Inpolitical science,rollback is the strategy of forcing a change in the major policies of a state, usually byreplacing its ruling regime. It contrasts withcontainment, which means preventing the expansion of that state; and withdétente, which means developing a working relationship with that state. Most of the discussions of rollback in the scholarly literature deal withUnited States foreign policy towardcommunist countries during theCold War. The rollback strategy was tried and was not successful inKorea in 1950 and inCuba in 1961, but it was successful inGrenada in 1983. TheUnited States discussed the use of rollback during theEast German uprising of 1953 and theHungarian Revolution of 1956, which were ultimately crushed by theSoviet Army, but decided against it to avoid the risk of a major war.[1]
Rollback of governments hostile to the U.S. took place duringWorld War II (against Fascist Italy in 1943, Nazi Germany in 1945, and Imperial Japan in 1945),Afghanistan (against theTaliban in 2001, though this would fail in the long term with theTaliban returning to power in 2021), andIraq (againstSaddam Hussein in 2003). When directed against an established government, rollback is sometimes called "regime change".[2]
The termrollback was popularized in the 1940s and the 1950s, but the term is much older. Some Britons, opposed to Russian oppression againstPoland, proposed in 1835 a coalition that would be "united to roll back into its congenial steppes and deserts the tide of Russian barbarism."[3] Scottish novelist and military historianJohn Buchan in 1915 wrote of theAmerican Indian Wars, "I cast back to my memory of the tales of Indian war, and could not believe but that the white man, if warned and armed, would rollback [sic] theCherokees."[4] More recently,John Mearsheimer was significant in popularizing the term.[5]
Rollback includes military operations designed to destroy an enemy's armed forces and occupy its country, as was done inWorld War II to Italy, Germany, and Japan.[6][7]
The notion of military rollback against the Soviet Union was proposed by strategistJames Burnham[8] and other strategists in the late 1940s, and by the Truman Administration against North Korea in theKorean War. Much debated was the question whether the U.S. should pursue a rollback strategy against Soviet-occupiedsatellite states in Eastern Europe in 1953–1956, which the United States ultimately decided against.[9]
Instead of overt military rollback, the United States focused primarily on long-termpsychological warfare and military or clandestine assistance to delegitimize Soviet-dominated communist regimes and helpinsurgents. These attempts began as early as 1945 in theSoviet Bloc, including efforts to provide weapons to independence fighters in theBaltic states andUkraine. Another early effort was againstAlbania in 1949, following the defeat of communist forces in theGreek Civil War that year. The operation had already been betrayed to the Soviets by the British double agentKim Philby, and led to the immediate capture or killing of the agents.[10]
In theKorean War, the United States and theUnited Nations officially endorsed a policy of rollback—the protection of South Korea against an invading army of the communist North Korean government—and sent UN forces across the38th parallel.[11][12][13]
After the1952 presidential election, Republican spokesmanJohn Foster Dulles took the lead in promoting a rollback policy.[14] The 1952Republican Party's national platform reaffirmed this position, andDwight D. Eisenhower appointed Dulles asSecretary of State. However, Eisenhower ultimately adopted containment instead of rollback in October 1953 through National Security Council documentNSC 162/2, effectively abandoning rollback efforts in Europe.[15]
Eisenhower instead relied on clandestineCIA actions to undermine hostile small governments and used economic and military foreign aid to strengthen governments supporting the American position in the Cold War. In August 1953, the United States, in collaboration with the BritishSIS, conductedOperation Ajax to assist the Iranian military in therestoration of the Shah.[16] Eisenhower adviserCharles Douglas Jackson also coordinated psychological warfare against the Soviet Bloc and the USSR itself.Radio Free Europe, a private agency funded by Congress, broadcast criticisms of communist regimes directed at Sovietsatellite states in theEastern Bloc.[17]
In 1956, Eisenhower decided not to intervene during theHungarian Revolution of 1956, which was subsequently brutally put down by theSoviet Army. TheSuez Crisis, which unfolded simultaneously, played an important role in hampering the U.S. response to the crisis in Hungary. The Suez Crisis made the condemnation of Soviet actions difficult. As Vice PresidentRichard Nixon later explained: "We couldn't, on one hand, complain about the Soviets intervening in Hungary and, on the other hand, approve of the British and the French picking that particular time to intervene againstGamal Abdel Nasser."[9]
The "rollback" movement gained significant ground in the United States in the 1980s. TheReagan administration, urged on byThe Heritage Foundation and other influential conservatives, began to channel weapons to movements such as theMujahideen inAfghanistan,UNITA inAngola, and theContras inNicaragua. The United States launched thesuccessful invasion of Grenada in 1983 to protect American residents and reinstate constitutional government following a coup by what Reagan called "a brutal gang of leftist thugs."[18][19] Reagan's interventions came to be known as theReagan Doctrine.[20]
Critics[who?] argued that the Reagan Doctrine led to so-calledblowback and an unnecessary intensification ofThird World conflict. On the other hand, the Soviet Union eventually had to abandonits invasion of Afghanistan. Jessica Martin writes, "Insofar as rollback is concerned, American support for rebels, especially in Afghanistan, at the time helped to drain Soviet coffers and tax its human resources, contributing to that nation's overall crisis and eventualdisintegration."[21][22]
After theIraqi invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990, a coalition of Western militaries deployed to protectKuwait andSaudi Arabia fromBa'athist Iraq. While thePersian Gulf War successfully freed Kuwait, many military leaders and American politicians called for a full invasion of Iraq to replace Iraqi dictatorSaddam Hussein and effectively roll back his regime. However, President Bush ultimately decided against a full invasion of Iraq.
Between 1988 and 1991, the fifteenSoviet republics gradually declared their laws superior to those of the Soviet Union, and the USSR ceased to exist on December 26, 1991.[23]
Following theSeptember 11 attacks, his administration, along with a NATO coalition, undertook awar in Afghanistan to remove theTaliban government, which it believe had harboredal-Qaeda, the group responsible for the attacks. Bush told Congress:
While the initial invasion succeeded in removing the Taliban from state power, after twenty years of a US military presence which was extremely unpopular both in Afghanistan and the US and was met with a Taliban insurgency, theBarack Obama,Donald Trump, and laterJoe Biden administrations withdrew all US troops from Afghanistan, and in 2021the Taliban returned to power.
Similarly, Bush opposed the regime ofSaddam Hussein in Iraq, labeling the regime as part of an "axis of evil", which also included Iran and North Korea.[25] Additionally, the administration falsely claimed to believe Hussein possessedweapons of mass destruction.[26] As a result, in March 2003, the U.S. military invaded Iraq and overthrew Hussein's regime.
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