This provocative analysis of U.S. relations with Cambodia from
the 1950s to the present illuminates foreign policy issues that
remain especially pertinent in the aftermath of the Cold War, as we
attempt to formulate new approaches to a changed but still
threatening international situation. Based on interviews with more
than 100 diplomats, journalists, and scholars who have been
involved with the Cambodian peace process, Michael Haas' book
brings to light new information on a complex chain of events and
casts doubt on official accounts of U.S. policies toward
Cambodia.
Haas sorts through the tangle of misinformation, anti-communist
hysteria, secret operations, and other policy miscalculations that
he contends were instrumental in defeating the unaligned government
of Prince Sihanouk and setting the stage for the Khmer Rouge
takeover and massive slaughter in Cambodia. He examines the
strategic assumptions underlying U.S. efforts to sustain the Khmer
Rouge after its defeat by Vietnam in 1979, and the unraveling of
that policy when the unilateral withdrawal of Vietnamese troops
eliminated any reasonable justification for it. Haas attributes
U.S. failures in Cambodia to a combination of the idealistic desire
to remake the world in a democratic image, a belief in U.S.
omnipotence, and the realpolitik tradition of using power to
advance U.S. commercial and security interests whenever they seem
to be threatened. Through the method of options analysis, Haas
proposes a model of international relations based on
self-determination and democratic principles. Urging reflection on
the lessons of Cambodia as policies are developed for the 1990s,
this book will be important reading for diplomats, policymakers,
journalists, and academics with an interest in foreign policy
analysis and conflict resolution, communism, and Southeast
Asia.
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