Outposts of Empire: Korea, Vietnam, and the Origins of the Cold War in Asia, 1949-1954

Following World War II the United States, determined to prevent the extension of Soviet and Communist Chinese influence, took the lead in organizing the defence of Western interests in Asia. In Outposts of Empire Steven Lee explores the foreign policy objectives of the United States, as well as those of Great Britain and Canada, and examines the role that economic and military aid played in their attempts to establish pro-Western, anti-Communist governments on the periphery of Communist East Asia. Drawing on a wide range of recently declassified documents, Lee outlines the regional and international context of American diplomatic relations with Korea and Vietnam and analyses the relationship between containment, the bipolar international system, and American and European concepts of empire at the beginning of the era of decolonization. He argues that although policy makers in the United Kingdom and Canada adopted a more defensive containment policy toward Communist China than the United States did, they generally supported American attempts to promote pro-Western elites in Korea and Vietnam.