ABSTRACT
The end of the imperial era and the concomitant rise of the so-called Third World unquestionably rank among the central, defining features of modern world history. In no corner of the globe, of course, did the twin processes of decolonization and national and regional transformation proceed with greater violence, turmoil, and upheaval than in Southeast Asia. These processes both shaped and were in turn shaped by another of the modern epoch’s central, defining features: the geopolitical and ideological battle for global power and influence waged between the United States and the Soviet Union. The so-called Cold War not only coincided temporally with the epic struggles for freedom that erupted across the Third World in the wake of World War II, but inevitably shaped the temper, pace, and ultimate outcome of those struggles as well. Nowhere, of course, more powerfully than in Southeast Asia. Scholars of modern Southeast Asia, whether their specializations lie in the realms of politics, culture, economy, foreign relations, or social and intellectual history, must grapple, either directly or indirectly, with these structural forces that have exerted so profound an imprint on the region’s states and societies. This chapter examines in broad-brush fashion the role played by the United States in the evolution of post-World War II Southeast Asia. How important was the United States to the region’s evolution? What difference, in the end, did its active involvement in regional affairs make?
