Robert J McMahon's The Limits of Empire charts out the painful and problematic relationship between the United States and Southeast Asia from the end of the Second World War right up to the financial crisis of 1997.

Though there already exists a number of broad historical studies about the role of the United States in the Vietnam conflict and the related struggles that took place in Southeast Asia during the Cold War, McMahon's book offers new insights and a depth of analysis not found in many of the other studies that have tended to focus more on the geo-political and strategic aspects of US involvement in the region.

For a start, he locates the American initiative within the context of political struggles back home in the United States. McMahon also looks at the many different ways through which US domestic policy had a direct impact on its foreign adventures further afield, and attempts to count the human cost of these misadventures themselves.

There is no denying that McMahon has done his homework here. The book is an impressive account of the behind-the-scenes intrigues and Byzantine plots that were hatched in Washington, Saigon, Bangkok, Manila and Jakarta.

With consummate skill, McMahon musters all the facts that he has gathered to paint a broad picture of the extent of US involvement in the political developments in Southeast Asia, and how Washington was trying to affect the future development of the countries that had come under its patronage and 'care'.

It is this broad all-encompassing outlook that gives McMahon's book the depth that is not found in other works on the Vietnam conflict and the Cold War in Southeast Asia. He looks at how and why the United States tried its level best to prop up a host of hugely unpopular regimes in the Asean region - ranging from the Ngo Dinh Diem government in South Vietnam, the Suharto regime in Indonesia, the governments of Ramon Magsaysay and Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines and even the ever-wily Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia.

In all these cases, it is blatantly clear that the underlying rationale that guided US foreign policy in Southeast Asia was based on realpolitik more than any laudatory concerns for human rights, good governance or sustainable development.

Sordid episode

The United States, McMahon argues, was not adverse to the idea of propping up homicidal and corrupted despots and tyrants, provided that they also happened to be pro-American as well.

The leading lights of the American establishment therefore do not come out in a particularly flattering light in McMahon's work. President Eisenhower is credited with 'setting the stage for one of the most misguided, ill-conceived and counter-productive covert operations of the entire Cold War era' (pg. 88) when he authorised US special forces and secret agents to help destabilise the government of Sukarno of Indonesia.

The clandestine operation was badly bungled, and when the insurgent forces were finally defeated by the Indonesian army, the extent of US involvement in the whole sordid episode was finally brought to light.

President John F Kennedy (who is still regarded by many American liberals as a dove) is exposed as the President who contemplated the use of nuclear weapons against the Communist insurgents in Indochina.

Apart from that, it was Kennedy who supported the hugely unpopular Diem even when it was obvious that his regime was seen by the Vietnamese as nothing more than a puppet front for American interests in the region. Kennedy also authorised the sending of even more US troops to Vietnam, who soon took active part in the fighting and were no longer bystanders in the conflict.

But the prize for botching up the entire war effort (and colourful language) surely goes to Kennedy's successor, President Lyndon Johnson, who referred to the Vietnam conflict as 'that bitch of a war on the other side of the world' (pg. 115).

Unable to contain the deteriorating situation and yet unwilling to extricate his troops for fear of losing face before the enemy, Johnson authorised the use of even more force and troops in Vietnam.

The Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 finally became the pretext for direct American involvement in a conflict that would, in the end, lead to the loss of 50,000 American troops and nearly two million Vietnamese lives. President Nixon merely picked up where Johnson left of, when he vowed that 'the bastards have never been bombed like they're going to be bombed this time'. (pg.167).

Playing ball

McMahon's book, however, is not merely about the Vietnam war or the role of the United States. It attempts to address the complex relationship between the Western superpower, the interests that drove it headlong into the war, and the political fall-out that became the burden of the region as a whole.

The author does not confine his analysis to the political borders of Indochina alone - his book looks at how the Vietnam conflict also prompted the US to work both with and against the governments of practically every other country in the region.

As a consequence of the Vietnam war and the growing US presence in Indochina, McMahon argues that practically every other country in Southeast Asia became the victims as well. The ones that were affected the most were undoubtedly Thailand and the Philippines, both of which were reduced to passive staging posts for US military operations in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

The need for safe havens and ports of entry effectively meant that the US also had to take a direct interest in these neighbouring countries themselves, which led to even more intervention and even covert operations in the end.

The saddest thing about the Vietnam conflict was that it led to a near-permanent hold of the United States on practically every country that came within its orbit.

And in cases where the governments of the countries in question refused to play ball, the American administration was more than willing to use whatever means necessary to bring about a change of leadership (as was the case in Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Cambodia and Vietnam) to ensure that their own interests would not be affected.

Petty warlords

A number of important moral lessons emerge from this skillfully written text.

The first is that the failure of the Americans during the Vietnam war lay in their own apprehensions, fears and ignorance about the region and the people they were dealing with.

McMahon goes into great detail to explain and illustrate just how shallow Washington's understanding of Southeast Asia was at the time. Believing that they were dealing with a motley crew of 'banana republics' ruled by petty warlords and local henchmen, the powers-that-be in Washington believed (wrongly as it turns out) that men like Ho Chi Minh and Sukarno were walkovers who could be pushed around or bullied at will.

(McMahon cites the example of Sukarno whom the Americans tried to win to their side by giving him a free tour of Disneyland, of all things).

The tactics employed by the Americans were also brutal and brutish by any standards. From the 'dove' Kennedy to the belligerent Nixon, practically every American President believed that the United States would appear triumphant for the simple reason that it had the military hardware to blast its enemy back to the Middle Ages.

But might is not right, as McMahon corrects argues. The more the Americans bombed Vietnam, the stronger the moral resolve and political commitment of the Vietnamese became. America attempted to play the role of world hegemonist and could only look at Southeast Asia through the lense of the Cold Warrior who saw everything in terms of 'strategic opportunities' or 'strategic threats'.

Pacifist initiatives

The countries of Southeast Asia, on the other hand, were far more practical and rational in their outlook and approach.

McMahon notes that unlike the military initiatives undertaken by the United States, it was the pacifist initiatives undertaken by the countries in the region that actually secured long-term and lasting results.

The formation of Asean in 1967, the Declaration of the Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality (Zopfan) in 1971, and the moves to integrate Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia into the Asean association have all proven to be safer and more practical solutions to the problem of strategic imbalance in the region.

A sobering book that does not fail to make its moral point at the end, Robert McMahon's The Limits of Empire is a thought-provoking, informative and imaginative look at the politics of a region which has of late grown in prominence and importance on the world stage.

One would hope that such a book would become required reading for political scientists, historians, technocrats and politicians throughout the region - and those in the White House as well.

The Limits of Empire: The United States and Southeast Asia since World War II

Author : Robert J McMahon

Publisher: Columbia University Press, New York, 1999

276 pages, paperback.

ISBN 0231-10881-8