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The Cold War is often presented as two near unified blocks competing against each other for global dominance. The democratic capitalist world on the one hand and the communist world on the other. And whilst we all know that the nations within them didn't always get along, open warfare between members of those blocks was rare. One notable example of this is when communist Vietnam launched a full-scale invasion of its communist neighbor Cambodia in spite of Cambodia's help during its war against America. So what exactly led to this? Why did Vietnam invade its neighbor, former ally and co-revolutionary? And what did it want to achieve? So, as you'll know, Vietnam spent the 1960s divided into two halves.
The North being communist and the South being capitalist. These two were supposed to remain distinct nations, but it wasn't long before fighting erupted. America got involved and so Vietnam War. Whilst this was ongoing, neighboring Cambodia was also embroiled in a civil war in which both communist governments aided the other where they could. North Vietnam eventually conquered the South as the Americans were leaving and unified the country under communist rule. About 2 weeks before the northern Vietnamese victory over the south, Paul Pot had put an end to the Kamir Republic and established a communist government
in Cambodia which was renamed to Democratic Campuchea whose government is better known as the Kamir Rouge. So initially these two governments celebrated their neighbors success and roughly 4 seconds later went back to hating each other. Why? Well, there were two main reasons for this animosity. The first was that Vietnam had historically invaded and subjugated Cambodia which people there remembered. And even during the communist insurrection against the French, the resistance was dominated by the Vietnamese, which led to some resentment. The second reason was cold war politics. As you'll know, China and the USSR had previously had a falling out. And whilst Vietnam had been supported in its war primarily by the
USSR, the Kamir Rouge had received most of its support from China. As a result, the two were worried about being victims of invasion by the other if things got heated. So after taking power, PPOT wanted to reset Cambodian society. This meant that it was time to purge everyone who potentially could have opposed him or communist rule. He targeted, and I use the term very lightly, former political and military leaders, religious minorities, ethnic minorities, and this purge would soon be known as the Cambodian genocide because within a 4-year period, it saw the untimely end of about a quarter of Cambodia's pre-polep population. As a part of this purge, and in order to shore up his
popularity, PPO called upon Cambodians to resist the Vietnamese, whom he claimed were planning on conquering the country. By 1978, thanks to help from China, Cambodia's military had grown in strength. And so it launched border raids into Vietnam with the hope of bullying them into submission. And to the surprise of exactly one person, this didn't work. Popot decided that this failure wasn't down to him invading a much stronger neighbor, but was in fact down to betrayal. And so it was obviously time for another purge, this time of the army and the government again. And some of those who were targeted fled to Vietnam. And not long after this, their new protectors with its much stronger military launched an
invasion to remove Palpot. The reason being to establish a neighboring government that was both more friendly and much less mass murdery. The invasion didn't take very long and Pulpot's government collapsed in about two weeks and Vietnam then installed a puppet government. The Vietnamese were seen as both liberators and invaders by the Cambodians. And given how objectively dreadful Pulpot was, the international community saw the Vietnamese invasion largely as a humanitarian one. Vietnam had hoped to leverage this with the hope of obtaining international recognition for Cambodia's new government. However, this didn't happen because China was worried about Vietnam conquering former
French Indochina, which would then place a powerful Soviet ally on their southern border. And the West opposed it for two reasons. The first being that watching communist governments fight each other was always hilarious. And two, it would require them to acknowledge that Hanoi's communist government had done a good thing, which obviously wasn't going to happen. After a decade of fighting against guerrilla resistance, the Cold War was coming to a close. And so, Vietnam announced that it was going to leave Cambodia, and the Cambodian government agreed that it would reform under the supervision of the United Nations. A peace treaty was agreed. Some of the nation's former politicians were
allowed to return. Cambodia restored its monarchy and reformed itself into the modern nation of Cambodia, which still exists to this day. I hope you enjoyed this episode with a special thanks to my patrons James Bizernet Sky Chappelle Cartka Udwan Wang Wan Hockey Anthony Beckett's Blue Cardinal Alex Schwin a Firefly Spencer Lightfoot Captain Sydog the McWer the Flying Deutschand Gustav Swan Robert C Perkins Shuenin Michael Halbert Castle Bravo Marvin Cassau Winston Kwood Rod D Martin spinning three plates Andy McGee Kimoon Yun Danny Atanasio Murza Ahmed Copper Tone Maggie Pascowski Hy from Starv Arthur Joseie Jr. Kitro, Remco, Hoistman, Jim Sternberg, Bet Kabot, Charles I, and Lord Beak.
