Whatever the appearance, the underlying contradictions in the “national security” policy of the Nixon administration were more extreme than ever. On the one hand, immense violence aimed at North and South Vietnam (along with locations in Laos and Cambodia) and on the other, great cordiality directed toward the communist superpowers that remained Hanoi’s allies and chief suppliers. Cold War logic had been turned on its head, and the exaggerated fears of communist expansionism that might once have underpinned the military project in Southeast Asia had ceased to apply.
