Response to Douglas J. Macdonald

Abstract

A C DO N A L D MAKES two major arguments in his reply to my critique of his article, A n ti-In te rven tion ism and Study of American Foreign Policy in Third World. (Security Studies 2, no. 2, Winter 1992, pp. 225-46) In part one he criticizes my discussion of domino theory, arguing that far from refuting domino theory, I have in fact confirmed it by providing evidence that u.s. interventionism often works. Thus, whereas I claim that failure ofcommunism to spread in Asia or Latin America after fall of China (1949), Cuba (1959), and Vietnam (1975) invalidates domino theory, he argues that this outcome validates theory because it was largely a result of u.s. or Western intervention. Further, Macdonald challenges my argument that even if domino theory had been true and communism had gained control over all of Southeast Asia, no truly vital interests of United States would have been threatened, at least to extent that would have justified major war. Macdonald considers this argument to be based on an extremely narrow conception of national interest, (p, 165) and asks a series of rhetorical questions about what would have happened if Japan had joined or accommodated itself with Soviet­ Chinese coalition. (p . 165) He then extends logic ofmy argument to what he clearly thinks is its reductio ad absurdem: if in nuclear age United States was immune from invasion from Asia, then why not from Europe, Middle East, and even rest of Western Hemisphere as well? And if that were case, then it followed from my argument that United States had no vital security interests at all. In second part of Macdonald's reply he essentially reiterates his earlier argument that the Kirkpatrick Thesis, as practiced in American foreign policy, may have more validity than many scholars allow. (p. 170) Though not universally valid or correct in every case, nonetheless (he argues) Kirkpatrick Thesis is essentially correct: on balance and over long run, consequences if not original purposes of u.s. interventionism in Third World have been to promote rather than undermine democracy, reform, and liberty.