AUnited States presidential doctrine comprises the keygoals,attitudes, or stances forUnited Statesforeign affairs outlined by apresident.[1] Most presidential doctrines are related to theCold War. Though many U.S. presidents had themes related to their handling of foreign policy, the termdoctrine generally applies to presidents such asJames Monroe,Harry S. Truman,Richard Nixon,Jimmy Carter, andRonald Reagan, all of whom had doctrines which more completely characterized theirforeign policy.
TheMonroe Doctrine, expressed in 1823, proclaimed the United States' opinion that European powers should no longer colonize theAmericas or interfere with the affairs ofsovereign nations located in the Americas, such as the United States,Mexico,Gran Colombia, and others.[2] In return, the United States planned to stay neutral in wars between European powers and in wars between a European power and its colonies. However, if these latter type of wars were to occur in the Americas, the U.S. would view such action as hostile toward itself.
The doctrine was issued by PresidentJames Monroe during this seventh annualState of the Union address toCongress.[3] The doctrine was originally declared by its authors, includingJohn Quincy Adams, to be a proclamation by the United States of its opposition tocolonialism. However, since 1923, the doctrine has been re-interpreted in a variety of ways, including by PresidentTheodore Roosevelt as justification U.S. to practice its own form of colonialism in South America, which is known as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.[4]
TheRoosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine was a substantial alteration (called an "amendment") of the Monroe Doctrine by PresidentTheodore Roosevelt in 1904.[5] In its altered state, the Monroe Doctrine would now considerLatin America as an agency for expanding U.S. commercial interests in the region, along with its original stated purpose of keeping Europeanhegemony from the hemisphere.[6]
In essence, Roosevelt's Monroe Doctrine would be the basis for a use of economic and military hegemony to make the U.S. the dominant power in theWestern Hemisphere. The new doctrine was a frank statement that the U.S. was willing to seek leverage over Latin American governments by acting as an international police power in the region.[7] This announcement has been described as the policy of "speaking softly but carrying a big stick", and consequently launched a period of"big stick" diplomacy, in contrast with the laterDollar diplomacy.[8] Roosevelt's approach was more controversial amongisolationist-pacifists in the U.S.
The 1947Truman Doctrine was part of the United States' political response to perceived aggression by theSoviet Union in Europe and the Middle East, illustrated through thecommunist movements inIran,Turkey, andGreece.[9] As a result, U.S. foreign policy towards the USSR shifted, asGeorge F. Kennan phrased it, to that ofcontainment.[9] Under the Truman Doctrine, the United States was prepared to send any money, equipment, or military force to countries that were threatened by the communist government, thereby offering assistance to those countries resisting communism. In PresidentHarry S. Truman's words, it became "the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures".[10]
Truman made the proclamation in an address to Congress on March 12, 1947, amid the crisis of theGreek Civil War (1946–1949).[11] Truman insisted that if Greece and Turkey did not receive the aid that they needed, they would inevitably fall to communism with consequences throughout the region.
Truman signed the act into law on May 22, 1947, which granted $400 million in military and economic aid to Turkey and Greece.[12] However, this American aid was in many ways a replacement for British aid which the British were no longer financially in a position to give. The policy of containment and opposition to communists in Greece for example was carried out by the British before 1947 in many of the same ways it was carried out afterward by the Americans.[12]
The doctrine also had consequences elsewhere in Europe. Governments in Western Europe with powerful communist movements, such asItaly andFrance, were given a variety of assistance and encouraged to keep communist groups out of government. In some respects, these moves were in response to moves by the Soviet Union to purge opposition groups in Eastern Europe out of existence.[12]
TheEisenhower Doctrine was announced by PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower in a message to Congress on January 5, 1957.[13] Under the Eisenhower Doctrine, a country could request American economic assistance and/or aid from U.S. military forces if it was being threatened by armed aggression from another state.[14] Eisenhower singled out the Soviet threat in his doctrine by authorizing the commitment of U.S. forces "to secure and protect the territorial integrity and political independence of such nations, requesting such aid against overt armed aggression from any nation controlled by international communism".[15] The doctrine was motivated in part by an increase in Arab hostility toward the West, and growing Soviet influence inEgypt andSyria following theSuez Crisis of 1956.[16]
In the global political context, the Eisenhower Doctrine was made in response to the possibility of a generalized war, threatened as a result of the Soviet Union's attempt to use the Suez War as a pretext to enter Egypt.[17] Coupled with thepower vacuum left by the decline of British and French power in the region after their failure in that same war, Eisenhower felt that a strong position needed to better the situation was further complicated by the positions taken by Egypt'sGamal Abdul Nasser, who was rapidly building a power base and using it to play the Soviets and Americans against each other, taking a position of "positive neutrality" and accepting aid from the Soviets.[18]
The military action provisions of the doctrine were applied in theLebanon crisis the following year, when the U.S. intervened in response to a request by that country's president.[19]
TheKennedy Doctrine refers to foreign policy initiatives of PresidentJohn F. Kennedy, towards Latin America during his term in office. Kennedy voiced support for the containment of communism and the reversal of communist progress in the Western Hemisphere.[citation needed]
In his inaugural address on January 20, 1961, Kennedy presented the American public with a blueprint upon which the future foreign policy initiatives of his administration would later follow and come to represent.[20] In this address, Kennedy warned "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."[21] He also called upon the public to assist in "a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself".[22] It is in this address that one begins to see the Cold War, us-versus-them mentality that came to dominate the Kennedy administration.[20]
TheJohnson Doctrine, enunciated by PresidentLyndon B. Johnson after the United States' intervention in theDominican Republic in 1965, declared that domesticrevolution in the Western Hemisphere would no longer be a local matter when "the object is the establishment of a communist dictatorship".[23]
TheNixon Doctrine was put forth in a press conference inGuam on July 25, 1969, by PresidentRichard Nixon. He stated that the United States henceforth expected its allies to assume primary responsibility for their own military defense.[24] This was the start of the "Vietnamization" of theVietnam War. The doctrine argued for the pursuit of peace through a partnership with U.S. allies.
In Nixon's own words (Address to the Nation on the War in Vietnam November 3, 1969)[25]
The doctrine was also applied by the Nixon administration in thePersian Gulf region, with military aid to Iran andSaudi Arabia, so that these U.S. allies could undertake the responsibility of ensuring peace and stability in the region.[26] According to Michael Klare, author ofBlood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency (New York: Henry Holt, 2004), application of the Nixon Doctrine "opened the floodgates" of U.S. military aid to allies in the Persian Gulf, and helped set the stage for theCarter Doctrine and for the subsequent direct U.S. military involvement of theGulf War and theIraq War.
TheCarter Doctrine was a policy proclaimed by PresidentJimmy 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 itsnational interests in the Persian Gulf region.[27] The doctrine was a response to the 1979invasion 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.[28] After stating that Soviet troops in Afghanistan posed "a grave threat to the free movement of Middle East oil", Carter proclaimed:
This, the key sentence of the Carter Doctrine, was written byZbigniew Brzezinski, Carter'sNational Security Adviser. Brzezinski modeled the wording of the Carter Doctrine on the Truman Doctrine, 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".[29]
InThe 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 BritishForeign SecretaryLord 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".[30]
TheReagan Doctrine was an important Cold War strategy by the United States to oppose the influence of the Soviet Union by backinganti-communistguerrillas against the communist governments of Soviet-backedclient states.[31] It was created partially in response to theBrezhnev Doctrine and was a centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy from the mid-1980s until the end of the Cold War in 1991.
PresidentRonald Reagan first explained the doctrine in his 1985 State of the Union Address: "We must not break faith with those who are risking their lives...on every continent, from Afghanistan to Nicaragua ... to defy Soviet aggression and secure rights which have been ours from birth. Support for freedom fighters is self-defense."[32]
The Reagan doctrine called for U.S. support of theContras inNicaragua,[33] theMujahideen inAfghanistan, andJonas Savimbi'sUNITA movement inAngola, among other anti-communist groups.
TheClinton Doctrine is not a clear statement in the way that many other doctrines were.[34] However, in a February 26, 1999, speech, PresidentBill Clinton said the following, which was considered the Clinton Doctrine:
Later statements "genocide is in and of itself a national interest where we should act," and "we can say to the people of the world, whether you live in Africa, or Central Europe, or any other place, if somebody comes after innocent civilians and tries to kill them en masse because of their race, their ethnic background or their religion, and it's within our power to stop it, we will stop it," augmented the doctrine ofinterventionism. However, a lack of leadership within the Clinton administration led to the United States' failure to properly intervene in theRwandan genocide, despite this ideology.[36]
TheBush Doctrine is the set offoreign policies adopted by PresidentGeorge W. Bush in the wake of theSeptember 11, 2001 attacks.[37] In an address to Congress after the attacks, Bush declared that the U.S. would "make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them", a statement that was followed by theU.S. invasion of Afghanistan.[38] Subsequently, the Bush Doctrine has come to be identified with a policy that permitspreventive war against potentialaggressors before they are capable of mounting attacks against the United States, a view that has been used in part as a rationale for the Iraq War.[39] The Bush Doctrine is a marked departure from the policies ofdeterrence that generally characterized American foreign policy during the Cold War and brief period between the collapse of the Soviet Union and 9/11, and can also be contrasted with theKirkpatrick Doctrine of supporting stable right-wing dictatorships that was influential during the Reagan administration.
TheObama Doctrine is yet to be fully defined, and PresidentBarack Obama himself has expressed a dislike for an overly "doctrinaire" approach to foreign policy.[40] When asked about his doctrine, Obama has replied that the U.S. would have to "view our security in terms of a common security and a common prosperity with other peoples and other countries".[40] On April 16, 2009,E. J. Dionne wrote a column forThe Washington Post defining the doctrine as "a form of realism unafraid to deploy American power but mindful that its use must be tempered by practical limits and a dose of self-awareness".[41] The Obama Doctrine has been praised by some as a welcome change from the dogmatic and aggressive Bush Doctrine.[42] Others, such as Bush appointee and formerUnited States Ambassador to the United NationsJohn Bolton, have criticized it as overly idealistic and naïve, promotingappeasement with the country's enemies.[43]
The Trump Doctrine is defined as the Trump administration's foreign policy, based upon the slogan of "America first."[44] It leverages the United States' economic and military power to increase and decrease tensions favorably for America.[45] PresidentDonald Trump was especially critical of so-called "free riders," or countries which the U.S. uses resources to protect without receiving benefits in return. Through his foreign policy, Trump criticized the use of U.S. military forces in situations where national interests were uninvolved.[46]
Although the Biden Doctrine is not explicitly defined, PresidentJoe Biden's foreign policy has been characterized by an avoidance of aggressive tactics that involve personnel in foreign nations.[47] As a means of moving away from the Trump Doctrine's policy of "America first," Biden stated that, "The transatlantic alliance is back. The US is determined to consult with you."[48] The Biden Doctrine is a shift away from foreign conflicts in an effort to focus resources on domestic issues. Following theUnited States' withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, Biden defended the decision as furthering the administration's efforts to reduce risk to American lives and resources in foreign affairs.[49]
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