4.
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the Domino theory or also called as domino effect, it is
the “fall” of noncommunist state to communism, each one collapsing like a row of dominos. Which this
theory is adopted in U.S. foreign policy after World War 2. Where the dominant political/ economic
system of the Soviet Union is communism. The USSR, which had been a trusted ally during the war had
been supporting the global communist revolution since its inception in 1917. Since the end of the war,
many Americans have come to view communism as an existential threat to American ideals and our
fundamental way of life, in addition to the Soviet Union as an external menace.
Vietnam (known as Indochina for a long time) had been fighting on numerous fronts since 1945.
The country was essentially divided into two parts: the communist north, with its capital in Hanoi and its
leader, Ho Chi Minh, and the south, with its capital in Saigon and leaders supported by the nation's
former colonial occupier, France. In September of that year, Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam's
independence from France, and from then on, a war was conducted between north and south, with the
former getting backing from the Soviet Union and the latter from France and, later, the United States. In
1940’s, the theory is proposed by Pres. Harry S. Truman to justify the sending of military aid to Greece
and Turkey. The US government gave covert military and financial help to the French under President
Truman, with the argument that a communist triumph in Indochina would hasten the spread of
communism across Southeast Asia. Using the same premise, Truman would provide aid to Greece and
Turkey in the late 1940s to help restrain communism in Europe and the Middle East.
However, in 1950’s it became popular when Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower applied it to Southeast
Asia, especially South Vietnam. When Indochina fell to communism in 1950, American foreign policy
leaders genuinely believed that other Southeast Asian countries would follow suit quickly. In April 1954,
during the pivotal fight between French and Viet Minh forces at Dien Bien Phu, President Dwight D.
Eisenhower described the notion as the "falling domino" principle. Where the National Security Council
had included it in a report on Indochina from 1952. As Eisenhower explained from his speech, "You have
a row of dominoes set up, you knock the first one over, and what happens to the last one is the certainty
that it will fall very quickly, so you could have the start of a disintegration with the most profound
influences.". Eisenhower believed that the fall of Vietnam to communist rule would result in similar
communist wins abroad, notably in Southeast Asian neighbors such as Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand.
Then to India, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, and even Australia and New Zealand. Eisenhower stated
that the "possible consequences of the loss of Indochina are just incalculable to the free world."
Following Eisenhower's speech, the word "domino theory" came to be used as a shorthand
representation of the United States' strategic importance of South Vietnam, as well as the necessity to
restrict the expansion of communist around the world.
During 1960’s, one of the main arguments used in John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson’s
administration is the Domino theory in justifying the increase of American military involvement in the
Vietnam War. The United States played a key role in the formation of the Southeast Asia Treaty
Organization (SEATO), a loose alliance of nations committed to acting against "security threats" in the
region, after the Geneva Conference ended the French-Viet Minh war and divided Vietnam along the
latitude known as the 17th parallel. In 1961-62, Eisenhower's successor in the White House, John F.
Kennedy, would boost the commitment of US resources to assist the Ngo Dinh Diem dictatorship in
South Vietnam and non-communist troops fighting a civil war in Laos. After Diem faced significant
domestic opposition in 1963, Kennedy withdrew his support for him personally but publicly reiterated
his support for the domino theory and the necessity of restraining communism in Southeast Asia. Then
Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas three weeks after Diem was killed in a military takeover in early
November 1963. Lyndon B. Johnson continued to use the domino theory to explain the increase in the
number of American troops in Vietnam from a few thousand to over 500,000 over the following five
years.
The domino theory has lost its credibility because it cannot account for the nature of the Viet
Cong and North Vietnamese conflict throughout the Vietnam War. American strategists missed that Ho
Chi Minh and his allies wanted Vietnamese independence, not the spread of communism, by presuming
Ho was a puppet of the communist superpowers Soviet Union and China. In the end, communism did
not take over the rest of Southeast Asia despite the American campaign to prevent it from failing and
North Vietnamese soldiers marching into Saigon in 1975. The countries in the area remained free of
communist rule, except for Laos and Cambodia.
