文档介绍：The Pentagon Papers and . Imperialism in South East Asia Noam Chomsky The Spokesman,
Winter 1972/1973With regard to long-term . objectives, the Pentagon Papers again add useful
documentation, generally corroborating, I believe, analyses based on the public record that have been
presented In the early period, the documentary record presents a fairly explicit account of
more or less rational pursuit of perceived self-interest. The primary argument was straightforward. The
United States has strategic and economic interests in South-east Asia that must be secured. Holding
Indochina is essential to securing these interests. Therefore we must hold Indochina. A critical
consideration is Japan, which will eventually modate to the "Soviet Bloc" if Southeast Asia is
lost. In effect, then, the United States would have lost the Pacific phase of World War II, which was
fought, in part, to prevent Japan from constructing a closed "co-prosperity sphere" in Asia from which
the . would be excluded. The theoretical framework for these considerations was the domino theory,
which was formulated clearly before the Korean war, as was the decision to support French
colonialism. The goal: a new "co-prosperity sphere" congenial to . interests and incorporating
Japan. It is fashionable today to deride the domino theory, but in fact it contains an important kernel of
plausibility, perhaps truth. National independence and revolutionary social change, if essful, may
very well be contagious. The problem is what Walt Rostow and others sometimes call the "ideological
threat" specifically, "the possibility that the munists can prove to Asians by progress in
China munist methods are better and faster than democratic {6} methods".2 The State
Department feared that "A fundamental source of danger we face in the Far East derives from
Communist China's rate of economic growth which will probably continue to outstrip that of fre