Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy since 1938

In this section, the authors tackle the late 1970s and the 1980s. They focus on American engagement in the Middle East and Africa during the Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford administrations. They also examine Jimmy Carter’s presidency through the prism of human rights. The Soviet entry into Afghanistan also occurred during his tenure. Finally, Ambrose and Brinkley analyze the foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration and its focus on the Soviet Union as an “evil empire” (320). The multifaceted policy included boycotting the 1980 Moscow Olympics, cooperation on nuclear-arms reduction questions, as well as the relationship between a new type of Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Reagan. The US was also involved in other parts of the world at this time, and Reagan underwent his own equivalent of Watergate—the mid-1980s Iran-Contras Affair.

First, the authors overview the diversity of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region: the Arab countries as well as non-Arab players like Turkey, Israel, and Iran. They suggest that Israel’s 1948 founding changed the balance of power in the region: “From 1948 on, most Arabs have refused to agree that the state of Israel has a right to exist, while the Israelis have insisted (especially since 1967) that the Palestinian refugees have no right to a national state of their own” (257).

US foreign policy in this region comprised oil interests, support for Israel, and the peace process. Countries like Egypt went back and forth between receiving support from the United States and the Soviet Union. For example, Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat, who replaced Gamal Abdel Nasser after his death, expelled the USSR from Egypt. The authors call this event “one of its greatest victories in the Cold War” (259).

During the Cold War, the MENA region remained unstable. For example, in 1973, an Egyptian-Syrian coalition struck Israel to reclaim the territories lost in 1967. American attempts to mediate this crisis, the Yom Kippur War, were “one of the most controversial events in Dr. Kissinger’s controversial career” (261). The Americans saw this war as an aggressive act against Israel even though the Arab states attempted to reclaim their losses. The results were an airlift into Israel by the American military planes and Soviet military aid to the Arabs. The Great Oil Embargo of 1973 banned shipments to the US and parts of Europe and was introduced by the Arab oil states. This response created an oil crisis within the US. The Soviet-American UNSC resolutions 338 and 242 attempted to establish a ceasefire, which Israel ignored.

The next escalation had the Soviet airborne divisions on alert ready to help Egypt, on one side, and Nixon putting American forces, including nuclear strike forces, on alert, ready to challenge the Soviet paratroopers. This incident was another example of Cold War brinkmanship in a general period of détente. Ultimately, the war was over, and Kissinger engaged in diplomacy by visiting multiple Middle Eastern countries becoming “a genuine worldwide superstar” (265). He succeeded in establishing a UN Emergency Force in the Suez area and in having the oil embargo lifted in 1974. The US greatly increased its weapons aid to Israel.

With the end of the Nixon administration came the end of détente with the USSR: “Détente, for all its promise, was substantially flawed by Nixon’s inability to convince the Senate of its desirability, and his own refusal to trust the Russians to the slightest degree. As a consequence, détente was coldly rejected by the subsequent administration” (269). It began to collapse when Senator Henry Jackson blocked the Most Favored Nation Status (MFN) from being given to the USSR. This status would have grown the trade between the two Cold War rivals.

Overall, Nixon and Kissinger failed to reach other foreign-policy goals, such as losing Vietnam to their opponents or establishing a full diplomatic relationship with China. Also, a stable and peaceful Middle East “remained a goal, rather than a reality, of American foreign policy” (270).

The United States was also involved in Africa in this decade at the time of ongoing decolonization. For example, the Angola Civil War began in 1975 as that country gained independence from Portugal. The US entered this war “to counter the Russian threat there” (275) but actually before the Soviet Union. This situation quickly turned into a complicated conflict with Cuba and the USSR on one side and the US, including the CIA, South Africa, and China on the other, each supporting different liberation fractions. The US was also ready to enter Ethiopia in its conflict with Somalia.

When Jimmy Carter was elected, he “promised no more Watergates and no more Vietnams” (281) as well as the elimination of all nuclear weapons. The authors argue that Carter’s promises and results of his presidency were diametrically opposed to each other. Instead, he increased arms sales abroad and the nuclear arsenal at home. According to Ambrose and Brinkley, Carter’s focus on human rights damaged many relationships with the allies and opponents alike. The authors argue that the concept of human rights was enshrined in the UN Charter (1945) and the Helsinki Accords (1975) but the mechanism of enforcement was absent. This absence made the unilateral use of human rights as part of a foreign policy problematic. Congress endorsed human rights as a policy before Carter and was “embarrassed by America’s support of dictators around the world” (283). Ultimately, the authors argue, the human-rights trajectory led to the failure to establish a genuine arms control.

The relations with the USSR worsened in the late 1970s, and trade dropped significantly. For example, the USSR placed jetfighter aircraft in Cuba. Carter denounced this behavior on television and “was unwilling to go more than halfway in meeting the Russians” (285). At the same time, Carter and the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed SALT II in 1979 focused on nuclear-weapons delivery systems.

In December of the same year, the Soviet troops entered Afghanistan upon the invitation of its Soviet-friendly government. The American side interpreted this event as an invasion: “The United States curtailed grain sales to Russia, suspended high-technology sales, and—at Carter’s insistence—boycotted the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow” (287). The Soviet side responded with the boycott of the 1984 Olympics in the US. Ambrose and Brinkley argue that the president’s critics considered his response exaggerated: “They argued that the Soviets went into Afghanistan for defensive reasons. There already existed in Afghanistan a pro-Moscow government, put in power after a coup in April 1978" (288).

One notable success of Carter’s foreign policy was the 1978 Panama Canal Treaty. This treaty gave that country sovereignty over the canal. The president also fully recognized China and exchanged ambassadors in 1979. His visit of the Middle East that same year resulted in Egypt recognizing Israel and peace negotiations.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, a major change occurred: the Iranian Revolution of 1979. There was a significant American presence in Iran, and their relations were excellent. However, Ayatollah Khomeini returned from his French exile and took power from the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Carter overlooked the Shah’s human rights violations because he was seen as “the bulwark of American interests in the Middle East” (294). Both Carter and the CIA ignored the large-scale protests against the Shah, initially installed in the 1953 CIA coup, and misread the situation.

The Shah fled to the United States, and Iranians took approximately 100 American hostages at the Embassy in Tehran in return. The authors argue that Carter’s emphasis on the hostages in the media amplified their importance. Carter called for a military attempt to rescue the hostages in 1980 which was “poorly planned and badly executed” (299) which damaged the US image. Behind the scenes, Ronald Reagan, who defeated Carter that year, made a deal with Khomeini to release the hostages in exchange for ransom after the US election. The hostages were released during Carter’s last day as president in exchange for unfreezing Iranian assets.

The key foreign policy area of the new Reagan administration, however, was the USSR. In 1983, he called it “the focus of evil in the modern world” (303). Despite the presence of American weapons, the president “was no more able to influence the events in Eastern Europe than Truman and Eisenhower had been in the first years of the Cold War” (304). However, the goals of this administration were clear. They included reductions in nuclear arsenals, improving the trade relationship with the USSR, tackling pollution, and another détente.

Reagan was more hawkish on the question of weapons. For the American side, approximately one half of the country’s defense budget was allocated to NATO’s needs. In contrast, on the economic front, Reagan pursued a policy of improving trade relations by selling important commodities to the USSR—after a brief grain sale ban to punish the USSR for entering Afghanistan. At the same time, the president tried to prevent western Europe from trading with the Eastern bloc:

To Europeans, Reagan’s actions seemed contradictory, as he was simultaneously selling more wheat and corn to the Soviets while insisting that they not sell pipeline technology. Reagan responded that the pipeline was a strategic issue (presumably food sales were not) (324).

Domestically, Americans themselves were also confused by the policy of spending enormous amounts of money on defense budgets and nuclear armaments while supplying the Soviet Union with important commodities.

During his second term, Reagan stopped calling the USSR an “evil empire” (320) and began cooperating with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev sought to reform his country and wanted to work with the US on international issues. The two sides also participated in the 1986 Reykjavík Summit to reach a broad arms-control agreement. They ultimately agreed to a more modest scenario a year later: the Intermediate Nuclear Force (INF) Treaty. The Soviet Union also began its pullback from Afghanistan in 1988.

At the same time, there were many other conflicts in the world, such as the 1984 Iran-Iraq War. By 1985, this war was one of the most expensive conflicts of the century. The international situation was complicated further by the fact that the US mistakenly shot down an Iranian passenger plane in 1987. However, Iran and Iraq reached a ceasefire that same year.

Israeli security was another development area in American foreign policy. Israel’s borders were stable on the Egyptian side, but there were challenges with Lebanon. However, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin believed that his country’s security would be guaranteed by capturing more land rather than through political negotiations. As a result, Israel invaded and occupied southern Lebanon in 1982, although its initial goal was to destroy the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Ultimately, the United States intervened by sending US Marines that were later withdrawn. However, the conflict continued:

The war was costing the Israelis billions of dollars and heavy casualties; the occupation of southern Lebanon brought worldwide denunciation; Israel’s inflation rate was 400 percent annually; and Israel’s body politic was badly split between hawks and doves. Still, Israel would not retire from Lebanon (309).

The authors believe the Reagan administration “had blundered in Lebanon as badly as Carter had blundered in Iran” (311).

In addition, the Middle East, the US was heavily engaged in the western hemisphere. For example, in 1983, Americans invaded Grenada to depose the new government. The UN General Assembly “deeply deplored” (313) American actions. The US also got involved in the matters pertaining to El Salvador and Nicaragua and the perceived threat of Communism. However, “according to his critics, Reagan grossly exaggerated both the extent of Communist infiltration and Cuban-Russian support for the guerrillas in El Salvador” (317). Comparisons to “another Vietnam” (318) were common. The CIA funded the Contras who engaged in terrorist activities in Nicaragua like bombing oil storage and mining that country’s harbors. Worse yet, the Contras death squads murdered thousands of people.

In fact, the CIA, “in specific violations of the law” (326), supplied the Contras with military assistance—from supplies to intelligence: “Thus was a private terrorist army raised and equipped and supported from the White House and CIA headquarters. Its objective was to overthrow the Sandinista government” (326). Yet Reagan referred to the Contras as “the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers” (326). The Congress initially banned military support of this terrorist group but then lifted the ban in 1986. As a result, the Contras were funded both by the CIA behind the scenes and by the US Congress in public. Some of the funding came from the arms sales to Iran.

Eventually, this arrangement led to the Iran-Contras Affair (1986-1987)—a big scandal during Regan’s second term “that rivaled Watergate for importance and press attention” (338). The US government frequently stated that Iran was a state sponsor of terrorism while selling weapons to that country and funding the Contras as a result. Reagan’s approval rating fell significantly, and an FBI investigation ensued. The Tower Commission reported numerous law violations.