Assignment | Essay on History of South East Asia

Running head: HISTORY OF SOUTH EAST ASIA
Essay on History of South East Asia
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ESSAY ON HISTORY OF SOUTH EAST ASIA1
Introduction
The area of South East Asia is sliced up into two major sub-regions; Maritime South
East Asia and Mainland South East Asia. The area of Maritime South East Asia comprises of
some modern states belonging to East Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, East Timor,
Philippines, Christmas Island, Brunei and Cocos Island. On the other hand, the area of
Mainland South East Asia comprises of the modern states belonging to Cambodia, Laos,
Vietnam, Myanmar, West Malaysia and Thailand. South East Asia and its history have a
great influence of its wide range of topographical diversity. The region of Maritime South
East Asia happens to be far apart from some exceptions such as Sumatra and Borneo, a
recurring patchwork of widely dispersed islands, land sea patterns and archipelagos. There
has been an admitted discontinuity of thalassocratic states that are moderately sized. These
territories are indifferent to ambitions of territorial prosperity and growth that was associated
along with the traders of sea. The area of Mainland South East Asia is a rugged but
continuous terrain that is difficult even with the presence of early civilizations of Mon and
Khmer. Although, extensive south coastlines and eastbound areas form a major system of
rivers in South East Asia1.
Discussion
After the Second World War, the US along with their allies and Soviet Union along
with their satellite states introduced a prolonged struggle decades back for a supremacy
known as Cold War. The soldiers of the Soviet Union and the United States did not battle
directly but there was something going on indirectly amongst each other. The cold war had
numerous effect over the society since its start that is continues even till today. Communism
was defeated primarily. Military spending in Russia got dramatically cut out quickly. The
1 Noss, David S., and Blake R. Grangaard. A History of the World's Religions. Routledge, 2017.

ESSAY ON HISTORY OF SOUTH EAST ASIA2
impact of this was large as the sector of military industry had already employed one of every
adult belonging to the soviets. Its dismantling had left millions unemployed throughout the in
the previous Soviet Union. After the beginning of economic reforms by Russia in the year of
1990. There was a suffering of financial crisis along with a severe recession than Germany
and the United States had already experienced during the time of Great Depression. The
standards of Russian living have overall worsened with time in the years of Post-Cold War.
However, the economy has started to grow since the year of 1995. It was not until 2005 the
average number of communist countries after war had returned into the levels of 1989 per
capita GDP. The Cold War and its legacy continue to have an impact on the world affairs2.
The world after cold war and dissolution of Soviet Union has become widely unipolar where
only the United States remains to have the sole Superpower.
The South East Asia has always been far away from the United States and its parts.
Though in practical sense, it has not been far away for longer time. It was Islands of Spice in
South East Asia seek by Columbus during his exploration of America. Nevertheless,
knowledge about the South East Asia have always been excessively limited amongst the
population of America. Distance played a factor always. On the other hand, the Vietnam War
had been added as a factor as well. Although, a tragic error has been made out of judgment
that Americas prefer acting superior in the country and the regions as well that did not exist
previously3. There are many favors that demonstrates the past of South East Asia and its
relation with America. As the South East Asian regions seems toxics, the teachings it offers
about that offers opportunity for helping students in exploring how much humans are alike
with the society and what is the difference when they appear to be n different levels of
surface4. As the region has some great places of Asian civilization and some great religions of
2 Monaghan, Andrew. A" new Cold War"?: Abusing History, Misunderstanding Russia. London: Chatham
House, 2015.
3 Brown, Judith M., and Rosemary Foot, eds. Migration: the Asian experience. Springer, 2016.
4 Sverdrup-Thygeson, Bjørnar, Marc Lanteigne, Ulf Sverdrup, Thomas Wright, and Will Moreland. "“For Every
Action...” The American pivot to Asia and fragmented European responses." (2016).