Reagan Doctrine

TheReagan Doctrinewas a United States strategy implemented by theReagan Administrationto overwhelm the global influence of theSoviet Unionin the lateCold War.As stated by US PresidentRonald Reaganin hisState of the Union addresson February 6, 1985: "We must not break faith with those who are risking their lives—on every continent fromAfghanistantoNicaragua—to defy Soviet-supported aggression and secure rights which have been ours from birth. "The doctrine was a centerpiece ofUnited States foreign policy from the early 1980suntil the end of the Cold War in 1991.

U.S. PresidentRonald Reaganin 1983

Under the Reagan Doctrine, the United States provided overt and covert aid toanti-communistguerrillasandresistance movementsin an effort to "roll back"Soviet-backed pro-communist governments in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The doctrine was designed to diminish Soviet influence in these regions as part of the administration's overall strategy to win the Cold War.

Background

The Reagan Doctrine followed in the tradition of U.S. presidents developing foreign policy "doctrines", which were designed to reflect challenges facing international relations, and to propose foreign policy solutions. The practice began with theMonroe Doctrinein 1823, and continued with theRoosevelt Corollary,sometimes called the Roosevelt Doctrine, introduced byTheodore Rooseveltin 1904.

The post–World War II tradition of Presidential doctrines started with theTruman Doctrinein 1947, under which the US provided support to the governments ofGreeceandTurkeyas part of aCold Warstrategy to keep both nations out of the Soviet sphere of influence. It was followed by theEisenhower Doctrine,theKennedy Doctrine,theJohnson Doctrine,theNixon Doctrine,and theCarter Doctrine,all of which defined the foreign policy approaches of these respective U.S. presidents on some of the largest global challenges of their presidencies.

Origins

Carter administration and Afghanistan

Main article:Operation Cyclone

To watch the courageous Afghan freedom fighters battle modern arsenals with simple hand-held weapons is an inspiration to those who love freedom.

—U.S. President Ronald Reagan,March 21, 1983

President Reagan meeting withAfghan Mujahideenleaders in theOval Officein 1983

At least one component of the Reagan Doctrine technically pre-dated theReagan Presidency.InAfghanistan,theCarter administrationbegan providing limited covert military assistance to Afghanistan'smujahideenin an effort to drive the Soviets out of the nation, or at least raise the military and political cost of theSoviet occupation of Afghanistan.The policy of aiding the mujahideen in their war against the Soviet occupation was originally proposed by Carter's national security adviserZbigniew Brzezinskiand was implemented by U.S. intelligence services. It enjoyed broad bipartisan political support.

Democratic congressmanCharlie Wilsonbecame obsessed with the Afghan cause, and was able to leverage his position on the House Appropriations committees to encourage other Democratic congressmen to vote for CIA Afghan war money, with the tacit approval ofSpeaker of the HouseTip O'Neill,even as the Democratic party lambasted Reagan for the CIA's secret war in Central America. It was a complex web of relationships described inGeorge Crile III's bookCharlie Wilson's War.

Wilson teamed with CIA managerGust Avrakotosand formed a team of a few dozen insiders who greatly enhanced the support for the Mujahideen, funneling it throughZia ul-Haq'sISI.Avrakotos and Wilson charmed leaders from various anti-Soviet countries including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and China to increase support for the rebels. Avrakotos hiredMichael G. Vickers,a young Paramilitary Officer, to enhance the guerilla's odds by revamping the tactics, weapons, logistics, and training used by the Mujahideen.Michael Pillsbury,a Pentagon official, andVincent Cannistraropushed the CIA to supply theStinger missileto the rebels.President Reagan's Covert Action program has been given credit for assisting in ending the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Origin and advocates

With the arrival of theReagan administration,The Heritage Foundationand other conservative foreign policy think tanks saw a political opportunity to significantly expand Carter's Afghanistan policy into a more global "doctrine", including U.S. support to anti-communist resistance movements in Soviet-allied nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. According to political analysts Thomas Bodenheimer and Robert Gould, "it was the Heritage Foundation that translated theory into concrete policy. Heritage targeted nine nations forregime change:Afghanistan,Angola,Cambodia,Ethiopia,Iran,Laos,Libya,Nicaragua,andVietnam".

Throughout the 1980s, the Heritage Foundation's foreign policy expert on theThird World,Michael Johns,the foundation's principal Reagan Doctrine advocate, visited with resistance movements in Angola, Cambodia, Nicaragua, and other Soviet-supported nations and urged the Reagan administration to initiate or expand military and political support to them. Heritage Foundation foreign policy experts also endorsed the Reagan Doctrine in two of theirMandate for Leadershipbooks, which provided comprehensive policy advice to Reagan administration officials.

In fact, the doctrine only applied to Afghanistan, Cambodia, Angola, Nicaragua andMozambique,while Afghanistan was the centerpiece of the doctrine.

The result was that, unlike in Afghanistan, the Reagan Doctrine was rather quickly applied in Angola and Nicaragua, with the United States providing military support to theUNITAmovement in Angola and the "contras"in Nicaragua, but without a declaration of war against either country. Addressing the Heritage Foundation in October 1989, UNITA leaderJonas Savimbicalled the Heritage Foundation's efforts "a source of great support. No Angolan will forget your efforts. You have come toJamba,and you have taken our message to Congress and the Administration ".U.S. aid to UNITA began to flow overtly after Congress repealed theClark Amendment,a long-standing legislative prohibition on military aid to UNITA.

Following these victories, Johns and the Heritage Foundation urged further expanding the Reagan Doctrine to Ethiopia, where they argued that theEthiopian faminewas a product of the military andagriculturalpolicies of Ethiopia's Soviet-supportedMengistu Haile Mariamgovernment. Johns and Heritage also argued that Mengistu's decision to permit a Soviet naval and air presence on theRed Seaports ofEritrearepresented a strategic challenge to U.S. security interests in theMiddle EastandNorth Africa.

The Heritage Foundation and the Reagan administration also sought to apply the Reagan Doctrine in Cambodia. The largest resistance movement fighting Cambodia's communist government was largely made up of members of the formerKhmer Rougeregime, whose human rights record was among the worst of the 20th century. Therefore, Reagan authorized the provision of aid to a smaller Cambodian resistance movement, a coalition called theKhmer People's National Liberation Front,known as the KPNLF and then run bySon Sann;in an effort to force an end to the Vietnamese occupation.

While the Reagan Doctrine enjoyed strong support from the Heritage Foundation and theAmerican Enterprise Institute,the libertarian-orientedCato Instituteopposed the Reagan Doctrine, arguing in 1986 that "most Third World struggles take place in arenas and involve issues far removed from legitimate American security needs. U.S. involvement in such conflicts expands the republic's already overextended commitments without achieving any significant prospective gains. Instead of draining Soviet military and financial resources, we end up dissipating our own."

Even Cato, however, conceded that the Reagan Doctrine had "fired the enthusiasm of the conservative movement in the United States as no foreign policy issue has done in decades". While opposing the Reagan Doctrine as an official governmental policy, Cato instead urged Congress to remove the legal barriers prohibiting private organizations and citizens from supporting these resistance movements.

Reagan administration advocates

The U.S.-supported Nicaraguancontras.

Within the Reagan administration, the doctrine was quickly embraced by nearly all of Reagan's top national security and foreign policy officials, includingDefense SecretaryCaspar Weinberger,UN AmbassadorJeane Kirkpatrick,and a series of Reagan National Security advisers includingJohn Poindexter,Frank Carlucci,andColin Powell.

Reagan himself was a vocal proponent of the policy. Seeking to expand Congressional support for the doctrine in the1985 State of the Union Addressin February 1985, Reagan said: "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".

As part of his effort to gain Congressional support for the Nicaraguancontras,Reagan labeled the contras "the moral equivalent of ourfounding fathers",which was controversial because the contras had shown a disregard forhuman rights.There also were allegations that some members of the contra leadership were involved incocainetrafficking.

Reagan and other conservative advocates of the Reagan Doctrine advocates also argued that the doctrine served U.S. foreign policy and strategic objectives and was a moral imperative against the formerSoviet Union,which Reagan, his advisers, and supporters labeled an "evil empire".

Other advocates

Other early conservative advocates for the Reagan Doctrine included influential activistGrover Norquist,who ultimately became a registered UNITA lobbyist and an economic adviser to Savimbi's UNITA movement in Angola,and former Reagan speechwriter and formerU.S. CongressmanDana Rohrabacher,who made several secret visits with themujahideeninAfghanistanand returned with glowing reports of their bravery against the Soviet occupation.Rohrabacher was led to Afghanistan by his contact with themujahideen,Jack Wheeler.

Phrase's origin

In 1985, as U.S. support was flowing to theMujahideen,Savimbi'sUNITA,and the NicaraguanContras,columnistCharles Krauthammer,in an essay forTimemagazine, labeled the policy the "Reagan Doctrine," and the name stuck.

Krauthammer has said of his writing in support of the Reagan Doctrine,

I basically came to the conclusion... the Soviets had overextended their empire, and they were getting what the West had gotten with its overextended empire decades before a reaction, they got a rebellion, they got resistance. And the Soviets were now beginning to feel it, and the genius of Reagan, although I don't think they had a plan in doing this is he instinctively realized that one of the ways to go after the Soviets was indirect, and that is you go after their proxies, you go after their allies, you go after their clients, or even in Afghanistan you go after them directly. So that's what I called the Reagan Doctrine, it was sort of the opposite of theBrezhnev Doctrine,which was whatever we control we keep. And Reagan was saying, no you don't.

"Rollback" replaces "containment" and "détente"

U.S.-supportedUNITAleaderJonas Savimbi.

The Reagan Doctrine was especially significant because it represented a substantial shift in the post–World War II foreign policy of the United States. Prior to the Reagan Doctrine, U.S. foreign policy in the Cold War was rooted in "containment",as originally defined byGeorge F. Kennan,John Foster Dulles,and other post–World War II U.S. foreign policy experts. In January 1977, four years prior to becoming president, Reagan bluntly stated, in a conversation withRichard V. Allen,his basic expectation in relation to the Cold War. "My idea of American policy toward the Soviet Union is simple, and some would say simplistic," he said. "It is this: We win and they lose. What do you think of that?"

Although a similar policy of "rollback" had been considered on a few occasions during the Cold War, the U.S. government, fearing an escalation of the Cold War and possiblenuclear conflict,chose not to confront the Soviet Union directly. With the Reagan Doctrine, those fears were set aside and the United States began to openly confront Soviet-supported governments through support of rebel movements in the doctrine's targeted countries.

One perceived benefit of the Reagan Doctrine was the relatively low cost of supporting guerrilla forces compared to the Soviet Union's expenses in propping up client states. Another benefit was the lack of direct involvement of American troops, which allowed the United States to confront Soviet allies without sustaining casualties. Especially since theSeptember 11 attacks,some Reagan Doctrine critics have argued that, by facilitating the transfer of large amounts of weapons to various areas of the world and by training military leaders in these regions, the Reagan Doctrine actually contributed to "blowback"by strengthening some political and military movements that ultimately developed hostility toward the United States, such asal-Qaedain Afghanistan.However, no direct U.S. aid toOsama bin Ladenor any of his affiliates has ever been established.

Controversy over Nicaragua

Further information:United States and state-sponsored terrorism § The Contras,andContras

Historian Greg Grandin described a disjuncture between official ideals preached by the United States and actual U.S. support for terrorism. "Nicaragua, where the United States backed not a counter insurgent state but anti-communistmercenaries,likewise represented a disjuncture between the idealism used to justify U.S. policy and its support for political terrorism.... The corollary to the idealism embraced by the Republicans in the realm of diplomatic public policy debate was thus political terror. In the dirtiest of Latin America's dirty wars, their faith in America's mission justified atrocities in the name of liberty ".Grandin examined the behaviour of the U.S.-backed contras and found evidence that it was particularly inhumane and vicious: "In Nicaragua, the U.S.-backed Contras decapitated, castrated, and otherwise mutilated civilians and foreign aid workers. Some earned a reputation for using spoons to gouge their victims' eyes out. In one raid, Contras cut the breasts of a civilian defender to pieces and ripped the flesh off the bones of another."

Professor Frederick H. Gareau has written that the Contras "attacked bridges, electric generators, but also state-owned agricultural cooperatives, rural health clinics, villages, andnon-combatants".U.S. agents were directly involved in the fighting." CIA commandos launched a series of sabotage raids on Nicaraguan port facilities. They mined the country's major ports and set fire to its largest oil storage facilities. "In 1984 the U.S. Congress ordered this intervention to be stopped; however, it was later shown that the Reagan administration illegally continued (SeeIran–Contra affair). Gareau has characterized these acts as "wholesale terrorism" by the United States.

A CIA manual for training the NicaraguanContrasinpsychological operations,leaked to the media in 1984, entitled "Psychological Operations in Guerrilla War".recommended "selective use of violence for propagandistic effects" and to "neutralize" government officials. Nicaraguan Contras were taught to lead:

... selective use of armed force for PSYOP psychological operations effect.... Carefully selected, planned targets – judges, police officials, tax collectors, etc. – may be removed for PSYOP effect in a UWOA unconventional warfare operations area, but extensive precautions must insure that the people "concur" in such an act by thorough explanatory canvassing among the affected populace before and after conduct of the mission.

— James Bovard, Freedom Daily

Similarly, former diplomat Clara Nieto, in her bookMasters of War,charged that "the CIA launched a series of terrorist actions from the" mothership "off Nicaragua's coast. In September 1983, she charged the agency attackedPuerto Sandinowith rockets. The following month,frogmenblew up the underwater oil pipeline in the same port – the only one in the country. In October there was an attack on Puerto Corinto, Nicaragua's largest port, with mortars, rockets, and grenades blowing up five large oil and gasoline storage tanks. More than a hundred people were wounded, and the fierce fire, which could not be brought under control for two days, forced the evacuation of 23,000 people. "

TheInternational Court of Justice,when judging the case ofNicaragua v. United Statesin 1984, found that the United States was obligated to pay reparations to Nicaragua, because it had violated international law by actively supporting the Contras in their rebellion and by mining the Naval waters of Nicaragua.The United States refused to participate in the proceedings after the Court rejected its argument that the ICJ lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. The U.S. later blocked the enforcement of the judgment by exercising its veto power in theUnited Nations Security Counciland so prevented Nicaragua from obtaining any actual compensation.

Covert implementation

As the Reagan administration set about implementing The Heritage Foundation plan in Afghanistan, Angola, and Nicaragua, it first attempted to do so covertly, not as part of official policy. "The Reagan government's initial implementation of the Heritage plan was done covertly", according to the bookRollback,"following the longstanding custom that containment can be overt but rollback should be covert". Ultimately, however, the administration supported the policy more openly.

Congressional votes

While the doctrine benefited from strong support from the Reagan administration, The Heritage Foundation and several influential Members of Congress, many votes on critical funding for resistance movements, especially the Nicaraguan contras, were extremely close, making the Reagan Doctrine one of the more contentious American political issues of the 1980s.

The Cold War's end

As arms flowed to the contras, Savimbi's UNITA and the mujahideen, the Reagan Doctrine's advocates argued that the doctrine was yielding constructive results for U.S. interests and global democracy.

In Nicaragua, pressure from the Contras led the Sandinstas to end the State of Emergency, and they subsequently lost the 1990 elections. In Afghanistan, the mujahideen bled the Soviet Union's military and paved the way for Soviet military defeat. In Angola, Savimbi's resistance ultimately led to a decision by the Soviet Union andCubato bring their troops and military advisors home from Angola as part of a negotiated settlement.

All of these developments were Reagan Doctrine victories, the doctrine's advocates argue, laying the ground for the ultimatedissolution of the Soviet Union.Michael Johns later argued that "the Reagan-led effort to support freedom fighters resisting Soviet oppression led successfully to the first major military defeat of the Soviet Union... Sending the Red Army packing from Afghanistan proved one of the single most important contributing factors in one of history's most profoundly positive and important developments".

Thatcher's view

Among others,Margaret Thatcher,Prime Minister of the United Kingdomfrom 1979 to 1990, credited the Reagan Doctrine with aiding the end of the Cold War. In December 1997, Thatcher said that the Reagan Doctrine "proclaimed that the truce with communism was over. The West would henceforth regard no area of the world as destined to forego its liberty simply because the Soviets claimed it to be within their sphere of influence. We would fight a battle of ideas against communism, and we would give material support to those who fought to recover their nations from tyranny".

Iran–Contra affair

U.S. funding for theContras,who opposed theSandinistagovernment of Nicaragua, was obtained from covert sources. The U.S. Congress did not authorize sufficient funds for the Contras' efforts, and theBoland Amendmentbarred further funding. In 1986, in an episode that became known as TheIran–Contra affair,the Reagan administration illegally facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, the subject of an arms embargo, in the hope that the arms sales would secure the release of hostages and allow U.S. intelligence agencies to fund the Nicaraguan Contras.

End

The Reagan Doctrine continued into the administration of Reagan's successor,George H. W. Bush,who won the U.S. presidency in November 1988. Bush's presidency featured the final years of the Cold War and theGulf War,but the Reagan Doctrine soon faded from U.S. policy as the Cold War ended.Bush also noted a presumedpeace dividendto the end of the Cold War with economic benefits of a decrease indefense spending.However, following the presidency ofBill Clinton,a change in United States foreign policy was introduced with the presidency of his sonGeorge W. Bushand the newBush Doctrine,who increased military spending in response to theSeptember 11th attacks.

In Nicaragua, theContra Warended after the Sandinista government, facing military and political pressure, agreed to new elections, in which the contras' political wing participated, in 1990. In Angola, an agreement in 1989 met Savimbi's demand for the removal of Soviet, Cuban and other military troops and advisers from Angola. Also in 1989, in relation to Afghanistan, Soviet leaderMikhail Gorbachevlabeled the war against the U.S.-supported mujahideen a "bleeding wound" and ended the Soviet occupation of the country.

In popular culture

• Charlie Wilson's War,aGolden Globe Awardand Oscar-nominatedUniversal Picturesfilm released in December 2007, depicts early U.S. efforts to provide military support to the Afghan mujahideen following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
• Miami,a 1987 book byJoan Didioncovers U.S. efforts to overthrow communist governments, including that ofFidel CastroinCuba.

See also

• Kirkpatrick Doctrine
• Deterrence theory
• Peace through strength
• United States-Latin American relations
• Project Socrates

Further reading

• Beitz, Charles R. "The Reagan Doctrine in Nicaragua." inProblems of International Justiceewd. by Steven Luper-foy, (Routledge, 2019) pp. 182-195.
• Bodenheimer, Thomas S., and Robert Gould. "US Military Doctrines and Their Relation to Foreign Policy." inHemispheric security and US policy in Latin America(Routledge, 2019) pp. 7-32.
• Carpenter, Ted Galen."U.S. Aid to Anti-Communist Rebels: The 'Reagan Doctrine' and its Pitfalls",Cato Policy Analysis # 74, Cato Institute, June 24, 1986.
• Garthoff, Raymond L. (1994).The great transition: American-Soviet relations and the end of the Cold War.Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution.ISBN978-0-8157-3060-6.Archived fromthe originalon 2012-03-09.Retrieved2017-09-10.
• Greentree, Todd. "The origins of the Reagan Doctrine Wars in Angola, Central America, and Afghanistan" (Diss. University of Oxford, 2016)online.
• Hopf, Ted. "Peripheral Visions: Brezhnev and Gorbachev Meet the" Reagan Doctrine "." inLearning in US and Soviet foreign policyed by George Breslauer and Philip Tetlock. (Routledge, 2019) pp. 586-629.
• Johns, Andrew L., ed.A Companion to Ronald Reagan(John Wiley & Sons, 2014). pp 339–358.
• Johns, Michael(Second Quarter 1987). "The Lessons of Afghanistan".Policy Review(40): 32–35.ISSN0146-5945.
• Johns, Michael."A U.S. Strategy to Foster Human Rights in Ethiopia",Heritage Foundation Backgrounder# 692, February 23, 1989.
• Lagon, Mark P.The Reagan Doctrine: Sources of American Conduct in the Cold War's Last Chapter(1984)onlineArchived2019-01-27 at theWayback Machine
• Loconte, Joseph. "American Exceptionalism and the Reagan Doctrine: The Belief That Won the Cold War." inThe Reagan Manifesto(Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2016) pp. 77-96.
• Meiertöns, Heiko (2010).The Doctrines of US Security Policy: An Evaluation under International Law.Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-76648-7.
• Pach, Chester. “The Reagan Doctrine: Principle, Pragmatism, and Policy,"Presidential Studies Quarterly(2006) 36#1 p. 75+onlineArchived2020-08-06 at theWayback Machine
• Rosenfeld, Stephen S."The Reagan Doctrine: The Guns of July",Foreign Affairsmagazine, Spring 1986.
• Schmertz, Eric J. Natalie Datlof, and Alexej Ugrinsky eds.President Reagan and the World(1997)onlineArchived2019-01-27 at theWayback Machine
• Scott, James M. "Reagan's doctrine? The formulation of an American foreign policy strategy"Presidential Studies Quarterly(1996) 26#4 pp 1047–61.online
• Scott, James M.Deciding to intervene: the Reagan doctrine and American foreign policy(1996)
• Starr-Deelen, Donna.Presidential Policies on Terrorism: From Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama.(Springer, 2014).

External links

• "The Principles of Conservatism",by Honorable Margaret Thatcher, Heritage Foundation Lecture, December 10, 1997.
• "The Ash Heap of History: President Reagan's Westminster Address 20 Years Later",by Charles Krauthammer, Heritage Foundation Lecture, June 3, 2002.
• "U.S. Aid to Anti-Communist Rebels: The 'Reagan Doctrine' and its Pitfalls",by Ted Galen Carpenter, Cato Policy Analysis # 74, Cato Institute, June 24, 1986.
• Webb, Gary(August 1996).The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert Operations(Report).National Security Archive.
• "How We Ended the Cold War",by John Tirman,The Nation,October 14, 1999.
• "Think Tank Fosters Bloodshed, Terrorism",The Daily Cougar,August 25, 2008.