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American Policy Toward Laos
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Book Synopsis American Policy Toward Laos by : Martin E. Goldstein
Download or read book American Policy Toward Laos written by Martin E. Goldstein and published by Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. This book was released on 1973 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a brilliantly conceived, detailed analysis of American efforts in beleaguered Laos. Presents facts that are certain to be controversial, and perhaps discomforting to many people.
Book Synopsis A Great Place to Have a War by : Joshua Kurlantzick
Download or read book A Great Place to Have a War written by Joshua Kurlantzick and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-01-24 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The untold story of how America’s secret war in Laos in the 1960s transformed the CIA from a loose collection of spies into a military operation and a key player in American foreign policy. January, 1961: Laos, a tiny nation few Americans have heard of, is at risk of falling to communism and triggering a domino effect throughout Southeast Asia. This is what President Eisenhower believed when he approved the CIA’s Operation Momentum, creating an army of ethnic Hmong to fight communist forces there. Largely hidden from the American public—and most of Congress—Momentum became the largest CIA paramilitary operation in the history of the United States. The brutal war lasted more than a decade, left the ground littered with thousands of unexploded bombs, and changed the nature of the CIA forever. With “revelatory reporting” and “lucid prose” (The Economist), Kurlantzick provides the definitive account of the Laos war, focusing on the four key people who led the operation: the CIA operative whose idea it was, the Hmong general who led the proxy army in the field, the paramilitary specialist who trained the Hmong forces, and the State Department careerist who took control over the war as it grew. Using recently declassified records and extensive interviews, Kurlantzick shows for the first time how the CIA’s clandestine adventures in one small, Southeast Asian country became the template for how the United States has conducted war ever since—all the way to today’s war on terrorism.
Book Synopsis Before the Quagmire by : William J. Rust
Download or read book Before the Quagmire written by William J. Rust and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2012-06-29 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the decade preceding the first U.S. combat operations in Vietnam, the Eisenhower administration sought to defeat a communist-led insurgency in neighboring Laos. Although U.S. foreign policy in the 1950s focused primarily on threats posed by the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, the American engagement in Laos evolved from a small cold war skirmish into a superpower confrontation near the end of President Eisenhower's second term. Ultimately, the American experience in Laos foreshadowed many of the mistakes made by the United States in Vietnam in the 1960s. In Before the Quagmire: American Intervention in Laos, 1954--1961, William J. Rust delves into key policy decisions made in Washington and their implementation in Laos, which became first steps on the path to the wider war in Southeast Asia. Drawing on previously untapped archival sources, Before the Quagmire documents how ineffective and sometimes self-defeating assistance to Laotian anticommunist elites reflected fundamental misunderstandings about the country's politics, history, and culture. The American goal of preventing a communist takeover in Laos was further hindered by divisions among Western allies and U.S. officials themselves, who at one point provided aid to both the Royal Lao Government and to a Laotian general who plotted to overthrow it. Before the Quagmire is a vivid analysis of a critical period of cold war history, filling a gap in our understanding of U.S. policy toward Southeast Asia and America's entry into the Vietnam War.
Book Synopsis The Universe Unraveling by : Seth S. Jacobs
Download or read book The Universe Unraveling written by Seth S. Jacobs and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-15 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, Laos was positioned to become a major front in the Cold War. Yet American policymakers ultimately chose to resist communism in neighboring South Vietnam instead. Two generations of historians have explained this decision by citing logistical considerations. Laos's landlocked, mountainous terrain, they hold, made the kingdom an unpropitious place to fight, while South Vietnam—possessing a long coastline, navigable rivers, and all-weather roads—better accommodated America's military forces. The Universe Unraveling is a provocative reinterpretation of U.S.-Laos relations in the years leading up to the Vietnam War. Seth Jacobs argues that Laos boasted several advantages over South Vietnam as a battlefield, notably its thousand-mile border with Thailand, whose leader was willing to allow Washington to use his nation as a base from which to attack the communist Pathet Lao.More significant in determining U.S. policy in Southeast Asia than strategic appraisals of the Laotian landscape were cultural perceptions of the Lao people. Jacobs contends that U.S. policy toward Laos under Eisenhower and Kennedy cannot be understood apart from the traits Americans ascribed to their Lao allies. Drawing on diplomatic correspondence and the work of iconic figures like "celebrity saint" Tom Dooley, Jacobs finds that the characteristics American statesmen and the American media attributed to the Lao—laziness, immaturity, and cowardice—differed from the traits assigned the South Vietnamese, making Lao chances of withstanding communist aggression appear dubious. The Universe Unraveling combines diplomatic, cultural, and military history to provide a new perspective on how prejudice can shape policy decisions and even the course of history.
Download or read book Eternal Harvest written by Karen Coates and published by ThingsAsian Press. This book was released on 2013-12-01 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Karen Coates and Jerry Redfern spent more than seven years traveling in Laos, talking to farmers, scrap-metal hunters, people who make and use tools from UXO, people who hunt for death beneath the earth and render it harmless. With their words and photographs, they reveal the beauty of Laos, the strength of Laotians, and the commitment of bomb-disposal teams. People take precedence in this account, which is deeply personal without ever becoming a polemic.
Book Synopsis Special Air Warfare and the Secret War in Laos by : Air University Press
Download or read book Special Air Warfare and the Secret War in Laos written by Air University Press and published by . This book was released on 2019-07-02 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of special air warfare and the Air Commandos who served for the ambassadors in Laos from 1964 to 1975 is captured through extensive research and veteran interviews. The author has meticulously put together a comprehensive overview of the involvement of USAF Air Commandos who served in Laos as trainers, advisors, and clandestine combat forces to prevent the communist takeover of the Royal Lao Government. This book includes pictures of those operations, unveils what had been a US government secret war, and adds a substantial contribution to understanding the wider war in Southeast Asia.
Book Synopsis Small Countries, Big Diplomacy by : Alounkeo Kittikhoun
Download or read book Small Countries, Big Diplomacy written by Alounkeo Kittikhoun and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-10-14 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shows how small countries use "big" diplomacy to advance national interests and global agendas – from issues of peace and security (the South China Sea and nuclearization in Korea) and human rights (decolonization) to development (landlocked and least developed countries) and environment (hydropower development). Using the case of Laos, it explores how a small landlocked developing state maneuvered among the big players and championed causes of international concern at three of the world’s important global institutions – the United Nations (UN), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Mekong River Commission (MRC). Recounting the geographical and historical origins behind Laos’ diplomacy, this book traces the journey of the country, surrounded by its five larger neighbors China, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar and Cambodia, and influenced by superpower rivalries, from the Cold War to the post-Cold War eras. The book is written from an integrated perspective of a French-educated Lao diplomat with over 40 years of experience in various senior roles in the Lao government, leading major groups and committees at the UN and ASEAN; and the theoretical knowledge and experience of an American-trained Lao political scientist and international civil servant who has worked for the Lao government and the international secretariats of the UN and MRC. These different perspectives bridge not only the theory-practice divide but also the government insider-outsider schism. The book concludes with "seven rules for small state diplomacy" that should prove useful for diplomats, statespersons, policymakers and international civil servants alike. It will also be of interest to scholars and experts in the fields of international relations and foreign policies of Laos, the Mekong and Asia in general.
Book Synopsis The Pathet Lao: Leadership and Organization by : Joseph Jermiah Zasloff
Download or read book The Pathet Lao: Leadership and Organization written by Joseph Jermiah Zasloff and published by Lexington, Mass : Lexington Books. This book was released on 1973 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The report analyzes the Laotian revolutionary movement commonly known as the Pathet Lao--its leaders, commanding party (People's Party of Laos), the Lao Patriotic Front, its political and administrative organization, and its military forces. The document also presents biographical information on 12 'founding fathers' who are probably among the leading policymakers, and discusses their characteristics. Leadership continuity is remarkable, having lasted through 20 years of intermittent war and coalition with no evidence of major purges or defections. Eight appendixes include biographies, policy statements, a list of fronts, and brief profiles of 53 informants.
Book Synopsis Invasion of Laos, 1971 by : Robert D. Sander
Download or read book Invasion of Laos, 1971 written by Robert D. Sander and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2014-02-26 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1971, while U.S. ground forces were prohibited from crossing the Laotian border, a South Vietnamese Army corps, with U.S. air support, launched the largest airmobile operation in the history of warfare, Lam Son 719. The objective: to sever the North Vietnamese Army’s main logistical artery, the Ho Chi Minh Trail, at its hub, Tchepone in Laos, an operation that, according to General Creighton Abrams, could have been the decisive battle of the war, hastening the withdrawal of U.S. forces and ensuring the survival of South Vietnam. The outcome: defeat of the South Vietnamese Army and heavy losses of U.S. helicopters and aircrews, but a successful preemptive strike that met President Nixon’s near-term political objectives. Author Robert Sander, a helicopter pilot in Lam Son 719, explores why an operation of such importance failed. Drawing on archives and interviews, and firsthand testimony and reports, Sander chronicles not only the planning and execution of the operation but also the maneuvers of the bastions of political and military power during the ten-year effort to end Communist infiltration of South Vietnam leading up to Lam Son 719. The result is a picture from disparate perspectives: the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations; the South Vietnamese government led by President Nguyen Van Thieu; and senior U.S. military commanders and army aviators. Sander’s conclusion is at once powerful and persuasively clear. Lam Son 719 was doomed in both the planning and execution—a casualty of domestic and international politics, flawed assumptions, incompetent execution, and the resolve of the North Vietnamese Army. A powerful work of military and political history, this book offers eloquent testimony that “failure, like success, cannot be measured in absolute terms.”
Book Synopsis Shooting at the Moon by : Roger Warner
Download or read book Shooting at the Moon written by Roger Warner and published by Steerforth Italia. This book was released on 1996 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Shooting at the Moon, Roger Warner chronicles a covert operation that used Hmong villagers as guerrilla fighters against the North during the Vietnamese War. Thought to be an expendable resource by Central Intelligence Agency strategists, the Hmong died by the thousands fighting the North Vietnamese. Those who survived were abandoned to their fate when the United States pulled out of the war. Warner's history is the moving and tragic story of how America's 'secret war' devastated its own allies in Southeast Asia.
Book Synopsis Eisenhower & Cambodia by : William J. Rust
Download or read book Eisenhower & Cambodia written by William J. Rust and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2016-06-10 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This historical study examines America’s Cold War diplomacy and covert operations intended to lure Cambodia from neutrality to alliance. Although most Americans paid little attention to Cambodia during Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidency, the global ideological struggle with the Soviet Union guaranteed US vigilance throughout Southeast Asia. Cambodia’s leader, Norodom Sihanouk, refused to take sides in the Cold War, a policy that disturbed US officials. From 1953 to 1961, his government avoided the political and military crises of neighboring Laos and South Vietnam. However, relations between Cambodia and the United States suffered a blow in 1959 when Sihanouk discovered CIA involvement in a plot to overthrow him. The failed coup only increased Sihanouk’s power and prestige, presenting new foreign policy challenges in the region. In Eisenhower and Cambodia, William J. Rust demonstrates that covert intervention in the political affairs of Cambodia proved to be a counterproductive tactic for advancing the United States’ anticommunist goals. Drawing on recently declassified sources, Rust skillfully traces the impact of “plausible deniability” on the formulation and execution of foreign policy. His meticulous study not only reveals a neglected chapter in Cold War history but also illuminates the intellectual and political origins of US strategy in Vietnam and the often-hidden influence of intelligence operations in foreign affairs.
Download or read book Spies on the Mekong written by Ken Conboy and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2021-08-09 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Cold War, the Central Intelligence Agency’s biggest and longest paramilitary operation was in the tiny kingdom of Laos. Hundreds of advisors and support personnel trained and led guerrilla formations across the mountainous Laotian countryside, as well as running smaller road-watch and agent teams that stretched from the Ho Chi Minh Trail to the Chinese frontier. Added to this number were hundreds of contract personnel providing covert aviation services. It was dangerous work. On the Memorial Wall at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, nine stars are dedicated to officers who perished in Laos. On top of this are more than one hundred from propriety airlines killed in aviation mishaps between 1961 and 1973. Combined, this grim casualty figure is orders of magnitude larger than any other CIA paramilitary operation. But for the Foreign Intelligence officers at Langley, Laos was more than a paramilitary battleground. Because of its geographic location as a buffer state, as well as its trifurcated political structure, Laos was a unique Cold War melting pot. All three of the Lao political factions, including the communist Pathet Lao, had representation in Vientiane. The Soviet Union had an extremely active embassy in the capital, while the People’s Republic of China—though in the throes of the Cultural Revolution—had multiple diplomatic outposts across the kingdom. So, too, did both North and South Vietnam. All of this made Laos fertile ground for clandestine operations. This book comprehensively details the cloak-and-dagger side of the war in Laos for the first time, from agent recruitments to servicing dead-drops in Vientiane.
Book Synopsis Kennedy, Macmillan and the Cold War by : N. Ashton
Download or read book Kennedy, Macmillan and the Cold War written by N. Ashton and published by Springer. This book was released on 2002-09-18 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nigel J. Ashton analyses Anglo-American relations during a crucial phase of the Cold War. He argues that although policy-makers on both sides of the Atlantic used the term 'interdependence' to describe their relationship this concept had different meanings in London and Washington. The Kennedy Administration sought more centralized control of the Western alliance, whereas the Macmillan Government envisaged an Anglo-American partnership. This gap in perception gave rise to a 'crisis of interdependence' during the winter of 1962-3, encompassing issues as diverse as the collapse of the British EEC application, the civil war in the Yemen, the denouement of the Congo crisis and the fate of the British independent nuclear deterrent.
Download or read book A War Too Long written by John Schlight and published by . This book was released on 2004-06-01 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Air Force instinctively disliked the slow, gradual way the United States prosecuted its war against the Vietnamese communists. While Americans undoubtedly delayed a communist victory in South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia long enough to spare Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries a similar fate, the American public grew very tired of this war years before its dismal conclusion. Due to questionable political policies and decision-making, only sporadic and relatively ineffective use had been made of air power's ability to bring great force to bear quickly and decisively. The United States and its Air Force experienced a decade of frustration made more painful by the losses of its personnel killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. Fighting resolutely and courageously, the Air Force played the decisive role in forcing North Vietnam to the peace table in 1973. The demands of the Vietnam War forced new developments such as laser-guided-bombs that would eventually radically transform the shape of air warfare.
Book Synopsis Interdiction in Southern Laos 1960-1968 by : Jacob Staaveren
Download or read book Interdiction in Southern Laos 1960-1968 written by Jacob Staaveren and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2012-05-25 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the War in Southeast Asia, Communist forces form North Vietnam infiltrated the isolated, neutral state of Laos. Men and supplies crossed the mountain passes and travelled along an intricate web of roads and jungle paths known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail to the Viet Cong insurgents in South Vietnam. American involvement in Laos began which a photo-reconnaissance missions and, as the war in Vietnam intensified, expanded to a series of air-ground operations from bases in Vietnam and Thailand against fixed targets and infiltration routes in southern Laos. This volume examines this complex operational environment. United States Air Force. Center for Air Force History.
Book Synopsis American Tragedy by : David E. Kaiser
Download or read book American Tragedy written by David E. Kaiser and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A re-creation of the deliberations, actions, and deceptions that brought two decades of post-World War II confidence to an end, this book offers an insight into the Vietnam War at home and abroad - and into American foreign policy in the 1960s.
Book Synopsis The Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War by : David L. Anderson
Download or read book The Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War written by David L. Anderson and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2002-07-10 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than a quarter of a century after the last Marine Corps Huey left the American embassy in Saigon, the lessons and legacies of the most divisive war in twentieth-century American history are as hotly debated as ever. Why did successive administrations choose little-known Vietnam as the "test case" of American commitment in the fight against communism? Why were the "best and brightest" apparently blind to the illegitimacy of the state of South Vietnam? Would Kennedy have pulled out had he lived? And what lessons regarding American foreign policy emerged from the war? The Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War helps readers understand this tragic and complex conflict. The book contains both interpretive information and a wealth of facts in easy-to-find form. Part I provides a lucid narrative overview of contested issues and interpretations in Vietnam scholarship. Part II is a mini-encyclopedia with descriptions and analysis of individuals, events, groups, and military operations. Arranged alphabetically, this section enables readers to look up isolated facts and specialized terms. Part III is a chronology of key events. Part IV is an annotated guide to resources, including films, documentaries, CD-ROMs, and reliable Web sites. Part V contains excerpts from historical documents and statistical data.
