ABSTRACT
Nowhere was human suffering greater in Asia than during the 1960s and 1970s in the lands of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. The Vietnam War was a fratricidal conflict between the Vietnamese people. It also marked the climax of the Cold War in Asia, which hugely increased the suffering of the indigenous peoples. Because American leaders believed that far more was at stake than just the future of South Vietnam, that the security of the non-communist world was being tested here in the jungles and rice-swamps of Asia, they first supplied money and arms and eventually half a million combat troops in an attempt to help one side in the Vietnamese Civil War defeat the other. But America’s Western allies saw it differently, so there was never the unity displayed during the Korean War. France and Britain gave advice but sent no troops. In Asia, Australia was the most enthusiastic supporter and, with New Zealand, despatched several thousand men; other small token allies that sent some troops were Thailand and the Philippines. The Russians and Chinese gave aid and arms to the communists to support their fight but were careful to keep out of combat themselves. The Chinese communists did not want America on their southern frontier; they had already fought in North Korea to keep the enemy from their northern Manchurian border. It suited the Russians, on the other hand, to see America quagmired in south-east Asia, far away from regions bordering on the Soviet Union.
