The Nixon Doctrine was a new US foreign policy strategy established in 1969, allowing the US to exit the Vietnam War. The strategy proposed that afflicted countries should provide most of the manpower for their defense, with the US providing aid and assistance. The doctrine also included diplomatic efforts with communist countries and the training of allies in modern conflicts. Critics argue that the doctrine indirectly helped the spread of nuclear-capable countries.
The Nixon Doctrine was a new American foreign policy strategy established by United States President Richard Nixon in 1969. Also known as the Guam Doctrine after the country where it was announced at a press conference, the Nixon Doctrine reflected President Nixon’s concerns about the dependence of foreign allies on the United States in conflicts.
Released at the height of the Vietnam War, the strategy allowed Nixon to devise a way for the United States to exit that unpopular conflict. He further stressed that the United States would still come to the aid of its allies in their time of need, insisting that most of the responsibility for fighting these conflicts would fall on the afflicted country itself.
After World War II, the fact that the United States emerged from the conflict relatively unscathed in terms of economic and military strength led many of its allies to turn to the powerful country when foreign conflicts arose. This led to American involvement in Korea and Vietnam, the latter of which grew increasingly costly in terms of resources and lives lost and became highly unpopular with many Americans. President Nixon bore the brunt of this criticism and realized that changing times called for a new foreign strategy.
At a press conference in Guam on July 25, 1969, Nixon first announced his new strategy, elaborating it in an address to the American people later in the year. What eventually became known as the Nixon Doctrine proposed that the United States would still honor any existing treaty with a foreign nation. He also said the country would provide a nuclear shield for any threatened allied country or any threatened area deemed important to American security. The most important and new aspect of the doctrine was the last part, which stated that, while the United States would provide aid and assistance to a country in danger, that country itself would eventually have to provide the manpower for its defense .
Nixon later expanded what the Nixon Doctrine entailed to include his later diplomatic efforts with communist countries such as the Soviet Union and China. He provided an eventual way out of Vietnam for US forces, who by then would have had to train their South Vietnamese allies to do most of the fighting themselves. Critics of the president would have noted that the war actually expanded later with the invasion of Cambodia and that it would be four years before the last US troops left in 1973.
Many of the principles of the Nixon Doctrine can be found in US efforts to train allies to do the most fighting in modern conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The doctrine also ushered in the era of “Freedom Fighters,” foreign forces backed by US aid to fight enemies within their own country that the US wanted out of power. Critics have also argued that by following the Doctrine and escaping the focus of foreign conflicts, the United States has indirectly helped the spread of nuclear-capable countries.
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