On this day in 1954, President Eisenhower put into words the philosophy that has guided American foreign policy for more or less half a century — the "domino theory:"
"Finally, you have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the 'falling domino' principle. You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences."
Dwight Eisenhower
This theory was certainly prevalent during the Cold War. The belief that, if one nation fell to the Communists, other nations in the region would quickly follow was a popular one. But it did not originate with Eisenhower. It has its roots in the early post–WWII era. Sir Winston Churchill warned, in his famous "Iron Curtain" speech in 1946, of the threat posed by the Soviets.
The "domino theory" had not yet been given a name, but it had been given a face — communism and Stalin.
When I was a teenager, many of my friends laughed at the "domino theory," dismissing it as simplistic and ludicrous, but, secretly, we all worried that the war in Vietnam might not end before we were old enough to be pressed into service. The war had been raging since we were small and, when I was 13 or 14, it was not unrealistic to think the war might continue for a few more years, just long enough for us to be whisked away to the rice paddies and jungles of South Vietnam — making premature death a distinct possibility.
American involvement in Vietnam finally ended when I was 15, but not before two American presidents, Johnson and Nixon, had devoted much of their presidencies to promoting the idea that more and more Americans had to be sent there so the thousands who had already died would not have died in vain.
The same mindset permitted the American occupation of Iraq to continue, sucking up billions of dollars and thousands of lives — in spite of the assurances by those in power that the war would be over quickly and Americans would be greeted as liberators with flowers thrown at their feet.
Earlier this year, Barack Obama pledged that the American presence in Iraq would be over before Labor Day 2010. Opponents of the war would like for all Americans to be brought home from that country right away, but the realists understand that to arbitrarily remove all of our troops at this point would invite chaos to that war–torn land.
Cynics have observed that there are political implications in ending the American presence in Iraq a couple of months before the next election, but it is the only responsible way to handle the situation.
South Vietnam eventually fell to the Communist North, but the other "dominoes" in the region did not fall, as Johnson and Nixon and the many devotees of the theory expected.
Iraq, too, seems to stand as a testimonial against the validity of the "domino theory." The Iraqis may have cast aside the yoke of Saddam Hussein's tyranny, but that has not encouraged the other nations of the Middle East to follow suit and embrace democracy.
Hastily removing the troops from Iraq, however, might produce the domino effect in reverse. A chaotic Iraq, unprepared to defend its borders, might be prone to fall under the influence of its regional neighbors.
And that might trigger a fresh round of "domino theory" advocacy.
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