Arming East Asia: Deterring China in the Early Cold War

By Eric Setzekorn

Arming East Asia: Deterring China in the Early Cold War examines President Eisenhower‘s mutual security program in East Asia and explains how that administration worked to contain China. This historical chronicle offers insights and perspectives regarding how to address Sino-American tensions and maintain a free and open Asia-Pacific. Eric Setzekorn argues that President Eisenhower expanded and solidified the U.S. presence in East Asia through use of military aid and military advisory efforts in sharp contrast to the use of U.S. military forces by Presidents Truman, Kennedy and Johnson. In South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and Southeast Asia (particularly in Thailand and South Vietnam), the United States spent billions of dollars and significant time developing local military forces. By the end of Eisenhower‘s two terms, a force of over 1.4 million Allied soldiers in East Asia had been trained, equipped, and often paid through American military assistance.

Eisenhower‘s mutual security policies were vital in building local allies, and by the end of the 1950s, East Asia was beginning a long period of growth that would make it the economic heart of the world within fifty years. American policies that created close ties and involvement in the affairs of allied nations also constrained allies, such as Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan, and Syngman Rhee in South Korea, who often sought to take direct action against the PRC. The heavy role of American military advisors and experts “on the ground” in East Asia also profoundly shaped the character of these nations, all of which were emerging from war, by putting massive resources into the government administration and military forces of newly formed states. With an assertive China using its growing political and military power throughout East Asia, contemporary U.S. security challenges are similar to the situation faced in that earlier contentious era. Eisenhower‘s policies from 1953 to 1961 clearly demonstrate an awareness of the possibilities for military, economic and political growth in East Asia, and the challenges of deterring Chinese (PRC) expansion during the early Cold War.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. government.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Naval Institute Press
• Release date: Mar 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781682478523

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Cover: Arming East Asia, Deterring China in the Early Cold War by Eric Setzekorn

ARMING

EAST

ASIA

DETERRING CHINA IN

THE EARLY COLD WAR

ERIC SETZEKORN

Logo: Naval Institute Press

Naval Institute Press

Annapolis, Maryland

Naval Institute Press

291 Wood Road

Annapolis, MD 21402

© 2023 by Eric Setzekorn

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Setzekorn, Eric B., author.

Title: Arming East Asia : deterring China in the early Cold War / Eric Setzekorn.

Other titles: Deterring China in the early Cold War

Description: Annapolis, Maryland : Naval Institute Press, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022043076 (print) | LCCN 2022043077 (ebook) | ISBN 9781682478516 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781682478523 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: United States—Military relations—East Asia. | East Asia—Military relations—United States. | East Asia—Foreign relations—20th century. | Cold War. | Security, International—East Asia. | China—Relations—United States. | China—Relations—East Asia. | Deterrence (Strategy) | Mutual Security Program (U.S.) | BISAC: HISTORY / Modern / 20th Century / Cold War | HISTORY / Military / United States

Classification: LCC UA832.5 .S48 2023 (print) | LCC UA832.5 (ebook) | DDC 327.5—dc23/eng/20221102

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022043076

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022043077

♾ Print editions meet the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992

(Permanence of Paper).

Printed in the United States of America.

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The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. government.

CONTENTS

ACRONYMS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Preparing a book is a multiyear process, and only through the support of many others was this work possible. Edward McCord has been a continual source of encouragement, and Thomas Long, Gregg Brazinsky, and Daqing Yang all helped improve the focus and depth of my research. Friends and colleagues I have met at the U.S. Army Center of Military History and the Historical Office of the Office of the Secretary of Defense all helped provide a stimulating environment that refined my skills as a historian. The staff of numerous archives and libraries, such as the Army Heritage and Education Center, the Eisenhower and Truman Presidential Libraries, and the National Archives and Records Administration, were vital in assembling the massive amount of material needed to produce a comprehensive history. I also thank the staff of the Naval Institute Press for their tireless efforts throughout the production process.

Introduction

After taking office in January 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower was faced with the challenge of deterring the international influence of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) under Mao Zedong while holding true to his campaign pledges to reduce defense spending and balance the budget. In East Asia, Eisenhower undertook a strategy of opposition to PRC actions in Korea, Southeast Asia, and the Asian littoral by building the military and economic capacity of U.S. allies. The result of this effort was the creation of a robust, defensive force that greatly benefited American foreign policy in the region by serving as a credible deterrent without requiring large numbers of expensive and vulnerable U.S. combat troops. In contemporary East Asia, with an assertive PRC led by Xi Jinping, the need for an American-led deterrence force remains vital to the security of the region. This strategic reality, writes Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates in 2010, demands that the U.S. government get better at what is called ‘building partner capacity’: helping other countries defend themselves or, if necessary, fight alongside U.S. forces by providing them with equipment, training, or other forms of security assistance. This is something that the United States has been doing in various ways for nearly three-quarters of a century.¹ The methods and models of the Eisenhower administration offer a compelling framework for providing cost-effective, sustainable U.S. national security and helping allies manage the burdens of their own defense.

President Eisenhower used the Mutual Security Program (MSP) as a critical administrative distribution mechanism for billions of dollars in military and economic aid to what was then known as the Far East—countries including Taiwan (Republic of China), South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and Thailand.² Mutual security was included in seminal strategy document NSC 162/2³ as a necessary corollary to New Look policies of massive retaliation by improving allied nations’ defensive abilities and providing the United States with a flexible, low-cost method of deterring Communist activity. Eisenhower’s on-the-ground mechanism for allocating military assistance and developing local Asian forces was the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG)—not a radical innovation, but reliance on MAAGs to allocate billions of dollars was unprecedented. For example, MAAG personnel strength in Taiwan increased by over 400 percent after January 1953, and its budget tripled in the first year of the Eisenhower administration.⁴ During the 1950s large MAAGs were operating in the Republic of Korea, Thailand, Taiwan (Republic of China), Japan, and South Vietnam.⁵ Although military aid and advisory efforts were also applied to some degree in the Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Laos, the United States never saw these nations as central to security interests or vitally important to the overall goal of deterring China’s global influence.

In the following we will see that allied army building focused on the development of military institutions, undertaken through Eisenhower’s Mutual Security Program, was an essential—if underappreciated—counterpart to the better-known nuclear-deterrence strategy laid out in his New Look program. Eisenhower’s policy of building allied military capability in Japan, Taiwan, South Vietnam, Thailand, and South Korea provided a sustainable, nonassertive defensive network to safeguard American interests without endangering American lives. The Mutual Security Program and military assistance in Asia should be seen as a key part of a broader Eisenhower administration strategy that included covert action, psychological warfare, diplomatic brinksmanship, and nuclear deterrence.⁶ In addition to providing insights into U.S. national-security strategy and competition with China, understanding the Mutual Security Program offers a unique perspective on the Eisenhower administration and foreign affairs in the Cold War era.

Further, exploring the impact mutual security efforts had on the development of Defense and State Department programs as well as on the National Security Council sheds light on the bureaucratic and policy evolution of U.S. national-security strategy. The use of military aid to contain and deter the PRC while building the capabilities of East Asian allies has also had important ramifications in East Asia: Particularly in Taiwan and South Korea, military aid was essential in maintaining a semipeaceful status quo and improving economic conditions. Training personnel and providing capital also provided a solid groundwork for their rapid economic transformation. Moreover, the development of military institutions and large armies in East Asia has had a major impact throughout the region that has continued to influence local cultures and societies. A good example of this dynamic is found in military conscription, used in the United States during the Cold War; in the 1950s, U.S. military officers strongly advocated that their allies adopt a draft to supply armies with large amounts of young soldiers. In Taiwan and South Korea, military conscription continues to this day, though the United States abandoned the policy over forty years ago.

Throughout that decade the Eisenhower administration used five basic arguments when advocating for mutual security in East Asia: First, military aid was vital to building an East Asian alliance network critical to U.S. opposition to Communist military aggression, either from the USSR or the PRC. Second, the United States needed to ensure that allies, many of whom in East Asia were recovering from war and colonialism, weren’t overwhelmed by military spending, so targeted military aid provided sustainability to partner efforts. Third, mutual security developed and sustained military strength at a cheaper cost than fielding U.S. forces directly. Fourth, the forces of East Asian partners, being forward based on the perimeter of the PRC, were ideally located to deter and if necessary, engage hostile forces quickly. Fifth and finally, mutual security could slowly and steadily improve the economy and government of East Asian partner nations, providing a long-term advantage to the United State in the Cold War and an alternative to Communist development models.

In total, Eisenhower’s Mutual Security Program sought to establish a stable infrastructure of American allies in East Asia with capable military forces and laid the groundwork for democratic institutions and dynamic economies that, excepting South Vietnam, have become vital economic and political allies to the United States in the twenty-first century.

Eisenhower’s approach to East Asia continues to resonate in American foreign policy and offers a strategic framework that remains a useful and viable template for American military policy today. Building the military capabilities of threatened allies—now known as security force assistance—continues to be a significant part of American security and foreign policy because it provides a solution to enduring constraints on American international relations. Military aid and advisory efforts limit U.S. exposure to casualties, placing the brunt of the fighting and losses on local allies, avoiding a backlash from U.S. domestic audiences and a resulting decline in public support for foreign engagement. Eisenhower was shaped by the conflict in Korea, where a desire to limit boots on the ground required innovative thinking. A similar impulse to limit U.S. deployments has been a feature of the conflicts in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan; I will discuss recent military assistance, particularly in Afghanistan, in greater detail.

In addition, a policy of supporting local allies is often far cheaper than the expense of developing and deploying large numbers of American military forces to far-flung locations. In the 1950s, the cost of stationing American soldiers in East Asia was often more than double the expense of having a soldier stationed in the continental United States and five to ten times as expensive as the costs incurred by a South Korean, Taiwanese, or Vietnamese soldier. This disparity continues to impact American military policy, with a deployment of one U.S. soldier to Afghanistan costing over $2.1 million per person each year by recent figures, while local forces are less than $20,000 per year per person.⁷ The benefits of military assistance and coordination, which Eisenhower repeatedly defended, was most recently expressed in the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which noted that in a period of competition of China, Defending allies from military aggression and bolstering partners against coercion, and fairly sharing responsibilities for common defense, is essential to deterring and countering Chinese efforts.⁸

East Asian Security and the United States in the 1950s

Prior to the outbreak of war on the Korean Peninsula in 1950, the administration of President Harry S. Truman had taken little interest in supporting local military forces in East Asia, despite what NSC 68 described as ominous signs of further deterioration in the Far East following the establishment of the PRC.⁹ After North Korean forces attacked South Korea in June 1950, the Truman administration half-heartedly attempted to nurture local military institutions in East Asia that could utilize military assistance. Overwhelmed by the challenges of managing the fighting in Korea and the French situation in Indochina, their planning and support to military institutions was lethargic.

Truman accepted the recommendations of U.S. commanders to expand the Korean army, but the administration was noncommittal on ROC proposals to improve their equipment and add air and naval capabilities. Chiang Kai-shek was given just enough matériel and support to stabilize the ROC’s refugee army in Taiwan but not enough to rebuild an offensive force. Planning for a post-treaty military in Japan was cursory at best as the occupation drew to a close, and U.S. support for troops in Southeast Asia then extended no further than handing supplies to the French for distribution, with limited control over their actual use.

Upon taking office, President Eisenhower did not attempt to flip-flop policy overnight; while the Mutual Security Program was critical throughout the administration’s eight years, program focus shifted as situations and conditions changed. The initial focus in 1953 and 1954 was on Taiwan and South Korea, it shifted to Southeast Asia in the mid-1950s, and by the last years of the decade, Japan took up an increasing amount of time and effort. While the program remained largely constant in terms of goals and objectives, the steady development of greater skill and expertise in East Asia allowed American planners to first develop relatively straightforward military-assistance programs in Taiwan and South Korea before addressing more difficult, and more politically complex, situations in Vietnam and Japan.

To understand the complexities of Eisenhower’s mutual security in East Asia goes far toward understanding Eisenhower and his administration as a whole. Historical scholarship has long emphasized the complexities of U.S. foreign policy of the 1950s, during which time American response to the Cold War was increasingly refined and grew increasingly nuanced. Historical interpretations of Eisenhower the man have shifted radically over the years, from early narratives that stressed his folksy, perhaps simplistic style to revisionist accounts of a sophisticated and often ruthless politician. Prior to the mid-1970s, much of the scholarship stressed that, while Eisenhower had been a popular president, he was also somewhat adrift, unprepared for the hardball politics and complexities of dealing with Congress. In his 1958 work Eisenhower: Captive Hero, Marquis Childs set the tone, portraying Ike as a president politically isolated and without the grand visions for change that supposedly had driven the FDR and Truman administrations.¹⁰ More intellectual critics, such as Richard Neustadt, criticized Eisenhower’s management of national security as overly formal, with a bloated staff system having far too great an impact on policy.¹¹

These critiques began to shift in the 1970s as a new generation of historians, working against the backdrop of Vietnam and Watergate, began to appreciate Eisenhower’s quiet, deft use of power in what historian Fred Greenstein has described as the hidden-hand presidency.¹² The release of reams of government documents and Eisenhower’s personal materials also shed light on the development of critical decisions and policies from the 1950s, which Eisenhower had preferred to shape and debate behind closed doors. This book is clearly in the revisionist camp and supports the conclusion that Eisenhower pursued a clearly structured, efficiently implemented, and ultimately successful East Asia policy built around mutual security.

In analyzing Eisenhower’s foreign policy, particularly his approach to East Asia, scholarship has highlighted his aversion to direct involvement with American military forces. In their seminal reevaluation of his approach to world politics, Waging Peace, Robert Bowie and Richard Immerman contend that Eisenhower consistently adhered to his view that the United States should not provide major ground forces, which should be furnished indigenously or by others.¹³ One motivator of this aversion to military adventurism was Eisenhower’s deep-rooted concerns about long-term economic security, colored by the painful U.S. experience in Korea, which had turned into a costly war on the periphery of China with little benefit to the United States.¹⁴ Despite—or perhaps because of—Ike’s military background, revisionist scholars highlight his keen awareness of the hazards involved in military commitment, which led him to limit direct American involvement in Indochina and the Taiwan Straits.¹⁵

Academic research identifies alliance networks and bilateral security partnerships as critical to Eisenhower’s risk management at reasonable cost. Galia Press-Barnathan, scholar of Cold War alliance networks, suggests that Eisenhower’s regional approach should be seen as a flexible network of diplomatic agreements reliant on mobile local forces without permanent U.S. military commitment.¹⁶ Victor Cha similarly highlights the powerful role military alliances played in maintaining stability and also in inhibit[ing] the highly unpredictable leaders of both countries [Taiwan and South Korea] from provoking conflicts with North Korea and mainland China that might embroil the United States in a larger war on the Asian mainland.¹⁷ In his 2017 work examining the full history of American involvement in the Asian Pacific, Michael Green writes that Eisenhower’s strategy met the carefully delineated U.S. national security objectives of holding the line against Communist expansion while reducing the resources and risk required.¹⁸

The most detailed existing scholarship has focused on Taiwan, which benefited from Eisenhower’s policies more than any other country. And yet scholars have struggled to understand the complex relationship between the United States and the island nation. Robert Accinelli argues that an undercurrent of mistrust permeating the U.S.-ROC relationship means it fell primarily to the American [military] mission on the island to build mutual confidence; but Accinelli leaves the details of this military relationship unexamined.¹⁹ Taiwanese scholars have also reevaluated the Cold War U.S.–ROC relationship in the past two decades and have identified American military aid and advisors as important influences on a wide range of issues, ranging from defense planning to the development of sporting culture in Taiwan.²⁰ Chang Su-Ya, diplomatic historian at the prestigious Academia Sinica research institute in Taipei, has argued that Eisenhower-era relations between the United States and the Republic of China (Taiwan) were characterized by utilitarian calculations of military strength and political advantage rather than by any ideological special relationship between the two countries.²¹ In both assessments, military connections and mutual security support linked the two nations around a shared commitment to muting the influence and deterring expansion of the PRC.

The Mutual Security Program

As Dwight D. Eisenhower took the oath of office on January 20, 1953, he assumed responsibility for a massive Department of Defense and byzantine State Department bureaucracies, which shared responsibility for the mutual-security mission. Over the prior decade, the Truman administration had created a framework for global military assistance and foreign aid, but its emphasis had been on supplying European armies, all of which had well-trained officers and established administrative structures. The Eisenhower administration’s decision to shift military assistance to East Asia made issues of partner capacity, officer and technical training, and military advising critical areas of concern, requiring sustained improvement.

The Truman administration had made several key changes to administrative structures but hadn’t fully utilized the powerful organizational and policy-making tools granted by Congress. In October 1951 the Mutual Security Agency (MSA) had been established to provide economic and technical aid as well as military assistance to foreign nations. Despite the crisis atmosphere of the early Cold War and congressional authority to expand mutual security programs in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, Truman and his administration focused on Western Europe, where familiar partners and similar political systems made coordination easy. In East Asia, spending lagged, many key positions remained unfilled, and high-level interest was lacking, with few visits by senior leaders. The administration’s development of mutual security primarily involved military assistance to NATO and was successful in improving European capabilities, but the program lacked the administrative infrastructure and high-level sponsorship to fully accomplish its missions in East Asia.

The incoming Eisenhower administration reoriented the focus of mutual-security efforts to rebalance the global program, with East Asia becoming a critical region of engagement. Eisenhower also wanted to better integrate mutual security into U.S. foreign policy, thus creating the Foreign Operations Administration (FOA) in August 1953. Mutual security also became central to official policy. In its seminal national-security policy document NSC 162/2, which established the budget-conscious, nuclear weapons–centric policy that would become known as the New Look, the Eisenhower administration states that The military striking power necessary to retaliate depends for the foreseeable future on having bases in allied countries. Furthermore, the ground forces required to counter local aggressions must be supplied largely by our allies. NSC 162/2 notes that, though the Far East had no broad security alliance as Europe had NATO, the region required greater U.S. support than it was then receiving. In the Far East, the report found, the United States should maintain the security of the offshore island chain [Japan and Taiwan] and continue to develop the defensive capacity of Korea and Southeast Asia in accordance with existing commitments.²²

By 1957 the results of Eisenhower’s reenergized Mutual Security Program in East Asia were obvious, as funding directly supported six army divisions in Japan, twenty divisions in Korea, twenty-one divisions in Taiwan, ten divisions in South Vietnam, and two divisions in Thailand. While not all of these possessed the same firepower and matériel as a U.S. Army division, they were vastly cheaper to sustain. These fifty-nine divisions of local troops were supplied and equipped for the same amount it would have cost to forward deploy five American divisions in East Asia.²³

Despite these unambiguous accomplishments and the centrality of mutual security to America’s early Cold War strategy, few studies examine Mutual Security Program operations on the ground or the challenges that arose during the 1950s. Historians Nancy Tucker, Akira Iriye, and others have suggested that, despite cultural and personality differences and often-divergent political goals, American and East Asian leaders created durable structures to enable long-term engagement; but these studies focus on diplomatic endeavors.²⁴ In recent years historians have begun to look at American military advisors and aid as major factors in post-1945 international engagement, finally moving beyond simplistic depictions of advisors as naive crusaders (The Quiet American) or outcasts from the military establishment (A Bright Shining Lie).²⁵ Bryan Gibby’s Will to Win places the Korea Military Advisory Group (KMAG) in a central role throughout the Korean War.²⁶ Ron Spector’s Advice and Support details more than two decades of military interaction in Vietnam that not only set the stage for later large-scale combat operations but also firmly established patterns of behavior and expectations among both American and Vietnamese officers.²⁷

Though our understanding of the Eisenhower administration and new perspectives on the early Cold War era continue to evolve, significant gaps remain in the historical record. Indeed, before they can create an accurate picture of American regional military policy in the 1950s, noted historian Marc Gallicchio in 1990, historians need to learn more about the activities of the MAAGs.²⁸ Thus my efforts here to integrate MAAGs into U.S. national policy at the regional level. A related area of historiographical weakness is the study of military development of East Asian nations outside of their wartime experiences. Numerous studies of the Korean War, the Vietnamese conflict, and the Taiwan Straits crises provide episodic glimpses of a longer, more sustained military development; this work will integrate military institutional development into the broader historical narrative.

Finally, while studies of combined (interstate) training and contact have improved our understand of World War II and the Vietnam conflicts, peacetime ties between armies, especially in army building, are overwhelmingly focused on current events. The growth of the Iraqi and Afghan armies has been amply scrutinized, whereas the historical examples considered here have heretofore been given little attention.

Enduring Challenges and Persistent Issues

From a strategic perspective, Eisenhower’s use of the Mutual Security Program tremendously benefited the United States, creating a network of similarly equipped and well-trained forces that could deter China and provide staunch resistance if attacked. Despite strategic gains the United States made in East Asia, mutual security was difficult to defend from partisans back home who felt foreign aid was both misused abroad and better spent domestically. Throughout his administration—but particularly during his second term—Eisenhower and his staff spent precious time and political capital defending military-assistance policies from critics in Congress. The years spanning 1956 through 1961 were marked by nearly constant attacks on both the goals of the Mutual Security Program and the methods used to implement them. In 1957, domestic critics began pushing for reductions to military-assistance funding, as well as for reorientation of the program to support broader economic-development efforts.

In addition to the battles between the executive and legislative branches, an enduring bureaucratic struggle over control of mutual-security policies between the Defense Department and the State Department hindered effective administration. Eisenhower’s initial plan was to separate mutual security from both departments with creation of the Foreign Operations Administration (FOA) under former Minnesota governor Harold E. Stassen. A skilled politician, Stassen did well with the public and Congress, but without Washington experience, he was less effective in managing complex bureaucracies and fending off Defense and State power grabs. These inevitable problems led to FOA’s elimination by executive order in May 1955, after which the interdepartmental tug-of-war continued, with the State Department increasingly influencing aid policy through the International Cooperation Administration (ICA), but with the Defense Department retaining responsibility for executing policy for this new and vastly larger military program.

Personal views within Defense and State also impacted the Mutual Security Program. Even within the Army—the main service tasked with its implementation within the DoD—many of Eisenhower’s former subordinates offered significant opposition to the plan. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway adamantly opposed cuts to Army force structure that would allow for greater spending in nuclear retaliation and mutual security; he was not given a second term as the Army’s senior-most officer. Lt. Gen. James M. Gavin, the famed World War II commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, in what was largely interpreted as a protest against administration policies, announced his retirement despite being seen as a rising star in the Army.²⁹ Ridgeway’s successor, Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, was equally opposed to Eisenhower’s approach but was more diplomatic, thus serving a full four-year term as chief of staff. After his retirement, however, Taylor wrote a scathing critique in The Uncertain Trumpet, wherein he argued for a larger, more deployable Army force that could intervene in brushfire wars, taking the burden off local allies.³⁰ At a more junior level, enthusiasm for mutual security was similarly lacking for engagement with East Asia, and the State and Defense departments continued their long-term orientation toward Europe. For example, Foreign Service officer language-proficiency records from 1957 reveal that the State Department had 752 fluent French speakers, 427 fluent German speakers, and even 36 fluent Swedish speakers, but not a single Foreign Service officer was fluent in Korean, Vietnamese, or Thai, and only thirty spoke Japanese.³¹

Also a hotly debated issue was the role American advisors should play in internal affairs and activities such as policing and counterinsurgency—what are known today as foreign internal defense (FID) missions. After the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev shifted Soviet policy from direct military confrontation—as undertaken with the Berlin Blockade and with its support for the invasion of South Korea. Increasingly the USSR began to encourage internal opposition from Communist actors in many formerly colonial developing countries; further, economic and military support were boosted in nations not already firmly linked to the United States.³²

American military officers and civilian officials had tried to remain at arm’s length from the internal security policies in East Asia, finding the autocratic attitudes of Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan and Syngman Rhee in Korea distasteful, as they interfered with the growth of professional military forces. Upon presidential inquiry regarding American aid to constabulary forces to maintain internal security and destroy the effectiveness of the Communist apparatus in free world countries, the awkward response was that there was no such current program.³³ Subsequently, the National Security Council formed a working group in February 1955 to examine the threat of Communist subversion of vulnerable allies; but it took time to formulate a policy that made sense in foreign countries and that also satisfied Washington bureaucracy.³⁴

In Southeast Asia, where nation building went hand in hand with army building, internal security issues were especially salient. MAAG officers were perplexed by chaotic political conundrums and required internal security forces to fight guerrillas and bandits, but these could also be used to deter foreign aggression or engage in conventional warfare if needed. In South Vietnam and Thailand, the internal security mission was not embraced by either U.S. military or State Department planners, neither party considering it their area of expertise.

Scholarship on internal security and FID mission is equally confusing, largely due to methodological issues in academia. Historians have been slow to engage with internal security operations, and the field has been dominated by political scientists and international relations scholars too often focused on finding applicable lessons rather than deepening our understanding of strategy and underlying issues. Mara Karlin’s 2018 work Building Militaries in Fragile States is indicative of this dynamic: using a simplistic analysis of South Vietnam alongside examples from Greece and Lebanon, Karlin argue for greater U.S. involvement in partner military affairs such as officer promotion³⁵—a proscription barely concealing a neocolonial ethos of control rather than real partnership. The RAND Corporation has underwritten multiple studies into the relationship between the U.S. military and recipients of its assistance; most notable is their 2006 work Securing Tyrants or Fostering Reform? U.S. Internal Security Assistance to Repressive and Transitioning Regimes, which pessimistically concludes that there are neither clear nor truly satisfying solutions to the conundrum of internal security assistance to repressive and transitioning states.³⁶

One final issue facing the Eisenhower administration continues to impact American policy makers today: the delicate balancing of the military support provided such that the recipient country never begins to feel entitled to aid or reduce its own defense spending, becoming reliant on American largesse. In East Asia—particularly Japan—there was the danger that local leaders would rely on the United States to ensure their security and thus justify cuts to their own military budgets. The free rider problem has become central in the ongoing debate over mutual security efforts, providing domestic critics of the program with justification for funding cuts. In contrast, U.S. leaders have worried that developing large military forces in less-prosperous and less economically advanced nations like Thailand and South Vietnam would mean that any withdrawal of long-term U.S. support would collapse their fragile military institutions in the absence of domestic resources. Finding an appropriate balance for a military support that is sustainable politically and also effective in bolstering allies remains a difficult challenge for American strategists.

Chapter Outlines

The structure of this book is broadly chronological and focuses on the period from 1952 to 1960, examining the policies of the Eisenhower administration, the local impact of military assistance in East Asia, and the necessary policy changes and reforms made during the late 1950s.Chapter 1 reviews the historical background of mutual security policies inherited from the Truman administration and the legacies of mistrust between the United States and nations in the Far East. Chapter 2 examines the strategy and policy of the Eisenhower administration during its first term, as it sought to expand and reshape military and economic aid to achieve sustained deterrence in East Asia. Chapter 3 covers the development of South Korean military and economic sectors with U.S. assistance. Chapter 4 focuses on Taiwan, the first test case for Eisenhower’s approach, and how American military aid and advising impacted a regional partner. Chapter 5 looks at revisions and reforms to mutual security efforts in response to public and congressional criticisms,