How much did the US in the late 1970s and 1980s come to offer support to the notoriously bloody Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia?

Christopher Brady approaches this question by focussing on decision making in the Carter, Reagan and Bush Administrations. He offers a model of decision making based on intra-administration hierarchies and the varying versions of ‘constructed reality’ in the minds of key policy makers. Important to the story all the time were the attitudes of US policy makers towards Vietnam, the country which had so recently defeated the US and which itself invaded and occupied Cambodia during the Carter Presidential years. Brady traces the tension between post Vietnam War ‘regionalists’ approaches and traditional Cold War ‘globalist’ interpretations of these events. He sheds light on issues such as the Sino-Soviet split (Vietnam was generally pro-Soviet, Cambodia pro-Chinese) and the role of ASEAN. (The sections on the Association of South East Asian Nations are probably the best in the book.) Brady concludes that Carter failed to apply his post-Vietnam War doctrines to Cambodia, but that he succeeded in keeping the issue to the periphery of public and Congressional attention. The Reagan era, especially after 1984, saw the application of the anti-Soviet ‘Reagan Doctrine’ and the eventual withdrawal of Vietnamese troops. Under the Bush Administration, Vietnam continued to be regarded as the main regional villain. A shift in policy did occur, however, after 1990. Brady ends with an ‘Epilogue’ on the Clinton years. These saw moves to normalise relations with Vietnam and were dominated, according to Brady, by economic and trade considerations.

Brady’s book is interesting and thoughtful. It is not based on a very impressive range of primary sources – not even those available in the US, much less in Cambodia. Some readers will object to the whole decision making theory approach. Others will welcome the avoidance of the tone of moral indignation characteristic of well-known journalistic accounts (notably by John Pilger). Teachers and students may be most likely to encounter the book in the context of courses dealing with the Vietnam War. If so, the book may seem a little over specialised for their purposes.