![]() ![]() ![]() The Donald Trump administration is the latest to rediscover this reality, as it has tried - and failed - to push its China containment drive into Southeast Asia. And without clear thinking and a carefully calibrated approach, a great power such as the United States risks doing its own position in the region more harm than good. For, having framed the region around a broad, sweeping threat, you will find it very hard to argue for a nuanced approach to the diverse and divergent nations of Southeast Asia. In doing so, however, you risk a Pyrrhic victory. If you portray Southeast Asia as an arena for competition with a rival great power (China today, the Soviet Union previously) or for pushback against a dangerous ideology, be it Islamism or communism, you just might get some interest. ![]() How do you get policymakers in Washington to think more about Southeast Asia, a strategic region of more than 600 million people? Talk to them about something they actually care about, an American counterpart once joked to me. Vincent Bevins, The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade & the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World (New York: Public Affairs, 2020) ![]()
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