Word: asia
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Thompson's perspective has brought him alternately in and out of phase with the prevailing U.S. strategies in Viet Nam. He still subscribes to the domino theory that a Communist success in Viet Nam would jeopardize other shaky governments in Southeast Asia and even as far away as Latin America. He approved Kennedy's commitment of U.S. advisers and his accent on unconventional Special Forces. He advised the late South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem to undertake a program of protected "strategic hamlets," but the program flopped when Diem moved too quickly, ignoring Thompson's warning...
Good Reasons. The Nixon Administration is anxious to draw China out of its "angry, alienated shell," as Under Secretary of State Elliot Richardson put it recently. The U.S. fully realizes that it cannot effect any lasting solutions in Viet Nam and Southeast Asia without at least some cooperation from China. Also, Washington worries that a lack of contact between China and the U.S. might embolden the Russians to blackmail or attack China. In view of Moscow's superior military strength, an American show of neutrality would only benefit the Russians; yet because of the communications void between Peking...
...have buried deep political antagonisms and have been swept up in what they call the spirit of the Mekong. They envision a vast project to harness the Mekong River for power, irrigation and flood control; that could enable the region to grow enough food to feed much of Asia and attract foreign investment to the participating countries. The 2,600-mile Mekong, the world's eleventh longest river and one of the least used, rises in the Himalayan plateau of China near Tibet, plunges turbulently through the mountain gorges of Yunnan, and emerges to divide and water the Indo...
...living events. Thus many accepted postwar ideals, like the goal of "Atlantic Community," will become sharply scrutinized clichés-some of them, indeed, already are. In politics, West Germany during the '70s will gain the same kind of pre-eminence in Europe that Japan will have in Asia, and for much the same reason: economic prowess. It is not inconceivable that Bonn would opt for a neutral status between East and West if the Soviet Union offered reunification of the two Germanys. Some 30 years after they landed, most American troops will probably have been withdrawn from Europe...
What then? Remnants of the middle class, if powerful enough, might be able to stitch together a loose federation, something like the British Commonwealth, out of some of the Soviet republics. But in Central Asia, Amalric writes, there would probably remain a lone state that would regard itself as "the U.S.S.R.'s successor." It would integrate "traditional Communist ideology with the features of Oriental despotism...