"Dave Hall" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 15 Jan 2005 16:02:26 -0800, -rick- wrote:

Dave Hall wrote:
The domino theory as I know it is a scientific theory. I do not know
the specifics of how it applied in this case. But I do know that the
war was to prevent the spread of communism.

from:
http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/1122science7.html

--
In a non-scientific example, the Domino Theory was an explicit statement
of what many Americans thought would happen if a single country in a
given region (e.g. southeast Asia) had a communist government. The
implicit paradigm was that the US ought to be, and had to be, involved
in a global struggle with another superpower over what kind of political
system would dominate the world's governments.

I totally understand the paranoia which drove "the red scare" from
McCarthy on. I just never heard the term "domino effect" applied to
it.

In another message, you stated that you vividly and accurately remembered
all sorts of stuff from the 1970s. The domino theory (which, by the way, was
a political and military concept, not a scientific one), was not an idea you
only read about in obscure research papers. It was as much a part of the
language as the word "e-mail" is today.


Considering the imperialistic nature of many communist states, we were
justified in much of our concern. Many countries were pulled behind
the iron curtain against their wills, and we tried to prevent it as
much as possible.

Dave

We did exactly the same thing, as I'm sure you recall. Think Africa, and
Central & South America. Think Iran-Contra.