Review: Asia: Conflict and Stability in Southeast Asia
| Published date | 01 June 1975 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070207503000224 |
| Author | David Wurfel |
| Date | 01 June 1975 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS/ASIA
359
CONFLICT
AND
STABILITY
IN
SOUTHEAST
ASIA
Edited
by
Mark
W.
Zacher
and
R.
Stephen
Milne
Garden
City,
N.Y.:
Toronto:
Doubleday,
1974,
xxvi,
489pp,
$3.85
This
important
volume
ends
with
a
very
sensible
essay by
Coral
Bell,
the
Australian
authority on
Asian
alliances.
After
a
sophisticated
assessment
of
the
post-Vietnam power
balance
in
Asia,
she
concludes:
'The
more
probable
threats
to
the
area are
those
which
proceed
from
frictions
between
its
members,
and
most
particularly
those
from
con-
tests
for
power
within
the
domestic
societies
concerned.'
Unfortunately
this
wise
and
widely
accepted
proposition
did not
guide
the
editors
in
their
plans
for
this
book:
they
seem
to
have
been
preoccupied with
great-power
influences
on
the
region.
Professor
Milne
himself,
how-
ever,
did
write
one
of
the
two
or
three
(out
of
sixteen)
chapters
deal-
ing
primarily
with
internal
determinants
of
national
politics
and
policy
in
Southeast
Asia,
a
thoughtful
analysis
of
the
impact
of
Chinese
and
Indian
minorities
on
the
foreign
policies
of
their
re-
spective
countries.
And
on
such
subjects
as
the
Laotian
conflict,
handled
ably
by
Usha
Mahajani,
a
focus
on
United
States
interven-
tion
can
hardly
be considered
inappropriate.
Nevertheless,
eight
chapters
were
specifically
devoted
to
'the
policies
of
extraregional
states,'
three
to
'international
security
arrangements,'
and
two
others
dealt
primarily
with
the extraregional
impact.
No
one
can
contest
Michael Leifer's
contention
that
Southeast
Asia
is
peculiarly
sus-
ceptible
to
outside
intervention
(p
183),
but
he himself
recognizes
that
the
'success'
or 'failure'
of such
intervention
depends
in
large
part
on
the
Southeast
Asian
context
within
which
it
is
attempted.
Aside
from
the
piece
by
Coral
Bell,
perhaps the
most
perceptive
contributions
on
great-power
involvement
are
by
Melvin
Gurtov,
the
former
RAND
researcher, now
at
the
University
of
California
(River-
side).
In
an
essay
on
the
Nixon
Doctrine
Gurtov
warns
against
the
frequent journalistic
exaggerations
of
the
changes
which
it
portends,
reminding
his readers
that
'the
Doctrine's
unstated
objective
is
to
establish
a
balance-of-power
system
in
Asia
...
that
will
secure
existing
American
assets
...
and
maintain
the
status
quo
...'
His
chapter
on
recent
Soviet
diplomacy
in
Southeast
Asia,
portions
of
which
are
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