Sarkhan is the fictional country in Southeast Asia, in which the 1958 novel The Ugly American is set. From the Wikipedia:
The novel takes place in a fictional nation called Sarkhan (an imaginary country in Southeast Asia that somewhat resembles Burma or Thailand, but which is meant to allude to Vietnam) and includes several real people, most of whose names have been changed. The book describes the United States's losing struggle against Communism due to the ineptness and bungling of the U.S. diplomatic corps[5] stemming from innate arrogance and their failure to understand the local culture. The book implies that the Communists were successful because they practiced tactics similar to those of protagonist Homer Atkins.[1]
That was my second guess:)