Monday in class when Shanil and Ed presented, one of my favourite moments was they mentioned the domino effect and showed this image: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Domino_theory.png. I had never heard of the domino effect in terms of communism, so I decided to look up some information on it.
As it turns out, Eisenhower coined the term domino theory as justification for the Vietnam War. As the image shows, if Vietnam fell to communism, Laos would be next, and then Cambodia, an then Thailand… All the way to India—a major trading country with the US (more so now than in the Vietnam era, but nonetheless). Eisenhower even argued in 1954 that Communists would have a geographical advantage that would enable them to take over Japan, the Philippines, and even Australia.
Clearly the domino theory is applicable in terms of the Vietnam War; after 1975, South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia were all “taken over” by Communism. Supporters of the domino theory claim that the US’s intervention in Indochina kept Communism from spreading further. Of course, at the same time Communism did not take hold in Thailand or Indonesia as Eisenhower predicted it might. Critics of the theory say that Communism was not a world force, and would not be able to spread beyond some fractured countries (after all, with both Laos and Cambodia, Vietnam had ambitions in those countries and outright attacked them until they could no longer defend themselves).
Personally, I think the domino theory is a bit too dramatic. Eisenhower used it as justification for Vietnam, and I have trouble imagining anything that could justify that war. When Germany first came under Nazi control, there was no domino effect. It took very aggressive actions on the part of the Germans before Poland came under Nazi control, and even afterwards Nazism would not have spread without some very deliberate and forceful work. (it’s not the perfect example, but it works.)
Any thoughts? Does the domino theory have any validity? Can you think of better examples than mine (I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to)?
Monday, February 2, 2009
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