United States Foreign Policy towards Cambodia, 1977–92: A Question of Realities

253 Pages·1999·25.844 MB·English

by  Christopher Brady (auth.)

UNITED STATESFOREIGN POLICY TOWARDS
CAMBODIA, 1977-92
CONTEMPORARYHISTORYINCONTEXT
PublishedinassociationwiththeInstituteofContemporaryBritish History
GeneralEditor:PeterCatterall,Director,InstituteofContemporaryBritish
History
Titlesinclude:
OliverBange
THE EECCRISIS OF 1963:Macmillan,deGaulle,AdenauerandKennedy in
Conflict
Christopher Brady
UNITEDSTATESFOREIGNPOLICYTOWARDS CAMBODIA, 1977-92
PeterCatterall andSeanMcDougall(editors)
THENORTHERNIRELANDQUESTIONINBRITISHPOLITICS
Helen FawcettandRodney Lowe (editors)
WELFAREPOLICYINBRITAIN:TheRoadfrom 1945
HarrietJones andMichael Kandiah(editors)
THEMYTHOFCONSENSUS:New ViewsonBritish History,1945-64
Wolfram Kaiser
USING EUROPE, ABUSINGTHEEUROPEANS:BritainandEuropean
Integration, 1945-63
SpencerMawby
CONTAININGGERMANY:BritainandtheArming oftheFederal Republic
Jeffrey Pickering
BRITAIN'S WITHDRAWALFROM EAST OFSUEZ:ThePolitics of
Retrenchment
L.V.Scott
MACMILLAN,KENNEDYANDTHECUBANMISSILECRISIS:Political,
MilitaryandIntelligenceAspects
Paul Sharp
THATCHER'S DIPLOMACY:TheRevival ofBritishForeignPolicy
ContemporaryHistoryinContext
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United States Foreign
Policy towards
Cambodia, 1977-92
A Question of Realities
Christopher Brady
LecturerinDecision-MakingTheoryandSystems
CityUniversityBusinessSchool
London
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in association with
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FirstpublishedinGreatBritain 1999by
MACMILLANPRESSLTD
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ISBN978-1-349-14847-9 ISBN978-1-349-14845-5(eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-14845-5
FirstpublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica1999by
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ISBN978-0-312-22021-1
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Brady,Christopher,1947-
UnitedStatesforeignpolicytowardsCambodia, 1977-92:a
questionofrealities/ChristopherBrady.
p. em.- (Contemporaryhistoryincontextseries)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-0-312-22021-1 (cloth)
I.UnitedStates-Foreignrelations-Cambodia. 2.Cambodia
-Foreignrelations-UnitedStates. 3.UnitedStates-Foreign
relations-1977-1981. 4.UnitedStates-Foreign
relations-l98I-I989. 5.UnitedStates-Foreign
relations-1989-1993. I.Title. II.Series.
EI83.8.CI5B73 1999
327.730596--dc21 98-48284
CIP
©ChristopherBrady1999
Foreword©PeterCatterall 1999
Softeoverreprintofthe hardcover1stedition1999
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For Tara, Ellie and Patrick
Contents
GeneralEditor'sForeword IX
Acknowledgement XI
List ofAbbreviations xii
Chronology xiv
Prologue 1
Introduction 8
1 The CarterAdministration 13
The Administration 14
Level One 15
Level Two 17
Level Three 19
Conflict 20
Foreign Policy 23
The Administration's Reality 25
Alternative Realities 32
Amalgam of Realities 37
Conclusion 46
2 The First Reagan Administration 50
TheAdministration 51
Level One 56
Level Two 58
Level Three 60
Conflict 61
Foreign Policy 61
TheAdministration's Reality 65
Alternative Realities 76
Amalgam ofRealities 89
Conclusion 92
3 The Second Reagan Administration 95
The Administration 96
Level One 97
Level Two 99
Level Three 103
VII
Vlll Contents
Conflict 104
Foreign Policy 105
TheAdministration's Reality 110
Alternative Realities 115
Amalgam of Realities 128
Conclusion 133
4 The Bush Administration 135
TheAdministration 137
Level One 139
Level Two 142
Level Three 143
~~~ 1M
Foreign Policy 145
TheAdministration's Reality 149
Alternative Realities 160
Amalgam of Realities 172
Conclusion 178
Conclusion 181
Epilogue 189
Notes 195
Select Bibliography 219
Index 225
General Editor's Foreword
Palmerstonfamously argued thatstatesdo nothave permanentallies,
only permanent interests. But how are these permanent interests
calculated and pursued? The answer offered in Chris Brady's case
studyofUSpolicytowardsCambodia 1977-92isthatthe primefactor
is the explicit or implicit understandings on which policy-makers
proceed. In other words, policy is based on how those who make it
construct reality. Policy-making is thus directed at managing or
changing (depending on priorities) that constructed reality. That
realityisnot necessarilysingular.As Brady shows, policy-makingmay
be the end-product of a bureaucratic process in which a number of
different realities, both of the situation in Cambodia and how it
relates to US interests, compete.
This could result in apparently contradictory outcomes. For
instance, the over-arching rhetoric of the Carter administration, the
absolutecommitmentto human rights invokedinhisfirst inauguralin
1977, seems dramatically at odds with subsequent policy towards
Cambodia under Pol Pot. The Khmer Rouge may have been inter
national pariahs as far as Congressional critics were concerned. But
successive administrationsconstructedtheirpolicytowardsCambodia
within a rather different context. The prism through which they
viewed Cambodia was not distinctive to Cambodia itself. Nor was it
the human rights agendawhich the Carteradministration had overtly
set itselfwhich determined howitwasviewed. Rather, policy towards
Cambodiawasconstructed inasettinginwhich the Cold Warwasthe
dominant reality. The pursuit of human rights, as Brady shows in his
account of the conflict between Vance and Brzezinski under Carter,
was to prove subordinate to this over-arching theme. Cambodia,
therefore,despitethe significanceitmight have beenexpectedtohave
had, was no more than a minoractorinthe Cold War. Policytowards
Cambodia was thus determined by an environment in which opposi
tion to Vietnam, particularly as a Soviet ally, was more significant
than abhorrence of the Khmer Rouge.Admittedly US policy-makers
would probably have preferred a more palatable choice than one
between Vietnam and the Khmer Rouge, but much of the time there
were, inpractice,only the most limitedalternatives.
One of the main reasons why US alternatives were so limited was
IX
x GeneralEditor's Foreword
because of a subordinate, but nevertheless influential reality which
impinged significantly on its options. This wasthe apparent lesson of
the Vietnam War. As Brady shows, there was considerable debate
about what these lessons were for policy-makers in the period under
review. George Bush, in the end, was to revise these lessons.
However, this did not seem to undermine the significance of the key
lesson asfar aspolicytowards Cambodiawasconcerned.Thiswasthe
need to avoid any further entanglements such as the Vietnam War.
Therefore, whilst human rights might be on the agenda, there were
strict limits to howthese might be pursued, particularly in asituation
where none ofthe possible alternatives,whetherSihanouk,the KR or
the Vietnamese to take some examples, seemed both feasible and
desirable.The result wasthatUS policytowards Cambodiatended to
be reactive. Instead, the US sought to align its policy with that of
ASEAN, asthe relevantregionalactor. Insofarasithad aCambodian
policy,asdistinct from the wayinwhichthe Cold War impinged upon
its policytowards Cambodia, it reflected this constructed reality that
the best way to pursue it was in association with and through the
agency ofASEAN.
This remained true with the end of the Cold War. In a sense the
unravelling of the Soviet Union created opportunities for a shift in
policytowards Cambodia,byremoving the prime determinantofthat
policy hitherto. Indeed, policywas to shift during the Bush adminis
tration, because one of the major elements in the construction of the
policy-makers' reality had gone. However, the lessons of Vietnam
were nevertheless still there. Chris Brady thus shows us that the
construction of reality not only drives foreign policy-making, it also
constrains it.
PETER CATfERALL