Fire and rain : Nixon, Kissinger, and the wars in Southeast Asia /
This book offers a narrative of the way national security decisions formed at the highest levels of government affect the lives of individuals at home and abroad. By drawing these connections, the text looks at policy decisions about Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and conveys their significance. It co...
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
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New York, NY, United States of America :
Oxford University Press,
[2023]
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| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | This book offers a narrative of the way national security decisions formed at the highest levels of government affect the lives of individuals at home and abroad. By drawing these connections, the text looks at policy decisions about Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and conveys their significance. It contextualizes Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger's decisions within a wider institutional and societal framework. While recognizing the distinctive personalities and ideas of these two men, the study broadly conveys the competing roles and impact of the professional military, the Congress, and a mobilized peace movement. Drawing upon a vast collection of declassified documents, the text presents an important reinterpretation of the Nixon administration's relations with the Soviet Union and China vis a vis the war in Southeast Asia. It argues that in their desperate effort to overcome, or at least overshadow, their failure in Vietnam, Nixon and Kissinger made major concessions to both nations in the field of arms control, their response to the India-Pakistan war, and the diplomacy surrounding Taiwan - much of this secret. Despite policymakers' claims that the Vietnam War was a "national security" necessity that would demonstrate American strength to the communist superpowers and "credibility" to friendly governments, the historical record suggests a different reality. |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (xi, 615 pages) : maps. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780197639085 0197639089 0197639070 9780197639092 0197639097 9780197639078 |