Carter 1980
Carter Doctrine
When President Carter took office in January 1977, he pledged to remove American combat troops from Korea, seek substantial cuts in American and Soviet strategic weapons, reduce arms sales abroad, and elevate the human rights performance of states as condition for future levels of foreign aid support. Yet, on January 21, 1980, in his State of the Union Message to Congress, Carter reversed many of those pledged in what came to be called the “Carter Doctrine.” Referring to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, Carter warned that “an attempt by an outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf 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 dramatic shift in Carter’s rhetoric identified U.S. interests in Persian Gulf as central to American foreign policy. Moscow’s invasion of Afghanistan, however, was only one of several events that led Carter to reassess his original policies. Soviet activity in local conflicts, such as in Ethiopia and Somalia, suggested that Moscow had never renounced its interest in fomenting or capitalizing on revolution in the developing world. At the very least, this was how National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski had been describing Soviet actions for the president. With the invasion of Afghanistan, Carter had finally come to accept Brzezinski’s interpretation of the Soviet threat. To make matters worse, theoverthrow of the Shah in Iran, and the taking of American hostages by Iranian students, created additional turmoil in the Middle East. Against the backdrop of such regional instability, and the Western need to maintain the vital flow of oil from that part of the world, Carter sought to put the Moscow, the world, and the American electorate on alert.
Announcement of the policy caught many foreign governments off guard. Concurrent with the policy came a search for new military arrangements with Kenya, Somalia, Oman, Egypt, and Pakistan. Military planners added over 200,000 additional troops in those regions as evidence of that commitment. While some lauded the practical application of the Carter Doctrine, many decried it as “too little, too late.” Others regarded the economic implications of protecting oil interests as inconsistent with Carter’s earlier emphasis on human rights policy. Still others interpreted Carter’s words as a political maneuver, designed to shore up his anti-Soviet credentials prior to the November 1980 presidential election.
The Carter Doctrine in Perspective, Dr. Lawrence Grinter
State Department Records
CarterState of the Union Speech