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The domino theory was a United States political theory advanced by both liberal and conservative Americans during the Cold War, especially regarding Indochina. It asserted that if one country were taken over by Communists, neighboring countries would fall like dominoes, in a form of imperialist expansion of the Soviet Union.
Background
The theory was based on anti-communist Western perceptions of the Eastern Block. The Berlin Blockade, as well as the rise of socialist governments in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Yugoslavia were all seen as being masterminded inside the Kremlin. Outside of anti-communist Western circles this view was not widely shared, some people thought realities were different, such as that Yugoslavia was fairly independent of the USSR. Also discounted was the desire of much of the working class of these countries to have a socialist government - Hungary had already had a socialist revolution decades before a socialist government took power. Nonetheless when Hungarians tried to remove Soviet influence and dismantle the totalitarian communist system in their country in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the revolt was brutally repressed by the Soviet Union and Hungary firmly drawn back within the Soviet camp.
In Asia, Soviet forces occupied Manchuria at the end of World War II, and then expanded military aid to allow the Communists under Mao Zedong to gain control over China during the final stages of the Chinese Civil War from 1946 to 1949.
On June 25, 1950, Soviet ally Kim Il-Sung of North Korea launched an invasion of South Korea. The United Nations agreed to intervene in South Korea, and the crisis escalated into an explicit confrontation against the Chinese and Soviet military in the Korean War.
The aggressive momentum of this expansion of Communism in Europe and Asia echoed the swift and steady progress of the US, which had conquered the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and South Korea, and would go on to conquer Indochina, Indonesia, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic and many other countries.
Moreover, the Soviet Union had acquired nuclear capability, which, like the United States, had had some help from its espionage network. The detonation of a Soviet atomic bomb on August 9, 1949, and a Soviet hydrogen bomb on August 12, 1953, raised alarms among anti-communists in the West.
Birth of a theory
The Domino Theory was first espoused by President Eisenhower in an April 7, 1954 news conference[1] (http://hs1.hst.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/domino.html), and was originally applied to Indochina, which includes Vietnam.
However the roots of the thoery lie in an essay "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" (1947) written by Kennan in 1946 and which was published, anonymously, in article form in Foreign Affairs in 1947. This became known as the Mr. X Article. The essence of the article formed the basis for the Domino Theory and would later influence the politics behind Truman and the so-called Truman Doctrine.
If Communists succeeded in Indochina (with Soviet aid counteracting the American aid given to their opponents), Eisenhower argued, they would then successively take over Burma, Thailand, and Indonesia. This would give them a geographically strategic advantage, from which they would be able to win in Japan, Formosa, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand.
The theory was actively embraced by his successors, presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon, in later and more recent times the theory had revival under President Ronald Reagan.
Controversy
Many opponents of intervention in Vietnam thought the theory was highly exaggerated. After the DRV took over in 1975, Laos and Cambodia also "went Communist," prompting some to conclude the domino theory had been vindicated. Others pointed out that Laos had been dominated by North Vietnam for years and that Cambodia's Khmer Rouge were enemies of the Vietnamese. Richard Nixon once said that the strongest argument for the domino theory was that the "dominos believed it," and indeed there were often fears in countries that bordered communist nations that their governments were in danger of subversion. This fear led to policies such as the NATO alliance and other forms of containment, dedicated to protecting non-communist nations from "falling."
Some leftist academics, notably Noam Chomsky, believe that the "real domino theory" is that if one country successfully developed itself into a successful socialist state independent of foreign interference, other countries would follow by example. Chomsky called this the "threat of a good example" and believes it is the main reason for American intervention in otherwise insignificant countries such as Cuba, Guatemala, East Timor, and Angola. This theory has been criticized for downplaying the influence of the Soviet Union in the Third World, although Chomsky argues that US policy largely forced the countries to get supplies from the Soviets because the US ensured no one else would sell to them, then the US used the Soviet connection as a pretense for investigation
Modern times
The domino theory has been renounced by many of its original advocates, but continues to be used as an argument for military intervention. Today it is often applied in the United States to refer to the potential spread of both Islamic theocracy and liberal democracy in the Middle East. During the Iran-Iraq War the United States and many other western nations supported Iraq, fearing the spread of Iran's radical theocracy throughout the region. The United States also supplied arms to Iran during this conflict, in what was to be known as Irangate. In the 2003 invasion of Iraq, American neoconservatives argued that by invading Iraq a democratic government could be implemented, which would then help spread democracy across the Middle East.
See also: Domino effect, Truman Doctrine
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