Domino theory The domino theory existed from the 1950s to the 1980s . It was promoted at times by the United States government and speculated that if one state in a region came under the influence of communism , then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect . The domino theory was used by successive United States administrations during the Cold War to justify the need for American intervention around the world . Referring to communism in Indochina , U . S . President Dwight D . Eisenhower put the theory into words during an April 7 , 1954 news conference : History . In 1945 , the Soviet Union brought most of the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Europe under its influence as part of the post - World War II new settlement , while prompting Winston Churchill to declare in a speech in 1946 at Westminster College in Fulton , Missouri that : Following the Iran crisis of 1946 , Harry Truman declared what became known as the Truman Doctrine in 1947 , promising to contribute financial aid to Greece during the Civil War and to Turkey following World War II , in the hope that this would impede the advancement of Communism into Western Europe . Later that year , diplomat George Kennan wrote an article in " Foreign Affairs " magazine that became known as the " X Article " , which first articulated the policy of containment , arguing that the further spread of Communism to countries outside a " buffer zone " around the USSR , even if it happened via democratic elections , was unacceptable and a threat to U . S . national security . Kennan was also involved , along with others in the Truman administration , in creating the Marshall Plan , which also began in 1947 , to give aid to the countries of Western Europe ( along with Greece and Turkey ) , in large part with the hope of keeping them from falling under Soviet domination . In 1949 , China became a Communist country ( officially the People ' s Republic of China ) after Chinese Communist rebels defeated the Nationalist Republican government in the conclusion of the Chinese Civil War ( 1927 ~ 1949 ) . Two Chinas were formed - mainland ' Communist China ' ( People ' s Republic of China ) and ' Nationalist China ' Taiwan ( Republic of China ) . The takeover by Communists of the world ' s most populous nation was seen in the West as a great strategic loss , prompting the popular question at the time , " Who lost China ? " Korea had also partially fallen under Soviet domination at the end of World War II , and in 1950 fighting broke out between Communists and Republicans that soon involved troops from China ( on the Communists ' side ) , and the United States and 15 allied countries ( on the Republicans ' side ) . The war has not officially ended to this day but the fighting ended in 1953 with an armistice that left Korea divided into two nations , North Korea and South Korea . In March 1954 , the Viet Minh , a Communist and nationalist army , defeated French troops and took control of what became North Vietnam . This caused the French to fully withdraw from the region then known as French Indochina , a process they had begun earlier . The region now comprised four independent countries : North Vietnam , South Vietnam , Cambodia and Laos . President Eisenhower was the first to refer to countries in danger of Communist takeover as dominoes , in response to a journalist ' s question about Indochina in an April 7 , 1954 news conference , though he did not use the term " domino theory " . If Communists succeeded in taking over the rest of Indochina , Eisenhower argued , local groups would then have the encouragement , material support and momentum to take over Burma , Thailand , Malaya and Indonesia ; all of these countries had large popular Communist movements and insurgencies within their borders at the time . This would give them a geographical and economic strategic advantage , and it would make Japan , Taiwan , the Philippines , Australia , and New Zealand the front - line defensive states . The loss of regions traditionally within the vital regional trading area of countries like Japan would encourage the front - line countries to compromise politically with communism . Eisenhower ' s domino theory of 1954 was a specific description of the situation and conditions within Southeast Asia at the time , and he did not suggest a generalized domino theory as others did afterward . The John F . Kennedy administration intervened in Vietnam in the early 1960s to , among other reasons , keep the South Vietnamese " domino " from falling . When Kennedy came to power there was concern that the communist - led Pathet Lao in Laos would provide the Viet Cong with bases , and that eventually they could take over Laos . Arguments in favor of the domino theory . The primary evidence for the domino theory is the spread of communist rule in three Southeast Asian countries in 1975 , following the communist takeover of Vietnam : South Vietnam ( by the Viet Cong ) , Laos ( by the Pathet Lao ) , and Cambodia ( by the Khmer Rouge ) . It can further be argued that before they finished taking Vietnam prior to the 1950s , the communist campaigns did not succeed in Southeast Asia . Note the Malayan Emergency , the Huk Rebellion in the Philippines , and the increasing involvement with Communists by Sukarno of Indonesia from the late 1950s until he was deposed in 1965 . All of these were unsuccessful Communist attempts to take over Southeast Asian countries which stalled when communist forces were still focused in Vietnam . Walt Rostow and Lee Kuan Yew have argued that the U . S . intervention in Indochina , by giving the nations of ASEAN time to consolidate and engage in economic growth , prevented a wider domino effect . McGeorge Bundy argues that the prospects for a domino effect , though high in the 1950s and early 1960s , were weakened in 1965 when the Indonesian communist party was destroyed . However , proponents ultimately believe that the efforts during the containment ( i . e . Domino Theory ) period , ultimately led the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War . Some supporters of the domino theory note the history of communist governments supplying aid to communist revolutionaries in neighboring countries . For instance , China supplied the Vietminh , the North Vietnamese army , with troops and supplies , and the Soviet Union supplied them with tanks and heavy weapons . The fact that the Pathet Lao and Khmer Rouge were both originally part of the Vietminh , not to mention Hanoi ' s support for both in conjunction with the Viet Cong , also give credence to the theory . The Soviet Union also heavily supplied Sukarno with military supplies and advisors from the time of the Guided Democracy in Indonesia , especially during and after the 1958 civil war in Sumatra . Noam Chomsky , a linguist , writes that he believes the Domino theory is roughly accurate , although he put a more positive spin on the threat , writing on the basis that economic improvements to a poor country will always bring better life for its people . If a people in a poor country see another poor country dictate its economy and improve it , the former will of course want to emulate the latter . This is why , he claims , the US put so much effort into suppressing so - called " people ' s movements " in Chile , Vietnam , Nicaragua , Laos , Grenada , El Salvador , Guatemala , etc . " The weaker and poorer a country is , the more dangerous it is as an example . If a tiny , poor country like Grenada can succeed in bringing about a better life for its people , some other place that has more resources will ask , ' Why not us ? ' " Chomsky refers to this as the " threat of a good example . " Chomsky claims there are two domino effects , one internally discussed between US policy makers , which is that of the " Good Example " , and another for public consumption , that of the spread of Communism . Arguments against the domino theory . The primary evidence against the domino theory is the failure of Communism to take hold in Thailand , Indonesia , and other large Southeast Asian countries after the end of the Vietnam War , as Eisenhower ' s speech warned it could . However , proponents of this policy argue that this was due in part to the effects of both the Korean and Vietnam Wars . Critics of the theory charged that the Indochinese wars were largely indigenous or nationalist in nature ( such as the Vietnamese driving out the French ) , and that no such monolithic force as " world communism " existed . There was already fracturing of communist states at the time , the most serious of which was the rivalry between the Soviet Union and China , known as the Sino - Soviet split , which began in the 1950s . Indeed , Vietnam and Cambodia were at odds from the very beginning . Rivalry between China and the USSR may have exacerbated tensions between them , since Vietnam had affiliated itself with the USSR and Cambodia with China , but nationalism and territorial disputes were obviously more significant factors . Border conflicts , mostly in the form of massacres of Vietnamese peasants carried out by the Khmer Rouge , occurred frequently for the duration of their nearly four years in power , eventually leading to the Cambodian - Vietnamese War of 1978 - 1979 , when Vietnam overthrew the Khmer Rouge and took control of Cambodia . This in turn led China to attack Vietnam in 1979 in the brief Sino - Vietnamese War , and to U . S . and Thai support for the Khmer Rouge , who renounced communism and continued to fight as a guerrilla force against the Vietnamese - backed government until the mid - 1990s . In the cases of both Laos and Cambodia , the adoption of communism was directly attributable to the Vietnam War , which had spread over the borders of Vietnam into these countries , and to Vietnam ' s political regional ambitions , which included directly organizing communist parties in both countries . The fall of Laos was essentially due to repeated outright invasions by Vietnam and the inability of the army of Laos to defend the country . The fall of Cambodia had more complex causes but ultimately also resulted from the country being dragged into the Vietnam war , first by the Viet Cong who operated bases in the country and used it as part of the Ho Chi Minh trail , and then by full scale NVA attack , in conjunction with the Khmer Rouge , against the pro - U . S Lon Nol republic . The U . S . and South Vietnamese forces also contributed to widening of the war when they invaded and heavily bombed Cambodia in an attempt to root out those bases , causing an upsurge of popular resentment Opponents also argued that the domino theory misrepresented the real nature of the widespread and growing civil opposition that the previous , U . S . - backed regimes in these countries had generated because of entrenched official corruption and widespread human rights abuses , notably in South Vietnam . Applications to communism outside Southeast Asia . Michael Lind has argued that though the domino theory failed regionally , there was a global wave , as communist or Marxist - Leninist regimes came to power in Benin , Ethiopia , Guinea - Bissau , Madagascar , Cape Verde , Mozambique , Angola , Afghanistan , Grenada , and Nicaragua during the 1970s . The global interpretation of the domino effect relies heavily upon the " prestige " interpretation of the theory , meaning that the success of Communist revolutions in some countries , though it did not provide material support to revolutionary forces in other countries , did contribute morale and rhetorical support . In this vein , Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara wrote an essay , the " Message to the Tricontinental " , in 1967 , calling for " two , three . . . many Vietnams " across the world . Historian Max Boot wrote , " In the late 1970s , America ' s enemies seized power in countries from Mozambique to Iran to Nicaragua . American hostages were seized aboard the SS Mayaguez ( off Cambodia ) and in Tehran . The Red Army invaded Afghanistan . There is no obvious connection with the Vietnam War , but there is little doubt that the defeat of a superpower encouraged our enemies to undertake acts of aggression that they might otherwise have shied away from . " In addition , this theory can be further bolstered by the rise in terrorist incidents by left - wing terrorist groups in Western Europe , funded in part by Communist governments , between the 1960s and 1980s . In Italy , this includes the kidnapping and assassination of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro , and the kidnapping of former US Brigadier General James L . Dozier , by the Red Brigades . In West Germany , this includes the terrorist actions of the Red Army Faction . In the far east the Japanese Red Army carried out similar acts . All four , as well as others worked with various Arab and Palestinian terrorists , which like the red brigades were backed by the Soviet Bloc . In the 1977 Frost / Nixon interviews , Richard Nixon defended America ' s destabilization of the Salvador Allende regime in Chile on domino theory grounds . Borrowing a metaphor he had heard , he stated that a Communist Chile and Cuba would create a " red sandwich " that could entrap Latin America between them . In the 1980s , the domino theory was used again to justify the Reagan administration ' s interventions in Central America and the Caribbean region . In his memoirs , former Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith described the successive rise of authoritarian left - wing governments in Sub - Saharan Africa during decolonization as " the communists ' domino tactic " . The establishment of pro - communist governments in Tanzania ( 1961 – 64 ) and Zambia ( 1964 ) and explicitly Marxist - Leninist governments in Angola ( 1975 ) , Mozambique ( 1975 ) , and eventually Rhodesia itself ( in 1980 ) are cited by Smith as evidence of " the insidious encroachment of Soviet imperialism down the continent . " Other applications . Some foreign policy analysts in the United States have referred to the potential spread of both Islamic theocracy and liberal democracy in the Middle East as two different possibilities for a domino theory . During the Iran - Iraq war the United States and other western nations supported Iraq , fearing the spread of Iran ' s radical theocracy throughout the region . In the 2003 invasion of Iraq , some neoconservative s argued that when a democratic government is implemented , it would then help spread democracy and liberalism across the Middle East , and a war can install a democratic government . This has often been referred to as a " reverse domino theory , " to avoid confusion with the communist domino theory because it ' s based on influence instead of military aid .