"Morris' vivid analysis . . . delves into the causes of the only extended war between two communist states. As the first Southeast Asian specialist to gain access to the recently opened Moscow files on the Indochinese Communist Party, Morris ably documents the paranoid style of thinking that characterized these Marxist-Leninist leaders."

Klappentext

On December 25, 1978, the armed forces of Vietnam launched a full-scale invasion of Cambodia. That event marked a turning point in the first and only extended war fought between two communist regimes. The Vietnamese forced out Pol Pot's Khmers Rouge regime from its seat of power in Phnom Penh, but the ensuing war was a major source of international tension throughout the last decade of the Cold War.

This book is the first comprehensive, scholarly analysis of the causes of the Vietnamese invasion. At its core are two separate but related histories covering the years 1930 to 1978. The first concerns the continuing difficult relations between the Vietnamese communist party and the Cambodian communist movement. The second records the fluctuating and often conflicted relations between the Vietnamese communist party and the two most powerful communist states, the Soviet Union and China. These two histories are encased by a theoretical introduction and a conclusion that make clear the need for a "political culture" perspective on international relations.

The author argues that key events leading up to the Vietnamese invasion and occupation of Cambodia present a historical puzzle. Many important decisions made by both the Vietnamese and Cambodian leaders are inexplicable in terms of the "rational actor" assumptions that dominate contemporary international relations theory. Instead, the author argues, these decisions can be explained only if we understand the political cultures of the rival states.

This book is the only study of Southeast Asian affairs by a Western scholar who has used the rich archives of the former Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The key sources drawn on constitute confidential records of the former sponsor and ally of Vietnamese communism; they also provide fresh light on Chinese and Soviet foreign policy, as well as recent events in Cambodia. They are supplemented by extensive materials from French and American archives, as well as interviews with some of the main political decisionmakers.

Zusammenfassung
This is the first scholarly account of the causes of the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1978. Full of startling revelations from Soviet communist party archives, the study advances the concept of political culture to explain crucial foreign policy decisions.

Inhalt
Abbreviations; Preface; Introduction: international relations, rationality, and Marxist-Leninist political cultures; Part I. The Local Genesis of the Conflict: 1. Roots of a conflict: the Vietnamese communists and the Cambodians, 1930-70; 2. The public rise and secret fall of ' Militant Solidarity': Vietnamese and Cambodian communists, 1970-75; 3. The foreign policy of democratic Kampuchea, 1975-78; 4. The public disintergration of ' Militant Solidarity' in Indochina: Vietnam and Cambodia, 1975-78; Part II. The Internationalization of a Conflict: 5. Vietnam and the Communist world, 1930-68; 6. North Vietnam's tilt toward the Soviet Union, 1968-75; 7. The collapse of Vietnamese-Chinese relations; 8. The emergence of the Soviet-Vietnamese alliance; 9. The consequences of the Vietnamese invasion; Conclusion: history and theory; Notes; Bibliography; Index.