Prior to taking this class, I would have never guessed that Cambodia and Laos both had some ties to the war in Viet Nam as well as to each other. When I got to reading about this weeks topic, I was literally shook because I felt as though this narrative was never something that was actually covered in my curriculum up until this point. I feel like when people think about the war in Viet Nam, they only think about America and Vietnam, never the countries who were around the area where the warfare was actually taking place. Reading Nayan Chanda's Brother Enemy: The War After the War, really opened up my eyes about the tensions between the mentioned neighboring countries: specifically Laos, Cambodia, Viet Nam and China. As I was reading, it seemed as though all of the Indochinese countries mentioned were all power hungry and all wanted to be considered stronger than the other. The only thing that really bothers me about this entire thing is that instead of coming together to retaliate against the narrative that America tends to force onto people, they stuck to themselves. However, I can understand why they would opt to do this since people don't want to seem weak. When countries seem weak, it makes other countries believe that they are easier to take over and add onto their list of "owned" countries.Question: Why do countries try so hard to seem strong when there is nothing wrong with coming together to go against a greater/common enemy?
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