Norodom Sihanouk Quotes

President Johnson had invited Ike to the White House to advise about the Vietnam War in general and the Rolling Thunder operation in particular. President Eisenhower’s quotation was one of the clearest statements of the so-called Domino Theory which was believed by almost all American Military and Foreign Policy leaders. It was tragically wrong, but it drove U. S. policy throughout the war. When the Communists took South Vietnam, there was no subsequent Communist takeover or attempt in any of the countries Eisenhower had enumerated. One of the reasons was that the Vietnam Communists were not very close to the Russians and for over 1000 years had considered China their worst enemy. They had little solidarity with the International communist movement, but American intelligence did not realize that. They did not believe that the ethnic hatred between Vietnam and China would inhibit the Vietnamese in modern times. It did. Even after the war, the Vietnamese developed better relations with the U. S. then they had with China. One of the major things the intelligence and policy operators missed was that there was not a single map in China that showed Vietnam as a country. To the Chinese, it has always been a part of China and they want it to be in the future. The Vietnamese have not agreed for a millennium.

The reference to Munich referred to British Prime Minister meeting with Adolf Hitler in Munich, giving Germany some of their demands while receiving assurances that there would be no further aggression. This appeasement just encouraged Hitler to take more and soon he had invaded all of Europe beginning World War II. The view since has been that a dictator must never be appeased in unjust aggression, even on relatively small items. What made the Vietnam War so complicated was that while it appeared that the attacks on South Vietnam by Communist North Vietnam was a first step of general Communist Aggression, the reality was that it was primarily a Civil War where the South was a massively corrupt, Catholic Controlled dictatorship and the North was a Communist dictatorship dominated by Buddhists. And there was major friction between the Vietnamese Communists and the Chinese Communists who were not working in concert for general Communist domination. The North Vietnamese were a nationalist movement. The Domino Theory had been wrong.

Shortly thereafter the United States joined the allies and the First World War.

At the end of WWII there was much tension between Russia and the Anglo-American alliance. This plan was developed but never implemented. See {613195} for Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s description of the invasion idea.

The Spanish had been beaten and bloodied by England, but no one else until Napoleon would come along later. So it was easy for Spain to bully and dominate the non-English countries.

Misha Saakashvili, the President of Georgia, the ex-Soviet State, had a good bit of support in American political circles and decided to start a military conflict with Russia attacking a disputed area whose people had rejected Georgia and preferred the Russian affiliation and control. He was confident that the US would protect him from major retaliation. The Russians first moved troops into the attacked area and then started attacking Georgia military assets. Rice and the Russian Foreign minister were negotiating a cease fire on which they agreed to details and were going to impose them on Georgia. However, Lavrov demanded that Georgia President Saakashvili be deposed. Either nation had the power to do this, and both had in many past instances deposed or overthrown the leaders of other nations—democratically elected or not. This quote is very interesting because in this particular case the United States was stating its idealistic policy and not its “real-politic: that it exhibited in helping to bring down and depose democratically elected in Iran, Chile, Vietnam, Venezuela, Haiti, and others. Ironically, there were many in the US who wanted Saakashvili deposed for unilaterally starting a military conflict Russia that had to involve the U. S.

Ford was then a member of Congress. This was known as the “Domino Theory” and was the strategic reason that sending troops to Vietnam was in America’s vital Interest. However, the Domino Theory was incorrect. Vietnam did fall to the Communists, and yet NONE of the countries became communist. Actually, they became even more democratic.