The return of the ‘domino theory’: Do we have a disaster complex?

In his first State of the Union address in March 2022, President Biden, speaking in the shadow of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, proclaimed, “In the battle between democracy and autocracy, democracies are rising to the moment, and the world is clearly choosing the side of peace and security.” Robert A. Manning, a Stimson Center distinguished fellow, in an opinion piece for The Hill, declared that Biden “has made the notion of ‘democracies versus autocracies’ the organizing principle of his foreign policy.”

In this “battle between democracy and autocracy,” to use the president’s term, we are witnessing a reemergence of Cold War-era strategic frameworks. For example, in 2019, Johns Hopkins University professor Michael Mandelbaum called for a “new containment” policy to address the rising challenges to the U.S.-led international order from China, Russia and Iran. The original containment policy, of course, underpinned U.S. grand strategy toward the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Revisiting these old strategic frameworks makes sense. People have a propensity to apply known and comfortable paradigms from the past to their current plight; national security scholars relish in it. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the “domino theory” is reemerging in the wake of Russia’s war in Ukraine. As unsurprising as this is, it should be viewed as an all-together unfortunate development. The domino theory drove the U.S. national security apparatus during the Cold War, to our peril. To revisit it now could be even more disastrous.

The domino theory, as applied to the Cold War, was simple. If the U.S. allowed a country to fall to communism, then communism would spread to neighboring countries. In short order, a whole region could fall to communism, like a row of dominos. President Truman was the first to use the domino theory as an impetus for U.S. actions abroad. During an address to a joint session of Congress, Truman made the case that the U.S. must send economic aid to the struggling governments of Turkey and Greece, lest they fall to communism, which likely then would spread “throughout the entire Middle East.” More explicitly, President Eisenhower, during a 1954 news conference, addressed the communist threat to Indochina, stating, “Finally, you have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the ‘falling domino’ principle.” 

The domino theory was thus established within the U.S. national security apparatus at the highest levels and used to justify several foreign policy actions, including war. Truman aimed to stop the first domino from falling in Korea, fighting to draw at the cost of over 50,000 American dead and over 100,000 wounded. Perhaps more egregiously, the domino theory was used to justify America’s war in Vietnam. This war cost us over 58,000 Americans dead and over 150,000 wounded. The War on Terror was primarily aimed at non-state actors, thus precluding the falling domino. Instead, terrorism would spread like a disease, a pandemic where principles of the domino theory were applied, according to A. Trevor Thrall and Erik Goepner.

It is clear we have a pending disaster complex in the American government. If we fail to act and act decisively now, so it goes, our whole world will unravel. And yet, the Korean War ended in a stalemate and we lost the Vietnam War, but the Soviet Union was defeated. The War on Terror never snuffed out the radical Islamic ideology, and yet we live on as a nation. In short, the doomsday scenarios rarely pan out and the dominos don’t fall.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is the latest, and most blatant, salvo in the war between autocracy and democracy. Accordingly, the domino theory has reared its ugly head. In March 2022, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations held a hearing on combating authoritarianism, at which Chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) warned, “Today, it is Russia and Ukraine. Tomorrow it will be other nations.” Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder warned, “If you step back and you look at the consequences of not supporting a country like Ukraine that was illegally invaded, what precedent does that set, and how expensive would it be to have to address the kind of world we would live in?” Even the media are getting on board, with the New York Times wondering, “Is Taiwan next?”

It is clear that many in the U.S. government believe democracy is at war with autocracy worldwide. In such a war, the spread of one is often viewed as a detriment to the other, a zero-sum game. Familiar theories like “containment” and the “domino theory” are somewhat comforting. Many look back and see the similarities and it eases their fears to know that we are walking on familiar ground. However, as the Cold War proved, academic theories applied to dynamic real-world scenarios are experiments whose costs are measured in American blood and treasure.  

We must not fall back into these recurring traps. Instead, we should ask ourselves the tough questions. For example, if China invaded Taiwan, would the international order really collapse? Would authoritarianism really spread throughout the globe? Is it in the U.S. interest to come to Taiwan’s defense? Are we prepared to send Americans into harm’s way? A recent war game at the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated the U.S. would suffer over 3,000 killed within the first three weeks of such a conflict, half of what we lost in over 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan. Are we prepared to hand over that many folded flags to family members? Would their sacrifice be worth it? Are we ready to spend trillions of dollars, given our current debt crisis? Will the American public support it and, if so, for how long? 

It is these types of tough questions that require answers regarding Taiwan, Ukraine and elsewhere. We should avoid, at all costs, being driven by questionable theories and doomsday scenarios.  

Brandon Temple, Ph.D., is an Air Force Special Warfare Officer serving as a legislative liaison to the House of Representatives. Prior to this assignment, he was a Defense Legislative Fellow serving as national security adviser to a member of Congress. Follow him on Twitter @BrandonWTemple. The opinions expressed here are the author’s personal views and do not represent the position of any branch of the U.S. government, the Department of Defense, or Department of the Air Force.