Organizing for Peace in Asia

TH HE SIGNING of a truce for Indo-China, in July, 1954, did more than put an end to nearly eight years of fighting. It gave the world a respite from major war for the first time in many years. It signaled the end of the old era of colonialism, for it sanctioned the lapse of the last important colonial holding on the Asian continent, with the exception of Malaya. It was a definite victory for the Communist world, for it brought much of Indo-China under Communist control, opened the rest of the area to easy penetration, and introduced a dangerous entering wedge into Southeast Asia. In the non-Communist world relief at the ending of a debilitating war, in which issues of personal freedom and national independence had become hopelessly enmeshed with those of colonialism and communism, was mingled in varying degree with apprehension over the consequences of this latest forced concession to Communist techniques and power. The truce was a respite, a brief quiet. It did not bring real peace, even in Indo-China; but it did give the harried statesmen of the non-Communist nations another breathing spell which with luck and wisdom might be used to strengthen the defenses of the free world and to work for conditions which would help to avoid the supreme catastrophe of global atomic-hydrogen warfare. Surely the lesson of Indo-China, as of Korea, is that what happens in faraway places in the world may have profound repercussions everywhere, and that the fate of nations and of peoples is inextricably tied up with the state of great power relations and with general international conditions. The peace of Asia is threatened not only by internal instability, dislocation, and unrest. It is also dependent upon forces and movements from without, which impinge directly or indirectly upon the Asian realm. Among these

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• A Selected Bibliography on Regionalism and Regional Arrangements

  Open Access•Norman J Padelford•International Organization•1956

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