19.5: Southeast Asia

Fortunately for the human species, the Cold War never turned into a “hot” war between the two superpowers. It did, however, lead to wars around the world that were part of the Cold War setting, proxy wars between the two camps of ideologies.

Korea

At the end of World War II, the Korean Peninsula had been divided with the Soviets focusing on the north. Meanwhile, the south was heavily influenced by the United States. The U.S.S.R. helped establish a communist regime under Kim Il-sung, while the Americans had supported an authoritarian “nationalist”, Syngman Rhee. In June 1950, Kim ordered the invasion of the south in an attempt to unite the peninsula. As Kim’s forces quickly took most of the south, the United Nations Security Council ordered a military response, led by the United States. Instead of using its veto power in the Security Council, the Soviet Union abstained (declined to vote), casting doubt as to whether Stalin had okayed Kim’s invasion.

Figure: Combat in the streets of Seoul, 1950.

By October, U.S.-led United Nations forces had pushed the communist North Korean forces out of the south and had taken the northern capital, Pyongyang. U.N. armies continued to advance northward toward the Chinese border at the Yalu River. This action brought China into the war on the North Korean side. On October 25, U.N. troops were surprised by a counterattack by millions of soldiers from China, as Mao defended Chinese territory from foreign invasion.

U.S. commander Douglas MacArthur talked about his ambition to expand the conflict in Korea to a full-on war with China and contemplated using nuclear weapons. Since the USSR also had nuclear weapons and had signed a mutual-defense treaty with Mao’s Chinese government, a war with China was likely to escalate into World War III. When the general refused to back down, US President Harry Truman fired MacArthur. 

Figure: Territory often changed hands early in the war, until the front stabilized.

After three years of fighting and approximately three million deaths, the two sides agreed to a cease-fire. But, a peace treaty was never concluded and the area has remained a flashpoint. North Korea has become a totalitarian closed society, largely isolated after the fall of the Soviet Union and China’s embrace of capitalism in the 1980s. The Kim family has remained in power despite famine and mismanagement, while defending their regime by developing nuclear weapons.

South Korea was ruled by Rhee and the military until a transition to democracy in the 1990s, when it became a successful industrial power following the Japanese development model. The US continues to maintain a military presence in South Korea. The border (located along the 38th parallel) between North and South is considered the most heavily militarized zone in the world.

Vietnam

In 1945, Vietnamese insurgents declared Vietnam's independence from France, and French forces hastily invaded in an attempt to hold on to the French colony of Indochina. When the Korean War exploded a few years later, the United States intervened to support France, convinced that communism was spreading like a virus across Asia. As US involvement grew, orders for munitions and equipment from the US to Japan revitalized the Japanese economy and began to forge a strong political alliance between the two former enemies.

The Korean War energized the American obsession with preventing the spread of communism. As French forces suffered growing defeats in Indochina, the US ramped up its commitment in order to prevent another Asian nation from becoming a communist state. The U.S. theory of the “domino effect” (spreading of communism from country to country) seemed entirely possible at the time. Across the U.S. political spectrum, there was a strong consensus that communism could be held in check primarily by the application of military force.

The obsession led directly to the Vietnam War. The conflict was, in fact, as much about colonialism and imperialism as it was communism. The essential motivation of the North Vietnamese forces was genuine independence from foreign powers. The war itself was an outgrowth of the conflict between the Vietnamese and their French colonial masters, one that eventually dragged in the United States.

As mentioned earlier, the war “really” began with the end of World War II. During the war, the Japanese seized Vietnam from the French. However, the French defeated the Japanese, and tried to reassert control, putting a puppet emperor on the throne and moving their forces back into the country. Vietnamese independence leaders, principally Ho Chi Minh, led the communist North Vietnamese forces (the Viet Minh) in a vicious guerrilla war against the beleaguered French. The Soviet Union and China both provided weapons and aid to the North Vietnamese, with the US supporting the South.

Figure 13.1.2: Ho Chi Minh in 1946.

In 1954, the French were soundly defeated at Dien Bien Phu, a French fortress that was overwhelmed by the Viet Minh. The French retreated, leaving Vietnam torn between the communists in the north and a corrupt but anti-communist force in the south. From 1961 to 1968, United States involvement skyrocketed as the South Vietnamese proved unable to contain the Viet Minh and the south-Vietnamese insurgency, the Viet Cong. In 1964, citing an alleged attack on an U.S. ship in the Gulf of Tonkin, President Lyndon Johnson called for a full-scale armed response. Technically, war was never declared. Thus, the entire conflict constituted a “police action” from the U.S. policy perspective.

Ultimately, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces were fought to a standstill by the Viet Minh and Viet Cong, with neither side winning a definitive victory. All the while, the war was becoming more and more unpopular in the United States itself and in its allied countries. As the years went by, journalists cataloged much of the horrific carnage unleashed by warring forces, with jungles leveled by chemical agents and napalm and civilians massacred. In order to maintain its military, the United States resorted to a lottery system tied to conscription - “the draft”. In 1969, tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers were sent to fight in jungles thousands of miles from home. Despite the vast military commitment, US and south Vietnamese forces started to lose ground by 1970.

During the 1960s and 1970s, a youth movement emerged that was anti-war. In 1973, with population approval for the war hovering at 30%, President Richard Nixon oversaw the withdrawal of U.S. troops and the end of support for the South Vietnamese. The Viet Minh finally seized the capital of Saigon and ended the war in 1975. The human cost was immense: over a million Vietnamese died, along with some 60,000 U.S. troops.

In historical hindsight, one of the striking aspects of the Vietnam War was the relative absence of the Soviet Union. The USSR did provide some military supplies and financial aid to North Vietnamese forces, but it fell far short of any kind of sustained intervention. In other words, whereas the US regarded Vietnam as a crucial bulwark against the spread of communism, the USSR focused on maintaining power and control in the eastern bloc itself.

That being noted, not all Cold War conflicts were so lopsided in terms of superpower involvement. As described in the last chapter, Cuba was caught at the center of the single most dangerous nuclear standoff because the USSR was willing to confront American interests directly. In other countries, both superpowers could play a major role in determining the future of a nation emerging from imperial control, without committing itself to war. You will learn about the Cold War Era in Africa and Southwest Asia in the next chapter.