Michael Vatikiotis
On April 30, 1975, the last American helicopter lifted off the roof of the US embassy in Saigon hours before North Vietnamese tanks crashed through the gates of then-South Vietnam’s presidential palace, marking the end of the Vietnam War. Since then, Southeast Asia has been mostly unafflicted by interstate war.
There was, of course, Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia in December 1978 and China’s retaliatory assault on Vietnam along their shared border months later in 1979. But these were largely legacies of Indochina’s larger conflict that started when France sought to defeat Vietnam’s bid for independence in the 1950s.
The lesson of this period half a century ago, which cost as many as four million lives, is that great powers were militarily defeated and failed to prevail. Southeast Asian states, although riven by internal tension and conflict, have since then managed to fend off external intrusion and coexist in awkward though peaceful equilibrium.
This signifies a historical resilience and immunity that, in today’s era of multipolarity and evolving spheres of influence, should serve Southeast Asia well. As other regions of the world fall prey to proxy conflict and perpetual instability – particularly the Middle East – the ten nations of Southeast Asia have managed to resist overt great power alignment and enjoy relative geopolitical stability.
No comments:
Post a Comment