Joshua Hallsey

Us Foreign Policy in Cambodia, 1945-1993 Joshua Hallsey

This thesis examines the effects of U. S. foreign policy upon the lives of ordinary Cambodians from 1945-1993. It concludes that U. S. policies in Southeast Asia systematically destabilized Cambodia both politically and economically, contributed to the development and victory of the Communist Party of Kampuchea in 1975, and helped to delay Cambodia¿s recovery from the Khmer Rouge genocide until 1993. It also examines the factors that influenced U. S. foreign policy towards Cambodia and finds that local Cambodian issues were rarely taken into account by U. S. policymakers, and that U. S. policy toward Cambodia during this period was instead largely determined by American Cold War strategy. This study pulls facts and arguments from myriad secondary resources and is an attempt to produce a more coherent narrative of the effects of U. S. foreign policy in Cambodia than currently exists.