The Possibilities for Diplomacy in Southeast Asia

Abstract

At Angkor, where the remains of an antique kingdom's abandoned capital are found deep in the Cambodian jungle, the exquisite bas-reliefs tell a story more compelling than written history. Battle scenes with a great cavalry of war elephants meld into episodes of river combat between handsomely carved fleets of oar-powered boats in an unending stone panorama of warfare as it was fought centuries ago in Southeast Asia. For one who has seen these carved panels it is not difficult to realize that when the Europeans arrived in mainland Southeast Asia in the early seventeenth century they found warfare endemic there. This conflict was not less bloody nor less protracted than that which Europe had already experienced or was about to endure in the Thirty Years' War. But this violent interaction in Asia did not seem to hold the prospect for the development of a nation-state system such as was emerging from European warfare. Rather than moving toward centralized states and configurations of alliances, the peoples of Southeast Asia in the seventeenth century appeared to be entering a phase, repetitious in their history, in which political fragmentation and spasmodic conflict were hallmarks.