"...These comparisons of three of Thailand and Myanmar’s respective alignment choices since the end of WWII demonstrate the crucial intermix between domestic politics and international structural factors. Owing to their unique political histories and domestic power contests, the two countries pursued different foreign policy choices during the initial years of the Cold War. Thailand relied on a close alliance with the United States, while Myanmar, then Burma, stayed neutral. Such initial choices certainly had a lingering effect on later government. We have seen that after 1962 the Ne Win government carried the neutralist policy further still to one of self-isolation. As to Thailand’s case, the alliance relationship certainly empowered the country’s military, leading to a succession of military governments during the Cold War that further entrenched Thailand’s foreign policy orientation towards Washington. Domestic political crises in Myanmar, however, eventually pushed the military government first to seek a closer engagement with China, so as to fend off Western pressure on its government, and then, two decades later, to seek re-engagement with the United States in efforts to balance China’s preponderance. After its alliance with the United States, Thailand stayed close to the American side through to the Sino–US rapprochement. But since the end of Cold War, and the divergence of Thailand and the US’s interests in the region, Thailand has pursued an increasingly independent foreign policy..."