that the Soviet Union would respect the role developed and outlined by the United States. This thinking was actually a symptom of the desire on the part of most Americans to withdraw from Southeast Asia. Throughout the 1970s, U.S. forces slowly contracted in the region. This contraction was seen by many as an opportunity to increase the cooperation between members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and to expand the economic and trading ties between ASEAN and Western nations (Buszynski 229-30).
At the end of the war in Vietnam in 1975, conservative thinkers in the United States, on the other hand, worried that the entire region of Southeast Asia was going to fall under the influence of the Soviet Union and the communist states it sponsored. Consequently, many American strategists agreed that support of the member states of ASEAN was very important to ensure their continuing autonomy and Western orientation. There were four main reasons for this. First, ASEAN was a part of the forward line of defense against an attack across the Pacific
...