitly Marxist-Leninist governments in Angola (1975), Mozambique (1975), and eventually Rhodesia
itself (in 1980) are cited by Smith as evidence of "the insidious encroachment of Soviet imperialism down the continent."
as two different possibilities for a domino theory. During the Iran-Iraq war
the United States and other western nations supported Iraq, fearing the spread of Iran's radical theocracy throughout the region. In the 2003 invasion of Iraq
, neoconservatives argued that by invading Iraq a democratic government could be implemented, which would then help spread democracy and liberalism
across the Middle East; this has often been referred to as a "reverse domino theory".
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, that speculated that if one state in a region came under the influence of communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
, then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect
Domino effect
The domino effect is a chain reaction that occurs when a small change causes a similar change nearby, which then will cause another similar change, and so on in linear sequence. The term is best known as a mechanical effect, and is used as an analogy to a falling row of dominoes...
. The domino theory was used by successive United States administrations during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
to clarify the need for American intervention around the world.
Referring to communism in Indochina
Indochina
The Indochinese peninsula, is a region in Southeast Asia. It lies roughly southwest of China, and east of India. The name has its origins in the French, Indochine, as a combination of the names of "China" and "India", and was adopted when French colonizers in Vietnam began expanding their territory...
, U.S. President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
put the theory into words during an April 7, 1954 news conference:
History
In 1945, the Soviet UnionSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
brought most of the countries of Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
and Central Europe
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
under its influence as part of the post-World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
settlement, prompting Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
to declare in a speech in 1946 at Westminster College
Westminster College, Missouri
Westminster College is a private, selective, liberal arts institution in Fulton, Missouri, USA. It was founded by Presbyterians in 1849 as Fulton College and assumed the present name in 1851. The are located on the campus. The National Churchill Museum is a national historic site and includes...
in Fulton, Missouri
Fulton, Missouri
Fulton is a city in Callaway County, Missouri, the United States of America. It is part of the Jefferson City, Missouri Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 12,790 in the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Callaway County...
that:
Following the Iran crisis of 1946, Harry Truman declared what became known as the Truman Doctrine
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was a policy set forth by U.S. President Harry S Truman in a speech on March 12, 1947 stating that the U.S. would support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to prevent their falling into the Soviet sphere...
in 1947, promising to contribute financial aid to Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
and Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
following World War II, in the hope that this would impede the advancement of Communism into Western Europe. Later that year, diplomat George Kennan
George F. Kennan
George Frost Kennan was an American adviser, diplomat, political scientist and historian, best known as "the father of containment" and as a key figure in the emergence of the Cold War...
wrote an article in Foreign Affairs
Foreign Affairs
Foreign Affairs is an American magazine and website on international relations and U.S. foreign policy published since 1922 by the Council on Foreign Relations six times annually...
magazine that became known as the "X Article
X Article
The X Article, formally titled The Sources of Soviet Conduct, was published in Foreign Affairs magazine in July 1947. The article was written by George F. Kennan, the Deputy Chief of Mission of the United States to the USSR, from 1944 to 1946, under ambassador W. Averell Harriman.-Background:G. F....
", which first articulated the policy of containment
Containment
Containment was a United States policy using military, economic, and diplomatic strategies to stall the spread of communism, enhance America’s security and influence abroad, and prevent a "domino effect". A component of the Cold War, this policy was a response to a series of moves by the Soviet...
, arguing that the further spread of Communism to countries outside a "buffer zone" around the USSR, even if it happened via democratic elections, was unacceptable and a threat to U.S. national security. Kennan was also involved, along with others in the Truman administration, in creating the Marshall Plan
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to combat the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948...
, which also began in 1947, to give aid to the countries of Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
(along with Greece and Turkey), in large part with the hope of keeping them from falling under Soviet domination.
In 1949, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
became a Communist country (officially the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
) after Chinese Communist rebels defeated the Nationalist Republican government in the conclusion of the Chinese Civil War
Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between the Kuomintang , the governing party of the Republic of China, and the Communist Party of China , for the control of China which eventually led to China's division into two Chinas, Republic of China and People's Republic of...
(1927~1949). Two Chinas were formed - mainland 'Communist China' (People's Republic of China) and 'Nationalist China' Taiwan (Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
). The takeover by Communists of the world's most populous nation was seen in the West as a great strategic loss, prompting the popular question at the time, "Who lost China?"
Korea had also partially fallen under Soviet domination at the end of World War II, and in 1950 fighting broke out between Communists and Republicans that soon involved troops from China (on the Communists' side), and the United States and 15 allied countries (on the Republicans' side). The war ended in 1953 with an armistice that left Korea divided into two nations, North Korea
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
and South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
.
In March 1954, the Viet Minh
Viet Minh
Việt Minh was a national independence coalition formed at Pac Bo on May 19, 1941. The Việt Minh initially formed to seek independence for Vietnam from the French Empire. When the Japanese occupation began, the Việt Minh opposed Japan with support from the United States and the Republic of China...
, a Communist and nationalist army, defeated French troops and took control of what became North Vietnam
North Vietnam
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam , was a communist state that ruled the northern half of Vietnam from 1954 until 1976 following the Geneva Conference and laid claim to all of Vietnam from 1945 to 1954 during the First Indochina War, during which they controlled pockets of territory throughout...
. This caused the French to fully withdraw from the region then known as French Indochina
French Indochina
French Indochina was part of the French colonial empire in southeast Asia. A federation of the three Vietnamese regions, Tonkin , Annam , and Cochinchina , as well as Cambodia, was formed in 1887....
, a process they had begun earlier. The region now comprised four independent countries: North Vietnam, South Vietnam
South Vietnam
South Vietnam was a state which governed southern Vietnam until 1975. It received international recognition in 1950 as the "State of Vietnam" and later as the "Republic of Vietnam" . Its capital was Saigon...
, Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
and Laos
Laos
Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...
.
President Eisenhower was the first to refer to countries in danger of Communist takeover as dominoes, in response to a journalist's question about Indochina in an April 7, 1954 news conference, though he did not use the term "domino theory". If Communists succeeded in taking over the rest of Indochina, Eisenhower argued, local groups would then have the encouragement, material support and momentum to take over Burma, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, Malaya
Federation of Malaya
The Federation of Malaya is the name given to a federation of 11 states that existed from 31 January 1948 until 16 September 1963. The Federation became independent on 31 August 1957...
and Indonesia; all of these countries had large popular Communist movements and insurgencies within their borders at the time.
This would give them a geographical and economic strategic advantage, and it would make Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
the front-line defensive states. The loss of regions traditionally within the vital regional trading area of countries like Japan would encourage the front-line countries to compromise politically with communism.
Eisenhower's domino theory of 1954 was a specific description of the situation and conditions within Southeast Asia at the time, and he did not suggest a generalized domino theory as others did afterward.
The John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
administration intervened in Vietnam in the early 1960s to, among other reasons, keep the South Vietnamese "domino" from falling. When Kennedy came to power there was concern that the communist-led Pathet Lao
Pathet Lao
The Pathet Lao was a communist political movement and organization in Laos, formed in the mid-20th century. The group was ultimately successful in assuming political power after the Laotian Civil War. The Pathet Lao were always closely associated with Vietnamese communists...
in Laos would provide the Viet Cong with bases, and that eventually they could take over Laos.
Arguments in favor of the domino theory
The primary evidence for the domino theory is the communist takeover of three Southeast Asian countries in 1975, following the United States pulling its troops out of the region at the end of the Vietnam WarVietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
: South Vietnam (by the Viet Cong), Laos (by the Pathet Lao), and Cambodia (by the Khmer Rouge
Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge literally translated as Red Cambodians was the name given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, who were the ruling party in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, led by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen and Khieu Samphan...
). It can further be argued that the U.S. entry into war in Vietnam stalled the prior 1950s domino impact in Southeast Asia until the end of the war. Note the Malayan Emergency
Malayan Emergency
The Malayan Emergency was a guerrilla war fought between Commonwealth armed forces and the Malayan National Liberation Army , the military arm of the Malayan Communist Party, from 1948 to 1960....
, the Huk Rebellion in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, and the increasing involvement with Communists by Sukarno
Sukarno
Sukarno, born Kusno Sosrodihardjo was the first President of Indonesia.Sukarno was the leader of his country's struggle for independence from the Netherlands and was Indonesia's first President from 1945 to 1967...
of Indonesia from the late 1950s until he was deposed in 1965. All of these were unsuccessful Communist attempts to take over Southeast Asian countries which stalled as U.S. military involvement in Vietnam ramped up.
Walt Rostow and Lee Kuan Yew
Lee Kuan Yew
Lee Kuan Yew, GCMG, CH is a Singaporean statesman. He was the first Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore, governing for three decades...
have argued that the U.S. intervention in Indochina, by giving the nations of ASEAN time to consolidate and engage in economic growth, prevented a wider domino effect. McGeorge Bundy
McGeorge Bundy
McGeorge "Mac" Bundy was United States National Security Advisor to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson from 1961 through 1966, and president of the Ford Foundation from 1966 through 1979...
argues that the prospects for a domino effect, though high in the 1950s and early 1960s, were weakened in 1965 when the Indonesian communist party was destroyed. However, proponents ultimately believe that the efforts during the containment (i.e. Domino Theory) period, ultimately led the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.
Some supporters of the domino theory note the history of communist governments supplying aid to communist revolutionaries in neighboring countries. For instance, China supplied the Vietminh, the North Vietnamese army, with troops and supplies, and the Soviet Union supplied them with tanks and heavy weapons. The fact that the Pathet Lao and Khmer Rouge were both originally part of the Vietminh, not to mention Hanoi's support for both in conjunction with the Viet Cong, also give credence to the theory. The Soviet Union also heavily supplied Sukarno with military supplies and advisors from the time of the Guided Democracy in Indonesia, especially during and after the 1958 civil war in Sumatra.
Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
, a linguist, writes that he believes the Domino theory is roughly accurate, although he put a more positive spin on the threat. If a people in a poor country see another poor country take control of its own economy and succeed, the former will of course want to emulate the latter. This is why, he claims, the US put so much effort into suppressing so-called "people's movements" in Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
, Vietnam, Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
, Laos, Grenada
Grenada
Grenada is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea...
, El Salvador
El Salvador
El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...
, Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
, etc. "The weaker and poorer a country is, the more dangerous it is as an example. If a tiny, poor country like Grenada can succeed in bringing about a better life for its people, some other place that has more resources will ask, 'Why not us?'" Chomsky refers to this as the "threat of a good example." Chomsky claims there are two domino effects, one internally discussed between US policy makers, which is that of the "Good Example", and another for public consumption, that of the spread of Communism.
Arguments against the domino theory
The primary evidence against the domino theory is the failure of Communism to take hold in Thailand, Indonesia, and other large Southeast Asian countries after the end of the Vietnam War, as Eisenhower's speech warned it could. However, proponents of this policy argue that this was due in part to the effects of both the Korean and Vietnam Wars.Critics of the theory charged that the Indochinese wars were largely indigenous
Indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....
or nationalist
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
in nature (such as the Vietnamese driving out the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
), and that no such monolithic force as "world communism" existed. There was already fracturing of communist states at the time, the most serious of which was the rivalry between the Soviet Union and China, known as the Sino-Soviet split
Sino-Soviet split
In political science, the term Sino–Soviet split denotes the worsening of political and ideologic relations between the People's Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the Cold War...
, which began in the 1950s.
Indeed, Vietnam and Cambodia were at odds from the very beginning. Rivalry between China and the USSR may have exacerbated tensions between them, since Vietnam had affiliated itself with the USSR and Cambodia with China, but nationalism and territorial disputes were obviously more significant factors. Border conflicts, mostly in the form of massacres of Vietnamese peasants carried out by the Khmer Rouge, occurred frequently for the duration of their nearly four years in power, eventually leading to the Cambodian-Vietnamese War
Cambodian-Vietnamese War
The Cambodian–Vietnamese War was an armed conflict between the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and Democratic Kampuchea. The war began with isolated clashes along the land and maritime boundaries of Vietnam and Kampuchea between 1975 and 1977, occasionally involving division-sized military formations...
of 1978-1979, when Vietnam overthrew the Khmer Rouge and took control of Cambodia. This in turn led China to attack Vietnam in 1979 in the brief Sino-Vietnamese War
Sino-Vietnamese War
The Sino–Vietnamese War , also known as the Third Indochina War, known in the PRC as and in Vietnam as Chiến tranh chống bành trướng Trung Hoa , was a brief but bloody border war fought in 1979 between the People's Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam...
, and to U.S. and Thai support for the Khmer Rouge, who renounced communism and continued to fight as a guerrilla force against the Vietnamese-backed government until the mid 1990s.
In the cases of both Laos and Cambodia, the adoption of communism was directly attributable to the Vietnam War, which had spread over the borders of Vietnam into these countries, and to Vietnam's political regional ambitions, which included directly organizing communist parties in both countries. The fall of Laos was essentially due to repeated outright invasions by Vietnam and the inability of the army of Laos to defend the country. The fall of Cambodia had more complex causes but ultimately also resulted from the country being dragged into the Vietnam war, first by the Viet Cong who operated bases in the country and used it as part of the Ho Chi Minh trail, and then by the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces that invaded and heavily bombed Cambodia in an attempt to root out those bases, causing an upsurge of popular resentment against the pro-U.S. Lon Nol republic.
Opponents also argued that the domino theory misrepresented the real nature of the widespread and growing civil opposition that the previous, U.S.-backed regimes in these countries had generated because of entrenched official corruption and widespread human rights abuses, notably in South Vietnam.
Applications to communism outside Southeast Asia
Michael LindMichael Lind
Michael Lind is an American writer. Currently Lind is Policy Director of the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C., Editor of New American Contract and its blog Value Added, and a columnist for Salon magazine. Lind was a guest lecturer at Harvard Law School and...
has argued that though the domino theory failed regionally, there was a global wave, as communist or Marxist-Leninist
Marxism-Leninism
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology, officially based upon the theories of Marxism and Vladimir Lenin, that promotes the development and creation of a international communist society through the leadership of a vanguard party over a revolutionary socialist state that represents a dictatorship...
regimes came to power in Benin
Benin
Benin , officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It borders Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. Its small southern coastline on the Bight of Benin is where a majority of the population is located...
, Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
, Guinea-Bissau
Guinea-Bissau
The Republic of Guinea-Bissau is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Senegal to the north, and Guinea to the south and east, with the Atlantic Ocean to its west....
, Madagascar
Madagascar
The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...
, Cape Verde
Cape Verde
The Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa...
, Mozambique
Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...
, Angola
Angola
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...
, Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, Grenada
Grenada
Grenada is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea...
, and Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
during the 1970s. The global interpretation of the domino effect relies heavily upon the "prestige" interpretation of the theory, meaning that the success of Communist revolutions in some countries, though it did not provide material support to revolutionary forces in other countries, did contribute morale and rhetorical support.
In this vein, Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara
Che Guevara
Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...
wrote an essay, the "Message to the Tricontinental", in 1967, calling for "two, three ... many Vietnams" across the world. Historian Max Boot
Max Boot
Max Boot is an American author, consultant, editorialist, lecturer, and military historian. He has been a prominent advocate for American power. He once described his ideas as "American might to promote American ideals." He self-identifies as a conservative, once joking that "I grew up in the...
wrote, "In the late 1970s, America's enemies seized power in countries from Mozambique to Iran to Nicaragua. American hostages were seized aboard the SS Mayaguez (off Cambodia) and in Tehran. The Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
invaded Afghanistan. There is no obvious connection with the Vietnam War, but there is little doubt that the defeat of a superpower encouraged our enemies to undertake acts of aggression that they might otherwise have shied away from."
In addition, this theory can be further bolstered by the rise in terrorist incidents by left-wing terrorist groups in Western Europe, funded in part by Communist governments, between the 1960s and 1980s. In Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, this includes the kidnapping and assassination of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro
Aldo Moro
Aldo Moro was an Italian politician and the 39th Prime Minister of Italy, from 1963 to 1968, and then from 1974 to 1976. He was one of Italy's longest-serving post-war Prime Ministers, holding power for a combined total of more than six years....
, and the kidnapping of former US Brigadier General James L. Dozier
James L. Dozier
James Lee Dozier is a retired US Army general officer. In December 1981, he was kidnapped by the leftist Italian Red Brigades Marxist terrorist group. He was rescued by Italian anti-terrorist forces after 42 days of captivity. General Dozier was the deputy Chief of Staff at NATO's Southern...
, by the Red Brigades
Red Brigades
The Red Brigades was a Marxist-Leninist terrorist organisation, based in Italy, which was responsible for numerous violent incidents, assassinations, and robberies during the so-called "Years of Lead"...
.
In West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
, this includes the terrorist actions of the Red Army Faction
Red Army Faction
The radicalized were, like many in the New Left, influenced by:* Sociological developments, pressure within the educational system in and outside Europe and the U.S...
. In the far east the Japanese Red Army
Japanese Red Army
The was a Communist terrorist group founded by Fusako Shigenobu early in 1971 in Lebanon. It sometimes called itself Arab-JRA after the Lod airport massacre...
carried out similar acts. All four, as well as others worked with various Arab and Palestinian terrorists, which like the red brigades were backed by the Soviet Bloc.
In the 1977 Frost/Nixon interviews, Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
defended America's destabilization of the Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....
regime in Chile on domino theory grounds. Borrowing a metaphor he had heard, he stated that a Communist Chile and Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
would create a "red sandwich" that could entrap Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
between them. In the 1980s, the domino theory was used again to justify the Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
administration's interventions in Central America
Central America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
and the Caribbean region
Invasion of Grenada
The Invasion of Grenada, codenamed Operation Urgent Fury, was a 1983 United States-led invasion of Grenada, a Caribbean island nation with a population of about 100,000 located north of Venezuela. Triggered by a military coup which had ousted a four-year revolutionary government, the invasion...
.
In his memoirs, former Rhodesian Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Rhodesia
The Prime Minister of Rhodesia was the head of government in the colony of Rhodesia. Rhodesia's political system was modelled on the Westminster system and the Prime Minister's role was similar to that of the same position in other countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New...
Ian Smith
Ian Smith
Ian Douglas Smith GCLM ID was a politician active in the government of Southern Rhodesia, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Rhodesia, Zimbabwe Rhodesia and Zimbabwe from 1948 to 1987, most notably serving as Prime Minister of Rhodesia from 13 April 1964 to 1 June 1979...
described the successive rise of authoritarian left-wing governments in Sub-Saharan Africa during decolonization
Decolonization of Africa
The decolonization of Africa followed World War II as colonized peoples agitated for independence and colonial powers withdrew their administrators from Africa.-Background:...
as "the communists' domino tactic". The establishment of pro-communist governments in Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
(1961-64) and Zambia
Zambia
Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....
(1964) and explicitly Marxist-Leninist governments in Angola (1975), Mozambique (1975), and eventually Rhodesia
Rhodesia
Rhodesia , officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state located in southern Africa that existed between 1965 and 1979 following its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965...
itself (in 1980) are cited by Smith as evidence of "the insidious encroachment of Soviet imperialism down the continent."
Other applications
Some foreign policy analysts in the United States have referred to the potential spread of both Islamic theocracy and liberal democracy in the Middle EastMiddle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
as two different possibilities for a domino theory. During the Iran-Iraq war
Iran-Iraq War
The Iran–Iraq War was an armed conflict between the armed forces of Iraq and Iran, lasting from September 1980 to August 1988, making it the longest conventional war of the twentieth century...
the United States and other western nations supported Iraq, fearing the spread of Iran's radical theocracy throughout the region. In the 2003 invasion of Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
, neoconservatives argued that by invading Iraq a democratic government could be implemented, which would then help spread democracy and liberalism
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
across the Middle East; this has often been referred to as a "reverse domino theory".
See also
- Cold WarCold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
- ContainmentContainmentContainment was a United States policy using military, economic, and diplomatic strategies to stall the spread of communism, enhance America’s security and influence abroad, and prevent a "domino effect". A component of the Cold War, this policy was a response to a series of moves by the Soviet...
- Export of revolutionExport of revolutionExport of revolution is actions by a victorious revolutionary government of one country to promote similar revolutions in other countries, as a manifestation of revolutionary internationalism of certain kind, e.g., the Marxist proletarian internationalism....
- Revolutionary waveRevolutionary waveA revolutionary wave is a series of revolutions occurring in various locations in a similar time period. In many cases, an initial revolution inspires other "affiliate revolutions" with similar aims....
- Truman DoctrineTruman DoctrineThe Truman Doctrine was a policy set forth by U.S. President Harry S Truman in a speech on March 12, 1947 stating that the U.S. would support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to prevent their falling into the Soviet sphere...
- World revolutionWorld revolutionWorld revolution is the Marxist concept of overthrowing capitalism in all countries through the conscious revolutionary action of the organized working class...