Abridged from Andy Carvin's excellent site, "From Sideshow to Genocide: Stories of the Cambodian Holocaust"

3. The War Comes to Cambodia

From 1955 to 1970, Prince Norodom Sihanouk was the only viable leader in Cambodia. He was also the only man whose political ruthlessness could manage to keep Cambodia out of the coming war that would ravage Vietnam and Laos. Cambodia was at peace, and for the moment, Sihanouk maintained his mandate. Though he himself was no communist, he correctly perceived the likelihood of North Vietnam eventually defeating South Vietnam. Cambodia was militarily weak, so the only way to avoid losing his country in the crossfire was to make friends with his most dangerous enemy - the North Vietnamese. His overtures to the communist bloc made the governments of the West very nervous. Even Sihanouk's own ministers, who were steadfastly anti-Vietnamese, privately balked at the idea of acquiescing to Ho Chi Minh.

Prince Norodom Sihanouk

In Washington DC, the number of Sihanouk critics seemed to increase every day. Following the end of World War II, policymakers within the corridors of the US State Department had begun to embrace what would eventually become known as domino theory, which held that weak governments in a given geographical area were easily susceptible to communism once communists had achieved a foothold nearby.

In the grand scheme of Asian domino theory, the former Indochina colonies - including Cambodia - were considered a collective domino waiting to topple; understandably, Sihanouk's subsequent public courtship with communist leaders in China and Vietnam angered many American politicians. Yet despite the tempestuousness of their relationship, the US managed to support Cambodia with financial aid. Some of Sihanouk's ministers, including a frail but well-connected general named Lon Nol, became friendly with the US thanks to the steady flow of economic aid.

In 1963, however, when unpopular South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem was murdered in a coup that was tacitly supported by the US, Sihanouk was furious with what he saw as the United States' arrogant interference in Asia's local affairs. He refused further aid and ordered the US embassy staff out of Cambodia.

Meanwhile a new war between North and South Vietnam escalated. The French were long gone from the scene, so American presidents Kennedy and Johnson successively supplied a growing stream of military advisors to aid South Vietnam's Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), which was fighting both the North Vietnam Army (NVA and the Viet Cong (VC), a guerilla network of armed South Vietnamese citizens who supported the North.

Cambodia was internationally regarded as neutral, but the communists gambled that they could take advantage of Sihanouk's military weakness and hide in Cambodian forests along the border. Sihanouk knew he couldn't afford to make Hanoi an enemy, so he never raised a significant protest against these border incursions.

1. The Fall of Angkor and French Colonialism
2. Independence, and the Beginnings of War in Vietnam
3. The War Comes to Cambodia
4. US Involvement in Cambodia
5. The Coming of the Khmer Rouge
6. Cambodia Under Pol Pot
7. The Vietnamese Invasion
8. Rebuilding Cambodia