Submitted 10FEB2010

Each President, due to external situation or deeply held beliefs or both, has at some time in their tenure developed a Doctrine that guides them in foreign policy. The doctrine that guides the President is also a window into their view of what America stands for and America’s role in the international field of play. President Obama is too new in office to have a real doctrine yet, it will be interesting to see what comes out of his tenure.

Rather than go through all the President’s Doctrines, this article will start with Truman. All of the Presidents after Truman and up to Carter followed a doctrine of containment. The Truman Doctrine in 1947 stated that the United States should “support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures”. This was directed squarely at the Soviet Union’s expansion into Eastern Europe. He set the American view that the current borders of Communism are static and that proxy wars fought around that periphery would take the place of a direct conflict between the Soviet Union and the US.

The official Carter Doctrine was declared during his State of the Union Speech in 1980, “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…an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region … 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”. 1980, four years into his Presidency is too little too late; the hostage situation in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was the international response to his Human Rights approach to foreign policy.. His unofficial doctrine was to tie human rights to foreign policy. The rule of law, international or otherwise would be the basis on which to build a structure that supported self determination; the United States was to be the moral leader in human rights. The Administration would criticize nations for human rights violations and to gain a sort of moral authority Carter stopped supporting Anti-Communist right wing dictators, gave back the Panama canal as a sort of gesture to remove the last American colonial outpost.

The Reagan Doctrine moved from containment of the Soviet Union to rolling it back everywhere on the globe. The Carter idealized human rights based foreign policy was replaced by a more realistic foreign policy that would use force and back some corrupt leaders if it would stop Communist expansion. Reagan was very clear, he refused to legitimize Communist governments, all non-democratic governments were in effect transient and would be dealt with as such, democratic movements were to be supported with arms and training if needed to challenge non-democratic regimes. The overriding goal of the Reagan Doctrine was to push back the Soviet Union on all fronts and to outspent them militarily. The goal of the Reagan Doctrine was made real in the collapse of Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe from 1989-1991.

The Clinton Doctrine was another stab at human rights, this was made easier by the lack of another super power. He stated in 1999, before the bombing of Serbia, that “It’s easy…to say that we really have no interests in who lives in this or that valley in Bosnia, or who owns a strip of brushland in the Horn of Africa, or some piece of parched earth by the Jordan River. But the true measure of our interests lies not in how small or distant these places are, or in whether we have trouble pronouncing their names. The question we must ask is, what are the consequences to our security of letting conflicts fester and spread. We cannot, indeed, we should not, do everything or be everywhere. But where our values and our interests are at stake, and where we can make a difference, we must be prepared to do so”. For him, small conflicts should be addressed before they escalate into larger wars, Rwanda not included.

Shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 the newly elected President Bush was very clear and very concise what the world should expect and on his intentions for American foreign policy. “The security environment confronting the United States today is radically different from what we have faced before. Yet the first duty of the United States Government remains what it always has been: to protect the American people and American interests. It is an enduring American principle that this duty obligates the government to anticipate and counter threats, using all elements of national power, before the threats can do grave damage. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction – and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack. There are few greater threats than a terrorist attack with WMD.

To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively in exercising our inherent right of self-defense. The United States will not resort to force in all cases to preempt emerging threats. Our preference is that nonmilitary actions succeed. And no country should ever use preemption as a pretext for aggression”. Preventative war to protect American security was coupled with the idea that those who help terrorists are terrorists themselves. Where Bush may have failed is his belief that democracy can replace tyranny in all countries. This is yet to be seen, but is a bold step, none the less.

This leaves us with President Obama. It is one year into his tenure, so it is a bit early to assign a doctrine, it does appears that he is following Carter’s human rights driven policies while, more importantly, denying de Tocqueville’s American Exceptionalism in the World, and by extension the exceptionalism in foreign policy This exceptionalism goes back in actions to perhaps Monroe and was the foundation for American action worldwide. For instance, in his Nobel acceptance speech he outlined that America is to be held to a higher standard than the rest of the world, limit and end ‘torture’ of terrorists and apply American Constitutional protection to them. Engage rouge states and try to bring about positive change through diplomacy, not by force or threat of force. His current ‘World Apology Tour’ is enough evidence that American Exceptionalism is shelved for now. This is creeping nebulousness and replacement of strong dealings with foreign foes by appeasement and apology is seen as weakness by the rest of the world and will cause us harm