The United States in Cambodia

\"A demonstration of American impotence in Asia cannot fail to lessen the credibility of American pledges in other fields… We are no longer fighting in Vietnam only for the Vietnamese; we are also fighting for ourselves.\" -Henry Kissinger (Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs) In John T Rourke\'s International Politics on the World Stage, a distinction is made between two kinds of power, coercive and persuasive. Coercive power is the power to …

…more costly, but also because it is a better decision. Nixon and Kissinger lacked morality when making their decisions and were thinking very selfishly, not taking into account what consequences their actions would have. In 1967, Lyndon Johnson refused to bomb Cambodia because of domestic protest and damage to Cambodia\'s neutrality. He weighed the options and decided it would not be a good idea. Nixon did not weigh the options and the effects were disastrous.