Vietnam's Strategic Thinking During the Third Indochina War

Kosal Path (Author)

9780299322748

Paperback / softback, published 25 July 2023

308 pages, 5 b&w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.3 cm, 0.272 kg

The first academic monograph in any language dedicated to telling the story of the Third Indochina War from the Vietnamese perspective using predominantly Vietnamese archival sources. . . . It will be required reading for scholars of Vietnamese, regional, and global Cold War diplomatic history and international relations for years to come. . . . An immense contribution." - Journal of Vietnamese Studies

When costly efforts to cement a strategic partnership with the Soviet Union failed, the combined political pressure of economic crisis at home and imminent external threats posed by a Sino-Cambodian alliance compelled Hanoi to reverse course. Moving away from the Marxist-Leninist ideology that had prevailed during the last decade of the Cold War era, the Vietnamese government implemented broad doi moi ("renovation") reforms intended to create a peaceful regional environment for the country's integration into the global economy.

In contrast to earlier studies, Path traces the moving target of these changing policy priorities, providing a vital addition to existing scholarship on asymmetric wartime decision-making and alliance formation among small states. The result uncovers how this critical period had lasting implications for the ways Vietnam continues to conduct itself on the global stage.

• Acknowledgments ix
• List of Abbreviations xi
• Introduction 3
• 1 Impact of the Economic Crisis, 1975–
  1978 19
• 2 The Decision to Invade Cambodia, December 1978 52
• 3 Mobilization for a Two-Front War, 1979–
  1981 79
• 4 The Two-Faced Enemy in Cambodia, 1979–
  1985 113
• 5 Economic Regionalism in Indochina, 1982–
  1985 134
• 6 The Road to Doi Moi, 1986 167
• Conclusion 203
• Notes 211
• Bibliography 263
• Index 285