This theory gained currency during the height of the Cold War to argue for and justify American interventionism across the globe, especially in Southeast Asia, and Central America in the 1980s. It held that the communist advance has to be resisted, because the fall of one nation to communism creates congenial conditions for a similar replication in the neighbourhood. The verdict on the theory’s robustness is mixed, with critics pointing to Thailand, Indonesia, and other large Southeast Asian countries not succumbing to communist takeovers as a case in point, and others arguing that it was American involvement that stemmed a wider spread.
