To what extent do you agree with Gareth Porter (historian and journalist) who asserts that the primary goal of US policy in Asia was NOT to contain communism in Southeast Asia (Vietnam) or to stop the “falling dominoes”, but rather to maintain constant pressure. on China. (Porter, A. Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam. University of California Press, 2005.) Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essayI agree to some extent with his contribution regarding the goals of the United States in Asia. While his argument has some merit, I don't think containing China is the United States' primary goal in Asia. They may have intended to do this when defining and formulating their foreign policy positions, but there is probably no precedent for them to do so as a primary objective . I would argue that the main objective of any form of involvement in Asia can be attributed to fighting the United States' greatest enemy in the Soviet Union. Most proxy wars fought at the time were often aimed at pitting the Soviets against each other and undermining communism in these established regions. For example, many smaller crises, such as the North Yemen Civil War and the Lebanon Crisis of 1958, were strictly proxy wars between the United States and the Soviet Union, with China not even having played a significant role in any of these conflicts. Additionally, China did not have an authoritarian foreign policy and was in fact seeking to strengthen its sense of self-reliance and was too busy developing its own nation economically. Although China did contribute to the intervention in Korea and Vietnam, these two matters were not as urgent as the Soviet Union. If the United States really wanted to put pressure on China, it would have had more incentive to help the United States. The KMT and the Nationalists during the Chinese Civil War. Warren Cohen, a historian and research associate at the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, says: “Although American leaders preferred a nationalist victory, they did not consider China important enough to intervene in its civil war. Additionally, Marshall, who became Secretary of State in 1947, believed that the United States, with limited resources, could not afford to invest large sums of money or use millions of American troops in a area of ​​secondary concern in the emerging confrontation with the Soviet Union. » (Cohen). Marshall's feelings and the actions of the U.S. government showed that China was not a big enough problem during the rise of the Soviet Union. If China was not a problem at the time, while the United States could have stopped the origins of a communist uprising in China, then it could not have been the main factor in its foreign intervention in Vietnam and Korea. Furthermore, the goal has always been to restore relations with China (Kissinger). Pressuring China would have been an even greater burden on the United States when it would have had to exert even greater pressure on the more intimidating Soviet Union. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized article from our expert writers now. .Get a Custom Essay Although Porter's argument may provide some sort of validity, he does not have sufficient evidence to support his point of view. There are.