The Carter Doctrine and the US role in the Middle East today

The Carter Doctrine isn't much mentioned today. But it represented a major step toward the involvements the US has more recently undertaken in the Greater Middle East, including Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran.

Nikolas Gvosdev mentions it in The Carter Doctrine Conundrum: Has Trump Repudiated a Foundational Element of U.S. National Security Strategy? The National Interest 01/10/2020:

Forty years ago, President Jimmy Carter made a commitment that the United States would guarantee the free flow of energy from the Persian Gulf region to the rest of the world. In his State of the Union address [01/23/1980], he declared that instability in the region “demands collective efforts to meet this new threat to security in the Persian Gulf and in Southwest Asia. It demands the participation of all those who rely on oil from the Middle East and who are concerned with global peace and stability. And it demands consultation and close cooperation with countries in the area which might be threatened. Meeting this challenge will take national will, diplomatic and political wisdom, economic sacrifice, and, of course, military capability. We must call on the best that is in us to preserve the security of this crucial region. Let our position be absolutely clear: 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.” His successor as president, Ronald Reagan, issued a “corollary” to the so-called Carter Doctrine in October 1981, whereby the internal stability of the governments of the region, as well as defending them from external attack, became a prime national interest of the United States. [emphasis added]

George McGovern addressed the Carter Doctrine a few months after it was promulgated in How to Avert a New 'Cold War' The Atlantic June 1980. The title of the article is a reminder that while today the Cold War is conventionally dated from 1945-1948 to 1989, definitions have varied. Global Security's entry on Cold War reads:

By one reckoning, the Cold War began in the 1945-1948 timeframe, and ended in 1989, having been a dispute over the division of Europe. By another account, the Cold War began in 1917 with the Bolshevik Revolution, and ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, having been a conflict between Bolshevism and Democracy.

The latter definition is a quirky and very ideological (i.e., hard right) one and is much more rare.

The term "Cold War" was first used in 1947 by Bernard Baruch, senior advisor to Harry Truman, the 33rd president of the United States, in reference to the frequently occurring and exacerbating crises between the United States and the former Soviet Union, despite having fought side-by-side against Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

The ultra-respectable Encyclopædia Britannica expands on the origin of the term:

The term was first used by the English writer George Orwell in an article published in 1945 to refer to what he predicted would be a nuclear stalemate between “two or three monstrous super-states, each possessed of a weapon by which millions of people can be wiped out in a few seconds.” It was first used in the United States by the American financier and presidential adviser Bernard Baruch in a speech at the State House in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1947.

Britannica leans toward the later beginning date: "The Cold War had solidified by 1947–48, when U.S. aid provided under the Marshall Plan to western Europe had brought those countries under American influence and the Soviets had installed openly communist regimes in eastern Europe." (emphasis added) They also use 1991 as the end date, but focus on the ebbs and flows of its intensity:

The 1970s saw an easing of Cold War tensions as evinced in the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) that led to the SALT I and II agreements of 1972 and 1979, respectively, in which the two superpowers set limits on their antiballistic missiles and on their strategic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons. That was followed by a period of renewed Cold War tensions in the early 1980s as the two superpowers continued their massive arms buildup and competed for influence in the Third World. But the Cold War began to break down in the late 1980s during the administration of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. ...

On December 31, 1991, the Soviet Union formally ceased to exist, and 15 Soviet republics became independent countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. The Cold War had come to an end.

It was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 that presented the opportunity to announce the Carter Doctrine.

Given my admiration for Carter's post-Presidential career and his important and substantive contributions to world peace, I'm almost tempted to apologize for discussing the problematic nature of his signature foreign policy doctrine as President. But the reality is, it was an unncessary surrender to the hawks in his administration led by National Securit Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. And we now know that it had some grim implications. Not the least of them was the contribution that the US support for the mujahadeen Islamic fighters opposing the pro-Soviet government played in generating the brand of Muslim fundamentalist terrorism with which we have more recently become familiar. Osama bin Laden got his start as a jihadist in Afghanistan.

Robert Hunter, a National Security Council staffer at the time, writes that he "conceived the Carter Doctrine and, except for the 'action clause' cited above, added by National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, I wrote virtually all the State of the Union Address" that announced it. (The Persian Gulf Crisis: Beyond The Carter Doctrine LobeLog 09/23/2019) He also argues that the original version was focused very much on the Soviet Union: "the purpose was both clear and limited: to make sure that Moscow did not miscalculate". He elaborates:

Consider the circumstances in January 1980. To Western surprise, the Soviet Union had just invaded Afghanistan. It had forces capable of pushing into Iran, perhaps all the way to the Persian Gulf. Iran was in the throes of a revolution. The United States seemed paralyzed regarding what to do about the U.S. hostages held by the new Iranian government under Ayatollah Khomeini. Thus, the Carter Doctrine had only one purpose, other than to state the obvious (that the flow of oil was important): to deter the Soviet Union.

McGovern argued in 1980 - very plausibly - that the Carter Administration had overrated the nature of the kind of Soviet threat the Afghanistan intervention represented. And he explained his concern that the Carter Doctrine played to the advantage of Cold War hardliners:

To all these possible factors--local, regional, and internal to the Soviet Union--the Carter Administration was indifferent, caught up as it was in the excitement of unveiling its new doctrine. It was almost as if, when the Soviets moved into Afghanistan, we were relieved to find ourselves freed from the complexities of ird World nationalism and the Islamic revival and back on the comfortably familiar turf of a bipolar Cold War world. Once they heard the call of the Carter Doctrine, the Iranians would naturally forget about the shah, the Arabs would forget their differences with Israel, our allies in Western Europe and Japan would gratefully follow our lead, and all would join with us in a grand alliance against Soviet aggression. Now the unwelcome "lesson of Vietnam"--as Daniel Yergin put it, "that 'fundamental designs' may be illusory and that global implications may be secondary to local issues"--could also be cast aside. Americans could be patriots again, without bothering to make the troublesome distinction between patriotism and jingoism.

In this altered environment our "hawks" joyfully trumpet the coming of the "second Cold War." They are also proclaiming their own vindication: have they not warned us all along that detente would fail? They have indeed, but the question remains whether they merely foresaw the breakdown, or helped to contrive it.

McGovern made a point of the kind I dearly wish we heard more often from Democratic leaders today:

Preventing nuclear war has become a national interest second to no other, as well as an interest we share with the Soviet Union and with all other nations. It cannot be too often emphasized that a third world war would in no sense be comparable with the ërst and second world wars, which, destructive though they were, left the world physically intact. Although projections differ as to which side might emerge from a nuclear war with the larger fraction of its industry intact and of its people still alive, no one contests that the losses would be in the hundreds of millions and that our society and economy, even were we to emerge as the "winner" of the conìict, would be grievously crippled. [my emphasis]

McGovern's long essay covers a lot of other ground relating to the Cold War. It's an impressive piece, one showing that there were alternative contemporary possibilities that could have steered developments in a very different direction.

One comment he made in this article is the one that most stuck with me for years: "In the last resort we must be prepared to use military force to assist friendly governments in the [Persian Gulf] region against external or internal threats." (my emphasis) McGovern was well aware of the ugly imperatives imposed on US foreign policy by the country's (then) direct dependence on foreign oil. These days, , that direct dependence has disappared. And yet our Trump even in his first Presidency was babbling about seizing Middle East oil. (Tim Wyatt, 'Maybe we will, maybe we won't’: Trump doubles down on threat to take oil from Syria Independent 01/11/2020)

McGovern made it clear what kind of solution to the dilemma of that time he preferred: "Strengthening our capacity to defend the Arabian peninsula, coupled with an effective and convincing energy program at home, is the real 'message' we need to send to the Soviets, and for that matter to OPEC and the rest of the world."

Lobe argues on the later development of the Carter Doctrine:

Only later did the Carter Doctrine get morphed into something broader, at least in the view of promoters of a wider set of engagements in the region. This wider set of engagements included, but was not limited to, protecting the flow of oil - the long-standing implicit U.S. interest. Indeed, protecting oil shipments in the Persian Gulf has, along with the U.S. commitment to Israel’s security, been an “evergreen” Middle Eastern interest of all U.S. administrations since the late 1940s, when Britain and France withdrew from the region.

What I have written here may sound Jesuitical, but it is not. It shows that the United States in 1980 was responding to the circumstances of the time - a palpable Soviet military and geopolitical threat - which circumstances collapsed with the end of the Cold War. The evergreen U.S. interests have continued, but without the overarching geopolitical implication - namely, that if the U.S. does not act, a major external competitor for power will fill the vacuum. [my emphasis]

The 1972 Nixon-McGovern Presidential campaign and the 2020 one

Now that the Presidential primaries are close, we're getting lots of interesting political points being made. As well as a lot that are trivial or worse. I'm both amused and a bit mystified at the people popping up in my Twitter feed from political people who are whining that politics is getting political!

It's hard not to think of this as a real case of Unclear On The Concept.

And of course, generations are Democrats are still traumatized in one way or the other by Richard Nixon's victory over George McGovern in 1972 and even more so by the Presidency of St. Reagan.

I honestly view Richard Nixon as one of the real villains of American history. Trump makes Nixon's threats to the Constitutional order look like small-time delinquency by comparison.

But 1972 was an era when there were hardcore segregationist Democrats. And the now-extinct species called "liberal Republicans" were still alive, thriving, and even serving in Congress.

Nixon in 1972 had drastically reduced the number of US troops in Vietnam with his "Vietnamization" program. He concluded the extremely important SALT 1 nuclear arms control treaty and thus started "detente" with the Soviet Union.

He took a giant step toward normalizing relations with "Red China" with his "pingpong diplomacy" and a Presidential visit to Chairman Mao Zedong. The Beatles 1968 release "Revolution" contained the lines, "But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao/You ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow," a jibe directed at the more theatrically radical Western protesters of the time. But Nixon's triumphal Republican National Convention that year featured photo display of Nixon smilingly consorting with General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong (then conventionally spelling Mao Tse-Tung in English).

Nixon established federal "affirmative action" programs to mitigate racial discrimination though somehow managed at the time to campaign against it ("quotas") in the Presidential campaign.

He enforced the final end of de jure school segregation in the South, admittedly reluctantly and at the demand of the Supreme Court.

And to combat a level of inflation that would look tame compared to that later in the decade, he had imposed wage-and-price controls nationwide and had declared himself a Keynesian. Nixon had served during the Second World War under John Kenneth Galbraith, the deputy head of the Office of Price Administration (OPA) that administered wartime domestic price controls.

Gorge McGovern during the campaign supported withdrawal of troops from Vietnam, the SALT Treaty, improved relations with the USSR and China, affirmative action programs and ending school segregation, though he wanted faster and complete troop withdrawals from Vietnam.

McGovern opposed the wage-and-price controls.

And, of course, in October Nixon's National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger famously declared "peace is at hand" in Vietnam.

No one can afford to write off the possibility that Trump could win, whether Status Quo Joe or Grumpy Bernie or someone else is the Democratic nominee. But it's hard to imagine a political scenario very comparable to Nixon-McGovern playing out in 2020.

From 01/06/2008: George McGovern on impeaching Cheney and Bush

I'm re-upping this post from 12 years ago (slightly edited for clarity):

Former South Dakota Senator and 1972 Democratic Presidential candidate George McGovern has an op-ed in the Washington Post today on impeachment, Why I Believe Bush Must Go 01/06/08. I'm pleased to see that he gives a reasonable description of the current partisan atmosphere:

Of course, there seems to be little bipartisan support for impeachment. The political scene is marked by narrow and sometimes superficial partisanship, especially among Republicans, and a lack of courage and statesmanship on the part of too many Democratic politicians. So the chances of a bipartisan impeachment and conviction are not promising. (my emphasis)

And the following is straightforwardly true:

Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses. They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time. Their conduct and their barbaric policies have reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world. These are truly "high crimes and misdemeanors," to use the constitutional standard.

From the beginning, the Bush-Cheney team's assumption of power was the product of questionable elections that probably should have been officially challenged -- perhaps even by a congressional investigation.

In a more fundamental sense, American democracy has been derailed throughout the Bush-Cheney regime. The dominant commitment of the administration has been a murderous, illegal, nonsensical war against Iraq. That irresponsible venture has killed almost 4,000 Americans, left many times that number mentally or physically crippled, claimed the lives of an estimated 600,000 Iraqis (according to a careful October 2006 study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) and laid waste their country. The financial cost to the United States is now $250 million a day and is expected to exceed a total of $1 trillion, most of which we have borrowed from the Chinese and others as our national debt has now climbed above $9 trillion -- by far the highest in our national history.

All of this has been done without the declaration of war from Congress that the Constitution clearly requires, in defiance of the U.N. Charter and in violation of international law. This reckless disregard for life and property, as well as constitutional law, has been accompanied by the abuse of prisoners, including systematic torture, in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

McGovern also has an appropriate description of the Bush Gulag, calling it a "shocking perversion".

And he doesn't forget about the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina, which Cheney, Bush and Karl Rove decided to embrace as ethnic cleansing by natural disaster:

In addition to the shocking breakdown of presidential legal and moral responsibility, there is the scandalous neglect and mishandling of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe. The veteran CNN commentator Jack Cafferty condenses it to a sentence: "I have never ever seen anything as badly bungled and poorly handled as this situation in New Orleans." Any impeachment proceeding must include a careful and critical look at the collapse of presidential leadership in response to perhaps the worst natural disaster in U.S. history.

Impeachment is unlikely, of course. But we must still urge Congress to act. Impeachment, quite simply, is the procedure written into the Constitution to deal with presidents who violate the Constitution and the laws of the land. It is also a way to signal to the American people and the world that some of us feel strongly enough about the present drift of our country to support the impeachment of the false prophets who have led us astray. This, I believe, is the rightful course for an American patriot. (my emphasis)

McGovern, a bomber pilot in the Second World War, hasn't forgotten that patriotism is about more than listening to Rush Limbaugh and cheering about killin' foreigners. It also involves commitment to the notion that Andrew Jackson defined as a democratic nation that respects the Constitution.

McGovern, whose wife Eleanor just recently past away, ends on a poignant note:

I believe we have a chance to heal the wounds the nation has suffered in the opening decade of the 21st century. This recovery may take a generation and will depend on the election of a series of rational presidents and Congresses. At age 85, I won't be around to witness the completion of the difficult rebuilding of our sorely damaged country, but I'd like to hold on long enough to see the healing begin.

There has never been a day in my adult life when I would not have sacrificed that life to save the United States from genuine danger, such as the ones we faced when I served as a bomber pilot in World War II. We must be a great nation because from time to time, we make gigantic blunders, but so far, we have survived and recovered.

We could all aspire to be as lucid, engaged and committed to the public good when we become octogenarians as George McGovern is.