War and State Building
in Cold War Burma I
I'm writing a book review for publication by blogging out the issues first.
The book is Dr. Mary P. Callahan's Making Enemies: War and State Building in Burma(2005, Cornell University Press). Two initial observations:
1. Without a bibliography it is hard to see what sources the study relies on.
2. "Cold War" and "United States" are not even in the index, but "CIA" is. "Cold War" does figure prominently in the book blurb though.
Is this only a local history? Wasn't Burma part of the larger Cold War world history of the time?
Important historical facts are presented, but no use is made of them. U Nu's inability to get an invitation to visit Washington and the warm welcome given to Ne Win at the Pentagon seem strangely ironic given that military officers are now denied visas. Why is this important fact relegated to an endnote? (see endnote 11, p. 252). A Burmese newspaper article is the source. Surely, American government archives could provide independent confirmation. Newspapers by themselves can be unreliable.
The fact that western military academies hardly provided any openings for Burma is also interesting (p. 167-8), but once again nothing is made of it. High level military officers in the Phillipines educated at West Point in the United States have played important roles in political change. Personal military relations with the United States have played a role in political change in the Phillipines.
Education abroad in western countries was a conduit for ideas and ideology during the cold war era. Ideas that later had a formative influence on military ideologies and state control. Pol Pot and Ho Chi Men were both educated in France. Kim Il Sung resided in the Soviet Union for a time. Professor Jonathan Spence's Gate of Heavenly Peace chronicles Soviet relations with Chinese intellectuals.
Many blame Burma's current political problems on over 40 years of isolationism, a policy that grew in the cold war's highly polarized political atmosphere, yet I encountered no discussion of isolationism in the book. Both the facts mentioned above have bearing on Burma's growing isolation from the rest of the world during the Cold War.
"How did Burma become so isolated and isolationist?" is the biggest question I have about Burma during the U Nu 1950's. By focusing so narrowly on internal military politics, this book only begins to answer this question.
The book is Dr. Mary P. Callahan's Making Enemies: War and State Building in Burma(2005, Cornell University Press). Two initial observations:
1. Without a bibliography it is hard to see what sources the study relies on.
2. "Cold War" and "United States" are not even in the index, but "CIA" is. "Cold War" does figure prominently in the book blurb though.
Is this only a local history? Wasn't Burma part of the larger Cold War world history of the time?
Important historical facts are presented, but no use is made of them. U Nu's inability to get an invitation to visit Washington and the warm welcome given to Ne Win at the Pentagon seem strangely ironic given that military officers are now denied visas. Why is this important fact relegated to an endnote? (see endnote 11, p. 252). A Burmese newspaper article is the source. Surely, American government archives could provide independent confirmation. Newspapers by themselves can be unreliable.
The fact that western military academies hardly provided any openings for Burma is also interesting (p. 167-8), but once again nothing is made of it. High level military officers in the Phillipines educated at West Point in the United States have played important roles in political change. Personal military relations with the United States have played a role in political change in the Phillipines.
Education abroad in western countries was a conduit for ideas and ideology during the cold war era. Ideas that later had a formative influence on military ideologies and state control. Pol Pot and Ho Chi Men were both educated in France. Kim Il Sung resided in the Soviet Union for a time. Professor Jonathan Spence's Gate of Heavenly Peace chronicles Soviet relations with Chinese intellectuals.
Many blame Burma's current political problems on over 40 years of isolationism, a policy that grew in the cold war's highly polarized political atmosphere, yet I encountered no discussion of isolationism in the book. Both the facts mentioned above have bearing on Burma's growing isolation from the rest of the world during the Cold War.
"How did Burma become so isolated and isolationist?" is the biggest question I have about Burma during the U Nu 1950's. By focusing so narrowly on internal military politics, this book only begins to answer this question.
posted by Jon Fernquest at 11:20 PM
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