What exactly is this conspiracy theory from the 1960s that is making a comeback in the USA in a new guise?
According to the domino theory, a communist government in one country would quickly trigger communist takeovers in other states, each one falling like a row of dominoes. The United States used the now-discredited domino theory, which was an effective anti-communist scare tactic at the time, in Southeast Asia to justify its support for a non-communist dictator in South Vietnam and its war in Vietnam.
The notion was first put forth by President Harry S. Truman in the 1940s to support military aid to Greece and Turkey to prevent the feared communist takeover of the two countries. Historians consider Truman’s speech to Congress on March 12, 1947, in which he called for funding for the planned interventions that became known as the Truman Doctrine, to be the official beginning of the Cold War.
But it was President Dwight D. Eisenhower who popularized it in the 1950s by applying it to Southeast Asia and South Vietnam in particular. After the defeat of the French colonial power against the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, Eisenhower formulated the principle of the “falling domino” as follows: “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.”
The former “Red Menace” is replaced by the “Russian Menace”
As the US Congress becomes increasingly skeptical about pouring billions more into the bottomless pit that is Ukraine, the US government and neoconservative lobbyists are resorting to one argument after another to convince the members of Congress to continue the spending spree. Recently, the war protagonists explained that aid to Ukraine was necessary because it would benefit the US economy and create jobs in the US industry. That was one of their arguments.
A few weeks earlier, all sorts of commercials on US television claimed that US aid to Ukraine was a good investment, that it massively weakened the Russian armed forces, that it only accounted for about 3% of the US defense budget (which was not true, by the way) and that the US was getting tremendous value in return for this aid to Ukraine.
Now they are saying something different and contradicting these two earlier claims. It is no longer economically advantageous for the US to provide money to Ukraine, and it is no longer the case that all this aid to Ukraine weakens Russia. On the contrary, Russia is going from strength to strength, it is dangerously close to winning the war in Ukraine, and if it wins the war, Russia will attack other NATO countries. It would push further into Eastern Europe and threaten the Baltic states.
House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul now claims, “If Putin takes over Ukraine, he’ll get Moldova, Georgia, then maybe the Baltics.” – “And then the idea that we’ll have to put troops on the ground in Secretary Austin’s word was very likely,” added the Republican committee chairman of the House of Representatives.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and John Kirby, the spokesman for the National Security Council, said that if Ukraine is not helped, war with Russia is almost inevitable because the Russians will push further and further west. In such a case, American soldiers would have to fight on the war front against soldiers from Russia, the world’s largest nuclear power.
Although Austin’s remarks were inappropriate and perceived by some as wild, they are consistent with what other officials have said.
And here we have just witnessed the reinvention of the discredited domino theory. The domino theory was just as false when it was conjured up in the 1960s as its current version being regurgitated by the United States. It is absurd because its proponents have not a shred of evidence that this war, once ended, will lead to another Russian march westward.
But the fact that the Secretary of Defense is speaking out in this way confirms the level of opposition and resistance that the administration is now facing in Congress. As a result, pressure is now mounting on members of Congress, and others besides Austin, such as British Foreign Secretary Cameron, have stated that if Congress does not provide another aid package for Ukraine, it would be the best possible Christmas present for alleged conqueror Vladimir Putin, the same man who was prevented by London and Washington from reaching a peace deal with his Ukrainian counterpart.
Reuters reported on the Russian president’s reaction to the US scaremongering.
And the pressure could actually be successful. Axios reports that the chairmen of several House committees, notably the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Armed Services Committee, who are Republicans, are calling for another aid package for Ukraine. The fear-mongering domino conspiracy theory works – once again.
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Read the related piece: Parallels in History: What is the connection between America’s current warlord Zelensky in Ukraine and America’s past puppet Diem in South Vietnam? The same result!