For most Americans, the "exit" from Indochina occurred in 1973, with the withdrawal of the U.S. military from South Vietnam. In fact, the final exit did not occur until two decades later, after the collapse of the Republic of Vietnam in 1975, the Cambodian revolution, and a decade of Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia. Only in the early 1990s were the major powers able to negotiate a settlement of the Cambodia conflict and withdraw from the region. This book recounts the diplomacy that brought an end to great power involvement in Indochina, including the negotiations for a UN peace process in Cambodia and construction of a "road map" for normalizing U.S.-Vietnam relations. In so doing, this volume also highlights the changing character of diplomacy at the beginning of the 1990s, when, at least temporarily, an era of military confrontation among the major world powers gave way to political management of international conflicts.

Southeast Asia consists of the countries of Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Historically, U.S. policy and diplomacy with Southeast Asia is defined by U.S. interests in the region, whether it's maintaining free lanes of communication through the South China Sea, gaining access to the resources and markets of Southeast Asia, or containing the spread of Communism. Since World War II, the U.S. has constantly been involved in conflicts in the region: providing material and financial support for France during the First Indochina War, direct involvement in the Vietnam War, providing support to Thailand during the Third Indochina War, and the declaration that Southeast Asia is the second-front in the war on terror after September 11. The Historical Dictionary of United States-Southeast Asia Relations identifies the key issues, individuals, and events in the history of U.S.-Southeast Asia relations and places them in the context of the complex and dynamic regional strategic, political, and economic processes that have fashioned the American role in Southeast Asia. This is done through a chronology, a bibliography, an introductory essay, appendixes, and several hundred cross-referenced dictionary entries on key persons, places, events, institutions, and organizations.

Arc of Containment recasts the history of American empire in Southeast and East Asia from World War II through the end of American intervention in Vietnam. Setting aside the classic story of anxiety about falling dominoes, Wen-Qing Ngoei articulates a new regional history premised on strong security and sure containment guaranteed by Anglo-American cooperation. Ngoei argues that anticommunist nationalism in Southeast Asia intersected with preexisting local antipathy toward China and the Chinese diaspora to usher the region from European-dominated colonialism to US hegemony. Central to this revisionary strategic assessment is the place of British power and the effects of direct neocolonial military might and less overt cultural influences based on decades of colonial rule, as well as the considerable influence of Southeast Asian actors upon Anglo-American imperial strategy throughout the post-war period. Arc of Containment demonstrates that American failure in Vietnam had less long-term consequences than widely believed because British pro-West nationalism had been firmly entrenched twenty-plus years earlier. In effect, Ngoei argues, the Cold War in Southeast Asia was but one violent chapter in the continuous history of western imperialism in the region in the twentieth century.

This historical study examines America’s Cold War diplomacy and covert operations intended to lure Cambodia from neutrality to alliance. Although most Americans paid little attention to Cambodia during Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidency, the global ideological struggle with the Soviet Union guaranteed US vigilance throughout Southeast Asia. Cambodia’s leader, Norodom Sihanouk, refused to take sides in the Cold War, a policy that disturbed US officials. From 1953 to 1961, his government avoided the political and military crises of neighboring Laos and South Vietnam. However, relations between Cambodia and the United States suffered a blow in 1959 when Sihanouk discovered CIA involvement in a plot to overthrow him. The failed coup only increased Sihanouk’s power and prestige, presenting new foreign policy challenges in the region. In Eisenhower and Cambodia, William J. Rust demonstrates that covert intervention in the political affairs of Cambodia proved to be a counterproductive tactic for advancing the United States’ anticommunist goals. Drawing on recently declassified sources, Rust skillfully traces the impact of “plausible deniability” on the formulation and execution of foreign policy. His meticulous study not only reveals a neglected chapter in Cold War history but also illuminates the intellectual and political origins of US strategy in Vietnam and the often-hidden influence of intelligence operations in foreign affairs.