ABSTRACT
Southeast Asia constitutes yet another arena in the global competition for status, influence, and security between the United States and the Soviet Union. Although a relative newcomer to the region, the USSR has achieved a significant presence as a result of its 1978 treaty with Vietnam. The USSR has become in effect Hanoi’s sole military supplier and economic reservoir. This has not been without political costs, however. Moscow’s alliance with Hanoi-led Indochina has been counterproductive for other Soviet Asian goals. The relationship will obstruct prospects for better relations with the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as long as Soviet funded Vietnamese troops continue to skirmish near the border of ASEAN’s front-line member, Thailand. Similarly, the Soviet-Vietnam alliance slows the pace of Sino-Soviet detente. China sees the Russian position in Southeast Asia as part of a long term encirclement plan going back to Brezhnev’s Asian collective security proposal of the late 1960s.
