Re: Questions on Deng/VietNam-Cambodge/(F)SU-Afganistan

[AnHai Doan <anhai@cs.washington.edu>]

On Sun, 2 Mar 1997, Buulong Nguyen wrote:

> So, for wich reason had the Vietnamese leaders invaded Cambodia 1). Just 
> to follow the order from theirSoviet "quantha^`y", or 2).To end the 
> genocide in Cambodia and, meanwhile, to move the war from the 
> Vietnam-Cambodia borders to the Cambodia-Thailand ones (less civilian 
> loss)?, or on both reasons?
> 
> Did Deng invade Vietnam just to prevent farther sovietization of Aia and 
> to ensure "a stable and peaceful atmosphere for economical development 
> in South-East Asia"?
> 
> Can you, friends, give me more background information or your 
> consideration on the three invasions (VN-Cambodia, China-VN, and 
> SU-Afghanistan)? What do you think about the "well-thought-out" policy of 
> Deng?

Anh Buulong Nguyen and others,

This is indeed an interesting thread. I myself don't want to be involved 
in this one because I am rather ignorant about this issue, and don't 
want people on the forum to think about me as "Kho^ng bie^'t gi` ve^` 
ddie^.n, nhu+ng thi'ch no'i chuye^.n su'p-von-to+" (knowing nothing about 
electricity, but like to talk about current transformators), as one VNSA 
member often said.

Since this Cambodia issue is still judged to be sensitive in Vietnam, 
may I ask participants to tread carefully here (remember that we are 
obeying Vietnamese laws on this forum). If someone is not sure if his/her
posting is over the edge, he/she is more than welcome to send the message
to us first. Thank you. (Anh Buulong: you know as well as me that the
use of word "Quan tha^`y" is objectionable, so lets not use such words,
shall we?)

A small observation that I want to contribute to this thread:
-----------------------------------------------------------
Some of us tend to think about a political entity as a monolith something,
while in fact this is not the case. As soon as you have two Vietnamese, and
they form a party, you are likely to have two fractions. And this is perhaps
true not only for the Vietnamese, but for other nationalities as well. The
one major difference is perhaps in the transparency of fractional fighting. 

Due to the existence of fractions with different interests, the decisions of
a political entity as a whole often reflect the negotiated compromises
among the fractions and the influence and consideration of forces and
information behind the scence. This observation implies two things: (1) some
times decisions issued by a political entity may not appear to be consistent
or make any sense at all for those not involved in the game (read: us the
ordinary folks); indeed they may not make any sense, but are issued
nevertheless as a compromise to a fraction, or to maintain the status quo;
(2) in analyzing the decisions and actions of a political entity it is
important to take into account the existing fractions and their capabilities
of influencing such decisions. 

Case in point: When Bill Clinton was reelected, a major newspaper in Vietnam
published a small article congratulating and praising Clinton.  The next day
or several days later, in the same newspaper there was an article 
full of scorns for Clinton as a weak, ineffective president. 

So you draw your conclusions for the Cambodia case. I need to go out now,
here it is way too nice a day outside for discussing politics :-).

(Needless to say, VNSA admin board forms a "political entity", and so
according to the above observation our decisions might appear nonsense, 
rush, or inconsistent to some members :-). Luckily, VNSA is operated in
the maximal transparency, so anyone wanting to analyze the admins' 
decision can simply send an e-mail to them and get back the full answer. 
:-) )

Happy discussing, Hai.