ABSTRACT
The US decision started a process of escalation which eventually provoked a Chinese counter-intervention and a far longer and more costly war than Washington had originally anticipated. A growing nervousness about North Korea is also apparent in Caspar Weinberger’s 1982 report to the US Congress that North Korea had “relentlessly modernized and expanded its military forces,” and had become a “combat power that is deployed well forward. American apprehensiveness concerning the Soviet military expansion in East Asia is in part a reflection of its overall strategic appraisal of a worsening global balance of power. During 1985 the Reagan administration shifted significantly towards the State Department’s approach, with Marcos receiving various warnings to further democratize the country, reform the military and pursues an open market economy. Political and economic system is far more congenial to the administration than China’s, and indeed preserving it is important to American interests.
