The Nixon Doctrine and the Making of Authoritarianism in Island Southeast Asia

Abstract

President Richard Nixon arrived on the Pacific island of Guam in the late afternoon of July 25, 1969. Only hours after witnessing the splashdown of the Apollo XI spacecraft, Nixon spoke to reporters and articulated what came to be known as the Nixon Doctrine. The president focused his remarks on the need for a post-Vietnam War framework for American involvement in Asia. He argued that geography and history had fashioned of the United States a Pacific power, one whose interests and responsibilities stretched far beyond its western shores. And a Pacific power it would remain. Only the United States, Nixon insisted, could deter aggression by communist states like China, North Korea, and North Vietnam. But the president went on to explain that changes on both sides of the Pacific demanded a new American strategy. In the United States, the “frustration” wrought by the Vietnam War imposed limits on Americans’ willingness...