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CIAO DATE: 08/01

The United States and Southeast Asia: A Policy Agenda for the New Administration


J. Robert Kerrey, Chair
Robert A. Manning, Project Director
July 2001

Council on Foreign Relations

 

Abstract

A quarter of a century has elapsed since the culmination of the war in Vietnam, a bitter experience whose imprint continues to shape a generation of Americans and whose impact is still felt on U.S. policy toward Southeast Asia and beyond. Whether it is the threat to global financial stability triggered by the 1997 Thai baht crisis, genocidal violence in Cambodia, humanitarian crisis in East Timor, political turbulence in Indonesia, or potential conflict in the South China Sea,the dynamism and volatility of this expansive region underscores its importance to American interests and global stability. Yet Southeast Asia remains obscure to and poorly understood by most Americans and -but for times of crisis -a backwater of U.S. foreign policy.

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