The Carter Doctrine

7/31/2019 The Carter Doctrine

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The carter doctrine

The era of dtente would prove to be short-lived. Challenges to the Nixon

administration emerged from both the right and left of the American political

spectrum, questioning the moral basis as well as the geopolitical rationale of

engaging the Soviets as equal partners. President James Earl Carter was no more

adept at salvaging the spirit of cooperation than was President Gerald Ford

before him. Carter's focus on human rights alarmed Soviet leaders, who were

accustomed to Nixon's disregard for such issues. From Carter's perspective, a

series of events, including conflict in the Horn of Africa and the discovery of

Soviet troops in Cuba, led Carter to adopt a more hawkish position toward the

USSR. Moscow's invasion of neighboring Afghanistan would bring him more

firmly into the cold warrior camp. The Kremlin's December 1979 push south of its

border jolted the administration, leading Carter to take several measures that,

collectively, marked the clearest indication that relations between the United

States and the Soviet Union were in a free fall.

The president clarified the new situation one month later in his State of the

Union Address of 23 January 1980. Referring specifically to the Soviet invasion,

Carter declared that "an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the

Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the

United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means

necessary, including military force." By the following morning, theNew York

Times had given that policy a name: the Carter Doctrine.

Although the Soviet invasion was the proximate trigger for the Carter Doctrine,

momentum for the president's policy shift had been building over the previous

two years. Much of that energy flowed from concern over the fate of Iran. One of

the "two pillars" undergirding America's security structure in the Middle East,

Iran had been supporting U.S. interests for close to twenty-five years. Its position

was so vital that the administration rarely, if ever, questioned Iran's ability to

play that role; Carter himself labeled Iran "an island of stability" as late as

January 1978. Yet in just over a year, the shah would be deposed, Ayatollah


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Ruhollah Khomeini would return from France and transform the country into an

Islamic republic, and fifty Americans would be taken hostage by Iranian students

and militants. With the Nixon Doctrine in tatters, U.S. policymakers sought to

fashion a new strategy for the region.

Fears of regional instability were only partly responsible for Carter's movement

toward a new strategic posture. According to the president, an amalgam of three

distinct forces had combined to prompt his declaration of U.S. policy: "the steady

growth and increased projection of Soviet military power beyond its own borders;

the overwhelming dependence of the Western democracies on oil supplies from

the Middle East; and the press of social and religious and economic and political

change in the many nations of the developing world, exemplified by the

revolution in Iran." In all, a host of events had led the administration to conclude

that American interests in the Persian Gulf were under grave threat. Only a more

forceful statement of purpose could begin the process of redressing the regional

andin the administration's calculationglobal balance of power.

The doctrine also emerged out of a long-running debate within the

administration over its policy toward the Soviet Union. Carter's principal foreign

policy aides, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and national security adviser

Zbigniew Brzezinski, differed over the degree to which Washington should

confront the Soviets. It was Brzezinski's contention that Moscow had never

stopped probing for weak spots around the globe; for him, instability in both

Central America and Africa testified to the Kremlin's continuing desire for

ideological competition, especially in the developing world. Dtente, he surmised,

had merely allowed the Soviets to continue their expansionist thrust there under

the cover of superpower cooperation. In contrast to Vance's preference for

conciliation, Brzezinski had been lobbying for a more aggressive stance towardMoscow since the earliest days of the administration. A series of developments,

including the discovery of Soviet soldiers in Cuba and the Soviet invasion of

Afghanistan, provided further support for Brzezinski's arguments. By the time

that Carter delivered his State of the Union Address in January 1980, the

Brzezinski approach had won out.


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A host of measures associated with the Carter Doctrine followed quickly on the

heels of its enunciation, signaling a new phase in Carter's approach to the Soviet

Union and to his overall practice of foreign policy. Within a month of his address,

Carter sanctioned the creation of a Rapid Deployment Force, a contingent of as

many as 200,000 troops, designed to expedite the projection of American

military power around the globe, and especially in the Middle East. He would

take additional steps to improve America's combat readiness, preparing the

groundwork for a reimposition of the military draft and asking Congress for a

sharp increase in defense spending. Other policies would impinge on U.S.Soviet

relations as Carter enacted a partial grain embargo and boycotted the Moscow

Olympics. Still further actions, whereby Carter withdrew a second Strategic Arms

Limitation Treaty from senatorial consideration and extended the number ofSoviet sites targeted by U.S. missiles, recast the nuclear dimension of the two

countries' relationship. On top of those actions, Carter embraced Pakistani ruler

Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, indicating his willingness to subordinate human rights

concerns to the struggle against Soviet aggression. By and large, those measures

appealed to a Congress eager for action after the previous year's indignities.

They also struck a chord with the American public. Opinion polls revealed

general support for the president's statement, suggesting that Carter hadcorrectly gauged the popular mood. Responding to criticism that Carter had

engaged in pandering and political grandstanding, Brzezinski defended his

president, explaining that the administration needed to make such a

proclamation if only to steel the public for the demands ahead. Journalists,

however, while hardly indulgent of Soviet behavior, interpreted Carter's speech as

a fundamentally political move, designed to reshape the president's image at the

outset of an election year. Scholars, too, have subjected the doctrine to withering

critiques. Some have described it as little more than empty posturing, crafted

more to improve Carter's political fortune than to alter Soviet behavior. Still

others maintain that Carter acted rashly, drawing conclusions about Soviet

motives based on very little evidencemotives he himself would qualify

throughout the remainder of his presidency. Still others have faulted the Carter

Doctrine for its ambiguity, noting that it failed to define, with any sense of


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precision, the nature of aggression, the characteristics of an outside force, or even

the boundaries of the Persian Gulf itself.

Moreover, scholars have argued, the Carter Doctrine and policies associated with

it offered little in the way of tangible benefits. None of the measures aimed at the

Kremlinnot the grain embargo, nor the Olympic boycott, nor the curtailment of

additional tradeforced the Soviets out of Afghanistan. Nor did the president's

unilateralism sit well with his European allies; only British Prime Minister

Margaret Thatcher supported Carter's approach. At the same time, however,

European business capitalized on the chillier relationship as several firms

concluded lucrative deals at America's expense.

While the Carter Doctrine secured few if any tangible gainseven its progenitor

lost at the ballot box that Novemberit would continue to shape U.S. policy

during the Cold War, largely because subsequent administrations bought into its

premises. President Ronald Reagan and his advisers regarded the Soviet Union as

an aggressive, expansionist power; if anything, they, and the Bush administration

that was to follow, were even more willing to protect U.S. interests in the Persian

Gulf from Soviet predations and political instability.

The Carter Doctrine also hastened the buildup of American arms, a process that

was already under way by January 1980, and for which some historians give him

high marks. It would be the Reagan administration, however, that would

capitalize on the perceived need for military expenditures, expanding the size and

cost, and revamping the shape, of America's military forces.

In relation to other Cold War presidential statements, the Carter Doctrine fit

squarely within their rhetorical barriers. It maintained Truman and Eisenhower's

focus on the Mediterranean and Middle East, a region that had become

increasingly vital to U.S. officials in the aftermath of the October 1973 Yom

Kippur War and the ensuing Arab oil boycott. Indeed, it echoed the excited

language of both the Truman and Eisenhower Doctrines, offering to assist those

nations threatened by totalitarian aggression. And in associating himself with


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those two statements of national policy, Carter distanced himself from the

previous two administrations. His willingness to intercede unilaterally in Middle

Eastern affairs testified to the poverty of the Nixon Doctrine's "twin pillar policy,"

the very structure of which was now obsolete. Nevertheless, U.S. support for the

Afghani resistance to the Soviet Union suggests that elements of Nixon's

approach remained intact; the United States would continue to assist proxy

forces resisting Soviet advances when such a policy proved fruitful, and would

seek to impose its own forces when the situation demanded it.

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The Carter Doctrine

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