Brother Enemy: The War After The War

by Nayan Chanda

Examines the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, describes the events that led to the Khmer Rouge policy of genocide, and assesses the impact of U.S. foreign policy on the region

Genres: History, China, War, Nonfiction, Asia, United States, International Relations

479 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1986

Reviews

[Hadrian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brother Enemy, published in 1986 by the former Washington bureau chief of the Far East Economic Review, is an intensive study of southeast Asia largely from 1976 to 1979, after the last US helicopters left Saigon and the start of what is called in some circles as the "Third Indochina War". Chanda is unusually well-qualified to have written such a study, with access to multiple high-level figures across the many sides of the conflict and having spent the better part of a decade in the region.

For the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the fruits of victory over the United States were bitter and short-lived. The "war after the war'', or the conflict between Vietnam and Cambodia, may have had its roots in long-standing tensions which had their roots in territorial disputes and long-running conflicts which started well before the Communist era, and nationalism proved to be a stronger motivating force than ideology. On the other hand, Chanda finds a series of parallels - when a smaller state was threatened by a larger one, it endeavored to find a much larger ally for rescue. While Cambodia picked a fight with Vietnam, Cambodia attempted to enlist the aid of the People's Republic of China. When China threatened Vietnam and marched troops up to the border, Vietnam attempted to get aid from the Soviet Union.

Where Pol Pot had conducted genocide against his own people and the ethnic minorities in Cambodia, including the Vietnamese, the People's Army of Vietnam then stormed across the border. The Vietnamese responded, taking the capital Phnom Penh in a month and reducing the Khmer Rouge to a rump insurgency that would fight on until 1992. After that, China moved its own forces across the Vietnamese border, and after some inconclusive skirmishes, both sides declared victory.

Aside from the broad strokes of this narrative, Chanda finds a host of intriguing details - that Vietnam was willing to normalize relations with the United States as early as 1978(!), and that China, having purged most of its hardliners in 1976 after the death of Mao, found itself reluctant to commit any resources to Cambodia, except perhaps to "teach Vietnam a lesson". A visiting Soviet general casually suggested to Vietnamese officials in 1978 to "do a Czechoslovakia" to put down its genocidal neighbor.

Finally, The United States, though having formally ended its military presence, was still involved in regional affairs. Different factions within the Carter administration feuded bitterly over different priorities. The State Department, led by Cyrus Vance and the point man of Richard Holbrooke, were leaning towards normalizing the diplomatic relationship with Vietnam. This initiative lost out to that of the National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who pushed for normalization with China as an anti-Soviet measure.

Given how little has been published in English on the period after 1976, this is still a serious resource and one that I recommend. There are some minor caveats, such as factual errors about Chinese leadership titles and the lack of more dedicated citations. But for a narrative about the "war after the war", there is very little that can compete with it.

[Barry Sierer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nayan Chanda gets five stars for breaking down the complex dynamics that led to the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in December 1978, and the Chinese attack on Vietnam on February 1979, into an easily digestible work. This is no mean feat, especially since all sides went to great lengths to conceal these tensions from the outside world.

Chanda not only threads through the interplay of US, Soviet, and Chinese foreign policy, but also illuminates the history of mutual hostility between the Vietnamese and Khmers that was only put on hold in order to fight the French and Americans.

Highly recommended for those seeking a more in depth understanding of the politics of South East Asia.

[Minh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I realised I had read all but the final chapter in January but mistakenly returned it to my bookshelf early. Please do not take the 11 months between start and finish as indicative of how difficult this is to read - it is in fact extremely easy to get through.

Chanda has produced a remarkable achievement in this book. He gently unpicks the convoluted networks of regional and great power politics that entangled Southeast Asia after the fall of Saigon. Ever wonder why the ultra-radical Khmer Rouge came to adopt a liberal-minded feudal prince as a keystone of their government, or why the ascendant Vietnamese communists almost immediately broke with their wartime Chinese allies, or why the US supported the legitimacy of Pol Pot long after the extent of his regime’s crimes came to light? The answer is usually some sort of realpolitik but Chanda unpacks all of these questions with meticulous detail and succeeds at making sense of them.

That being said, he is writing from 1986 and his sources are charmingly cold-war: comparing word counts of different bulletins in the official Vietnamese radio stations to gauge relative relations with the Soviets and Chinese springs to mind. His access to archival materials or interview subjects are necessarily curated and here Chanda’s authoritative writing style becomes a little dangerous. I do not know how much this book reflects the current historiography on the subject and that is really my only hangup - but that is also hardly something I can hold against him.

[Sleepy Boy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an excellent insight into a war I knew very little about. After we left Vietnam western history tends to stop paying attention to it. This book corrects that.

[Phan Ba · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Chắc chắn Việt Nam chẳng cần nuôi dưỡng niềm tin. Ba tháng sau khi chiếm Phnom Pênh, họ cướp phá thành phố nầy một cách có hệ thống. Từng đoàn xe tải chở tủ lạnh, máy điều hòa không khí, dụng cụ điện, tủ bàn, máy móc và các tượng điêu khắc quí giá hướng về thánh phố Hồ chí Minh. Những loại hàng nầy dân chúng phải bỏ lại sau cuộc xua đuổi tàn bạo dân chúng ra khỏi thành phố năm 1975 và bọn Khmer Đỏ cũng không đụng tới. Họ ghét những thứ hàng của bọn tiểu tư sản đồi bại. Những chiến lợi phẩm từ Phnom Pênh có thể đem lại cho Hà Nội ít tiền nhưng để lại một vết hằn sâu trong tâm khảm người Khmer, nó làm gia tăng sự thương tổn về tiếng Youn mà người ta không ưa. Nó cũng để lại một vết dơ lớn cho vai trò 'người cứu mạng' của nhân dân Kampuchia."
Trích từ Anh Em Thù Địch, một quyển sách thật đáng đọc cho những người muốn tìm hiểu lịch sử. Nhất là vì về giai đoạn 75-79 thì tương đối ít sách cho nên khó có thể bỏ qua quyển này.
Nó xác nhận những gì mà tôi đã từng đọc được ở một tác giả người Đức. Cả hai đều nói rằng văn hóa VN cũng giống như Trung Hoa là một văn hóa bành trướng. VN chống TQ bành trướng, nhưng lại mang đúng những tư tưởng ấy để đối xử với các dân tộc ở phía Nam. Một góc nhìn lịch sử văn hóa VN mà tôi nghĩ là đáng để đọc và suy ngẫm.
Phần còn lại, những hoạt động ngoại giao giữa các bên VN, TQ, Liên Xô, Lào, Campuchia và Mỹ cũng là những câu chuyện nên đọc để biết tình cảnh lúc ấy.
Có thể tránh được cuộc chiến tranh ở biên giới Tây Nam và cuộc chiến tranh ở biên giới phía Bắc không? Với những nhân vật như Pol Pot, với ý muốn lãnh đạo cả Đông Dương của ĐCSVN và với một Đặng Tiểu Bình muốn trừng trị "tên tiểu bá phía Nam" thì đúng là cuộc chiến này không thể tránh khỏi. Nó chỉ chấm dứt khi VN chịu rút quân ra khỏi Campuchia.
Tôi có tìm thấy trên mạng một bản tiếng Việt do hoànglonghải dịch, nếu muốn có thể vào trang Tài Liệu của blog Phan Ba mà tải về dưới dạng pdf và epub. Bản dịch tuy có sạn, chắc là không có người hiệu đính và biên tập, nhưng trân trọng công sức của người dịch là điều chính yếu.

[karl levy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is by Nayan Chanda, a top notch journalist who worked for the Washington Bureau of the Far Eastern Economic Review. It is the best summary of the complex machinations between China, the USA, Vietnam, Pol Pots Democratic Kampuchea and the USSR. It is not a book for the feint hearted nor is it an introductory book to Cambodia. Each sentence and chapter requires a good deal of background information to appreciate, but to the initiated it is a godsend of information. Chanda knew and interviewed many of the grand players during the 1975 to 1980 period that the book concentrates on in Cambodia. He takes no view, no bias and no opinion, just mountains of simple clear well balanced facts to give a measured insight. Chanda also presents many first hand experiences of new and terrible information. It is to be read as if a person reads the Far Eastern Economic review or the Economist in extended form and can also be used as a fine reference book. To those with an agenda then this will likely not be the right book.

[Deva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting:
• Vietnam’s habit of apologizing to Chinese emperors for “accidentally” destroying invading Imperial armies
• The Domino Theory seems to be completely opposite of reality. The US presence in Vietnam was a major factor in uniting China, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and once we left they fell back into their centuries old squabbles and mutual distrust.
• Our government’s tacit support for Khmer Rouge guerillas (after their fall from power, when their crimes were coming to light) is really, really depressing to me.

Dull:
• Marxist blathering at state dinners as a means to convey subtle shifts in state policy

[Anthony Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great perspective on the "3rd Indochina War", written in 1986. Some things change, some things stay the same.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brother Enemy is a detailed look at a conflict most Americans have not heard of: that between Vietnam and Cambodia in the late 70s and early 80s. More broadly, this was was a Sino-Soviet proxy war, with the Chinese strongly backing Cambodia (or the Democratic Republic of Kampuchea, as its Khmer Rouge rulers christened it) and Vietnam drawing support from the Soviets. Not quite the narrative non-fiction I had hoped, Brother Enemy is a thorough (read: weedy) overview not only of the conflict itself, but of the many geopolitical factors that played into it. In no particular order, these include historic tensions between Vietnam and Cambodia; Vietnam and China; Vietnam and Thailand; the legacy of the first (French) and second (American) Vietnam Wars; the historic role of China in Southeast Asia; the jockeying for position of China, the U.S., and the Soviet Union; the emergence of the Khmer Rouge followed by the utter devastation they wrought on every aspect of life in Cambodia; and U.S. policy toward Vietnam, particularly as regards normalization of diplomatic relations following the Vietnam War, the issue of which was dominated by the MIA question. I've probably missed a couple, but you get the idea. As a journalist, Nayan Chanda had access to impeccable sources at the highest level of every government and regime; it's difficult to imagine a more complete or more even-handed approach.

That said, what Chanda endows upon Brother Enemy in journalist integrity, he lacks in storytelling. Although there are flashes of possible brilliance - the Yugoslav and Chinese diplomats making a mad rush for the Thai border following the Vietnamese assault on Phnom Penh or the momentarily-desired political asylum request of Prince Sihanouk to the United States - by and large, this reads as a white paper. The shame in that is the stories that could have been told, although in fairness 1) Chanda is a journalist, seeking to provide a complete (and seemingly balanced/unbiased) accounting and 2) the book was written in 1986, in the last great thrust of the Cold War.

The latter point is especially interesting to reflect upon, for every aspect of the conflict and the book is imbued with the flavors of the Cold War. In hindsight, today's reader knows this was perhaps the last great paroxysm of that war, but in 1986, the Cold War seemed destined to go the distance. (In second grade, we loathed the Soviets, actively cheering against them during the Calgary Olympics, during which my teacher kept a medal table on the blackboard that we updated daily, and once practiced hiding under our desks in the event of an attack. In third grade, we cheered the fall of the Berlin Wall and understood we needn't concern ourselves with Soviets anymore. Soviet attack drills have now given way to active shooter drills, the likelihood of which is far, far greater on any given day in America than a Soviet attack ever was. But I digress.)

Also unresolved (and unresolvable) in 1986: questions of national identity vis-a-vis the big powers. In my travels I've often noticed that the identity of countries with long experience of external pressure and power (even if not outright subjugation) becomes wrapped up with the identity of the larger power. In the Baltic states, it's rare to listen to more than three sentences without a reference to Russia or the Soviets; in Poland, it's the Prussians and Russians; and several years ago in Cuba I was surprised to hear how frequently the US was spoken of by those providing context of Cuban culture and identity. We Americans may give scant thought to the little island off the Keys, but literally and figuratively, our land casts a massive shadow that no one there can escape. (Even more surprising in Cuba: the box of Lucky Charms for sale in the grocery store under the auspices of (Swiss) Nestle, who purchased the rights to the Cuban market from (American) General Mills. Again, I digress.)

Chanda does an admirable job of speaking to the influence of China on the Vietnamese identity, but - largely, one assumes, because Cambodia is still in the throes of warfare - says much less, if anything about the long-term influence of China (or any other country) on Cambodian nationalism, identity, or culture. Chanda does address an issue that could be ripped from the headlines today when he speaks about the tensions over rights to the islands in the South China Sea; to that end, I could only shake my head at the incomplete reporting even the best news sources today offer. There's simply too much history to include in the thousand words some poor journalist is allotted to explain the most recent developments and so that's all we get: current developments and no context. Alas.

Most impressively, though, is the ways in which Brother Enemy grapples with the influence of the big powers - for the purposes of his work, those would be China, the Soviet Union, and the US - on the smaller countries. Anger toward imperialism is an easy trap to fall into - for me, I think of the Panama Canal and David McCullough's Path Between the Seas or Hawaii, which Julia Flynn Siler argues in Lost Kingdom was the U.S.'s first imperial adventure or even the news out of Mali this past week that the leader of the recent coup there was trained by the U.S. military. More broadly, one need look no further than Suzy Hansen's Notes on a Foreign Country, in which she forcefully and effectively makes the case that decisions by the U.S. regularly and directly impact the lives of those around the world....and that because of the nature of U.S. imperialism, as compared to the old European empires, the U.S. version is equally if not more insidious and damaging than those older empires, which were openly acknowledged, and whose ties, for better or for worse, were formalized.

So it's all very depressing, and again, easy to feel a burst of anger about foreign policy. But. But - and I think this may be irony - Chanda's work actually made me feel better instead of worse in the sense that this.is.what.countries.do. All countries. From time immemorial, it seems. Because competition. Because pride (personal and national). Because sometimes man just likes a fight. The best we can hope for, it seems, is writers and reporters like Chanda to capture the story and raise it to the level of consciousness it deserves. For how many stories like this one simply go untold?

[Cường]

VNese is 1

[Nate Stender · Rating 5 out of 5]

A remarkably well written book about a time that history has forgotten. We should all be so lucky as to have the time to sit down and finish this gem.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a thorough chronicle of the time period. An impressive book. The level of detail makes for a slow read. This book serves as an excellent example of how lack of trust shapes foreign policy. Several detailed examples of how people's lives are used as a bartering tokens in international politics. Currently visiting Cambodia where most people view Vietnam as an imperial power robbing Cambodia of resources. An excellent read for anyone visiting the region.

[Anja · Rating 3 out of 5]

An immersion in the recent history of Indochina, perfect to accompany our travels in Cambodia and Laos. Captivating insights, but not always easy to follow as the author jumps a bit back and forth on the timeline of events to do deep dives on various topics.

[Ian Baird · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an important book about the Third Indochina War involving Vietnam, Cambodia, and China.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

DNF - a bit too granular for my interests right now. But obviously well-researched and well-written, and I fully plan to return and finish eventually.

[Daniel]

Somewhat dated, but close to the action and thorough.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comprehensive and readable history from someone who was there to speak to most of the important figures involved. Has affected how I think of Pol Pot, Vietnam, China, the Vietnam War, and US foreign policy under Carter in numberous ways.

[Càfê Sữa · Rating 4 out of 5]

410/479