The ‘sinew of development’: Cold War geopolitics, technical expertise, and water resource development in Southeast Asia, 1954–1975

Abstract

One of the most significant yet largely hidden outcomes of the Cold War was the proliferation of hundreds of large, multipurpose dams throughout Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America under the auspices of programs of water resource development. These programs were the result of technical assistance programs created and guided by various organs of the US government. Carried out as an effort to convince newly independent states of America's support and good intentions, this proliferation of water expertise was spearheaded by the US Bureau of Reclamation -an agency of the Department of Interior that became embroiled within efforts of the State Department to achieve specific geopolitical goals by containing the spread of global communism. This paper examines the evolution of a technopolitical network constructed around the Bureau's most intensive engagement in supervising water resource development overseas, the promotion and design of the Pa Mong dam on the Mekong River during the 1960s. This case contributes to ongoing debates over the convergence between technical expertise and water by considering the complex intermingling -and co-production -of geopolitical practices and technological knowledge and expertise in efforts to transform rivers that were characteristic of the mid-20th century.

Trends in flood risk management in deltas around the world: Are we going ‘soft’?

“…The Mekong Delta has been the arena for global and regional geo-political struggles for a long time, with profound impact on FRM (Biggs, 2012;Sneddon, 2012; see also Scott, 2012). The first large-scale interventions in the Mekong Delta took place in the late 19th century under French colonial rule.…”

“…The idea of 'casiers' was imported from the North Vietnamese Red River Delta: a piece of land protected by surrounding dikes (like Dutch 'polders'). When Americans took control over the region from the French, they continued with these 'nation building' activities, stimulating economic development to politically stabilize the region (Biggs, Miller, Hoanh, & Molle, 2009;Sneddon, 2012). In this light the Chief of the Tennessee Valley Authority, David Lilienthal, was commissioned in 1966 to come up with a plan for the Delta.…”

Water technology, knowledge and power. Addressing them simultaneously

“…For instance, Mitchell analyzes how the depoliticization of the Egyptian economy, that is the use of economics as a purely technical instrument, coincides with the transformation of Egypt into an object of development, thus hiding the complex networks of dependence within Egypt or between Egypt and the USA. He analyzes the role played by ‘expertise,’ in particular from social science, in the making of ‘society,’ ‘economy,’ ‘nation,’ ‘globalization,’ or ‘tradition.’ More specifically, in the field of hydraulics, action taken by the US Bureau of Reclamation (BR) on the Mekong River in the 1960s can be seen as a key element of the US government strategy during the Cold war to counter Soviet and Chinese influence in South‐East Asia and as a way for the BR and the Tennessee Valley Authority to deploy water management models abroad while encountering difficulties at home …”

“Where nothing was before”: (re)producing population and place in Ghana's Volta River Project

“…In virtually every instance, these projects were achieved through top-down initiatives and reflected a post-World War II modernist discourse which prioritized economic growth above all other factors (cf. Fahim 1981;Chetham 2002;Hoag 2006;Klingensmith 2007;Tumbare 2010;Biswas and Tortajada 2011;Sneddon and Fox 2011;Sneddon 2012;Isaacman and Isaacman 2013). Some of the negative impacts on place that these projects generated are typified in Windsor and McVey's (2005) study of the impacts of dams on Native American populations in Canada.…”