ABSTRACT
Greed theories literally try to calculate the costs and benefits of participating in rebellion and to find a reasonable threshold for 'rational' participation or a large enough benefit that could account for the huge risks that participants take, such as the risk of dying in battle. Greed theories, however, especially as outlined by Paul Collier's classic World Bank study, interpret patterns of violence by propagating these patterns as their own and sole source. Most observers of the Cambodian Civil War said that it was a mere proxy war caught in major Cold War competition, in which local agents were more or less pawns in the game. The Cambodian case is a seemingly perfect example, in which the United States (US) and China formed a coalition to strengthen the warring factions along the border in their war against the Soviet-backed Vietnamese and their 'hegemonic expansion'.
