'The motivation for the Cambodian genocide can be found in a document entitled National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM) 200'

From: The Cambodian Memory Hole by Paul David Collins

 

The National Security Council (NSC) under Henry Kissinger's guidance put this document together in 1974. The thesis was quite simple: population growth in lesser-developed countries constitutes a threat to national security. NSSM 200 named target countries:

In order to assist the development of major countries and to maximize progress toward population stability, primary emphasis would be placed on the largest and fastest growing developing countries where the imbalance between growing numbers and development potential most seriously risks instability, unrest, and international tensions. These countries are: India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, The Philippines, Thailand, Egypt, Turkey, Ethiopia, and Colombia. Out of a total 73.3 million worldwide average increase in population from 1970-75 these countries contributed 34.3 million or 47%. (No pagination)

[ ... ]

Historically, Malthus' demographic theory has continually proved advantageous to oligarchs and elitists. Given his role as a retainer for the British East India Company, it is quite possible that Malthus formulated his postulates to serve oligarchical interests. The British Opium Wars against China stands as one case in point. NSSM 200 provides another. However, what distinguished NSSM 200 from previous oligarchical campaigns premised upon Malthusianism is the document's governmental ramifications. NSSM 200 represented an attempt to enshrine demographic warfare under the rubric of national security. Suddenly, the fallacious contentions of a long refuted demographic theory were given currency within the halls of officialdom. William Engdahl eloquently reiterates: "The document [NSSM 200] made Malthusianism, for the first time in American history, an explicit item of security policy of the government of the United States" (148).

NSSM 200 was reaffirmed as the cornerstone of the United States' population policy on November 26, 1975 when Brent Scowcroft signed National Security Decision Memorandum 314 (NSDM 314) (Jones 527). This document endorsed the policy recommendations presented in NSSM 200 (527). NSSM 200's reaffirmation was clearly at odds with world opinion. Just a year later, opposition towards population proposals like NSSM 200 arose at a United Nations-sponsored population conference in Bucharest. According to author E. Michael Jones:

There the Holy See along with Communist and Third World countries, led by Algeria, denounced the United States for practicing what they called "contraceptive imperialism." (526)

[ ... ]

 

According to Webster Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin, the Pol Pot Regime was "a demonstration model of the NSSM 200 policy" (276). The Khmer Rouge could not have made the gains it did in Cambodia without the aid of Kissinger and Nixon. It was the Nixon Administration's bombing of Cambodia that aided the Khmer Rouge in their takeover of Cambodia.