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Carter Doctrine

 
US Military History Companion: Carter Doctrine
 
Home > Library > History, Politics & Society > US Military History Companion

(1980)

Announced by President Jimmy Carter on 24 January 1980, the “Carter Doctrine” extended U.S. containment policy to the Persian Gulf region. Under pressure from containment advocates, Carter concluded that the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan might be the first step in a threat to the Persian Gulf oil resources. Furthermore, with the overthrow of the shah of Iran (and seizure of American hostages) by militant Islamic revolutionaries earlier in 1979, the United States had lost its primary military ally in the gulf.

To ensure protection of Middle East oil, Carter declared that the United States would consider any attempt by an outside force (the Soviet Union) to gain control of the gulf region an assault on U.S. vital interests that would be repelled by military force if necessary. Consequently, Carter expanded military aid to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, and Pakistan, and went beyond surrogate forces to create a U.S. Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDF).

From its new headquarters, the RDF could call upon 200,000 troops from all services to meet emergencies in the gulf. It also acquired air and naval basing rights at Diego Garcia, a British atoll in the Indian Ocean, for positioning more than a dozen preloaded merchant ships to support any initial deployment. Additional basing rights were sought in several East African countries. Many of these were later used in the Persian Gulf War of 1991.

[See also Middle East, U.S. Military Involvement in the.]

Bibliography

  • Gaddis Smith, Morality, Reason, and Power: American Diplomacy in the Carter Years, 1986.
  • Burton I. Kaufman, The Presidency of James Earl Carter, Jr., 1993
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US Military Dictionary: Carter Doctrine
 
Home > Library > History, Politics & Society > US Military Dictionary

On January 23, 1980, after a series of events in 1979 threatening American interests in the Persian Gulf region, President Jimmy Carter announced that the United States would use military force if necessary to defend those interests, which included oil resources. He created a Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force to provide military aid and to assist in emergency situations in the gulf.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

 
US History Encyclopedia: Carter Doctrine
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In response to the 1979 overthrow of the shah of Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the same year, President James Earl Carter warned in his January 1980 State of the Union address that "any attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf" would constitute a threat to vital U.S. interests, especially oil, and would be met by military action. Carter backed the declaration by creating a Rapid Deployment Force, boosting military spending, and cultivating expanded military ties from Pakistan to Egypt. In 1990, President George H. W. Bush invoked the doctrine in sending U.S. troops to confront Iraq during the Gulf War.

Bibliography

Dumbrell, John. The Carter Presidency: A Re-evaluation. Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 1993.

Smith, Gaddis. Morality, Reason, and Power: American Diplomacy in the Carter Years. New York: Hill and Wang, 1986.

—Max Paul Friedman

 
Wikipedia: Carter Doctrine
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The Carter Doctrine was a policy proclaimed by President of the United States Jimmy Carter in his State of the Union Address on January 23 1980, which stated that the United States would use military force if necessary to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf region. The doctrine was a response to the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, and was intended to deter the Soviet Union—the Cold War adversary of the United States—from seeking hegemony in the Persian Gulf. After stating that Soviet troops in Afghanistan posed "a grave threat to the free movement of Middle East oil," Carter proclaimed:

The region which is now threatened by Soviet troops in Afghanistan is of great strategic importance: It contains more than two-thirds of the world's exportable oil. The Soviet effort to dominate Afghanistan has brought Soviet military forces to within 300 miles of the Indian Ocean and close to the Straits of Hormuz, a waterway through which most of the world's oil must flow. The Soviet Union is now attempting to consolidate a strategic position, therefore, that poses a grave threat to the free movement of Middle East oil.
This situation demands careful thought, steady nerves, and resolute action, not only for this year but for many years to come. It 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.

This last, key sentence of the Carter Doctrine, was written by Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's National Security Adviser. Brzezinski modeled the wording of the Carter Doctrine on the Truman Doctrine,[1] and insisted that the sentence be included in the speech "to make it very clear that the Soviets should stay away from the Persian Gulf."[2]

In The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power, author Daniel Yergin notes that the Carter Doctrine "bore striking similarities" to a 1903 British declaration, in which British Foreign Secretary Lord Landsdowne warned Russia and Germany that the British would "regard the establishment of a naval base or of a fortified port in the Persian Gulf by any other power as a very grave menace to British interests, and we should certainly resist it with all the means at our disposal."[3]

Contents

Background

The Persian Gulf region was first proclaimed to be of national interest to the United States during World War II. Petroleum is of central importance to modern armies, and the United States—as the world's leading oil producer at that time—supplied most of the oil for the Allied armies. Many American strategists were concerned that the war would dangerously reduce the U.S. oil supply, and so they sought to establish good relations with Saudi Arabia, a kingdom with large oil reserves. On February 16, 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, "the defense of Saudi Arabia is vital to the defense of the United States."[4] On February 14, 1945, while returning from the Yalta Conference, Roosevelt met with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia on the Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal, the first time a U.S. president had visited the Persian Gulf region. (During Operation Desert Shield in 1990, this landmark meeting between Roosevelt and King Ibn Saud was cited by Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney as one of the justifications for sending troops to protect Saudi Arabia's border.)[5]

The Persian Gulf region continued to be regarded as an area of vital importance to the United States during the Cold War. Three Cold War United States Presidential doctrines—the Truman Doctrine, the Eisenhower Doctrine, and the Nixon Doctrine—played roles in the formulation of the Carter Doctrine. The Truman Doctrine, which stated that the United States would send military aid to countries which were threatened by Soviet communism, was used to strengthen the security of Iran and Saudi Arabia. In October 1950, President Harry Truman wrote to King Ibn Saud that "the United States is interested in the preservation of the independence and territorial integrity of Saudi Arabia. No threat to your Kingdom could occur which would not be a matter of immediate concern to the United States."[6] The Eisenhower Doctrine in turn called for U.S. troops to be sent to the Middle East to defend U.S. allies against their Soviet-backed adversaries. Finally, application of the Nixon Doctrine provided military aid to Iran and Saudi Arabia so that these U.S. allies could ensure peace and stability in the region. In 1979, the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan prompted the restatement of U.S. interests in the region in the form of the Carter Doctrine.[7]

In July 1979, in response to a national energy crisis, President Carter delivered his "Crisis of Confidence" speech urging Americans to reduce their use of energy to help lessen American dependence on foreign oil supplies.[8] Recently, some scholars have questioned whether Carter's energy plan, if it had been fully enacted, would have prevented some of the current economic difficulties caused by American dependency on foreign oil.[9]

Implementation

Because the United States did not have significant military capabilities in the Persian Gulf region at the time the Carter Doctrine was proclaimed, the doctrine was criticized for being not backed by sufficient force. The Carter administration began to build up the Rapid Deployment Force, which would eventually become CENTCOM. In the interim, the administration expanded the U.S. naval presence in the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.

Carter's successor, President Ronald Reagan, extended the policy in October 1981 with what is sometimes called the "Reagan Corollary to the Carter Doctrine", which proclaimed that the United States would intervene to protect Saudi Arabia, whose security was threatened after the outbreak of the Iran–Iraq War. Thus, while the Carter Doctrine warned away outside forces from the region, the Reagan Corollary pledged to secure internal stability. According to diplomat Howard Teicher, "with the enunciation of the Reagan Corollary, the policy ground work was laid for Operation Desert Storm."[10] Some analysts have argued that the implementation of the Carter Doctrine and the Reagan Corollary also played a role in the outbreak of the 2003 Iraq War.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Brzezinski, Zbigniew. Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser, 1977-1981. New York: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 1983. ISBN 0-374-23663-1. pg. 444.
  2. ^ A Cold War Legacy of Persian Gulf Conflict, Artsandmedia.net, March 19, 2003, http://www.artsandmedia.net/cgi-bin/dc/newsdesk/2003/03/18_centcom_1, retrieved on 2008-10-16 
  3. ^ (Yergin 1991, p. 140, 702)
  4. ^ (Klare 2004, p. 33)
  5. ^ (Klare 2004, p. 36)
  6. ^ (Yergin 1991, p. 428)
  7. ^ (Klare 2004, pp. 33-45)
  8. ^ Carter, Jimmy, "Crisis of Confidence", The Carter Center, http://www.cartercenter.org/news/editorials_speeches/crisis_of_confidence.html, retrieved on 2008-07-27 
  9. ^ Wheelan, Joseph (2008-07-15), "Second Hearing for Carter", Atlanta Journal-Constitution, http://www.ajc.com/search/content/opinion/stories/2008/07/15/energyed.html, retrieved on 2008-07-27 
  10. ^ Teicher, Howard and Gayle Radley Teicher. Twin Pillars to Desert Storm: America's Flawed Vision in the Middle East from Nixon to Bush. New York: Morrow, 1993. pp. 145-6

References

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