ABSTRACT
Moscow's principal objective in East and Southeast Asia has been to expand its political influence by relying on cautious, low-risk policies aimed at the exploitation of local opportunities. The Soviet military buildup in East and Southeast Asia has been extensive. The Soviet presence in Vietnam is a serious and, in the near term, probably insoluble barrier to a major Sino-Soviet rapprochement, which would be a disastrous development for the United States, East Asian, and Southeast Asian position. After initially turning toward the United States in the post-Mao era, China began to realign its foreign policy in order to achieve an intensified nationalist, independent position during the late 1970s. The United States has remained the principal non-Asian power among the nations of the Pacific quadrille and in East and Southeast Asia since it defeated Japan in 1945 and despite its defeat in Vietnam in 1975.
