Eisenhower Doctrine

The Eisenhower Doctrine was a policy enunciated by Dwight D. Eisenhower on January 5, 1957, within a "Special Message to the Congress on the Situation in the Middle East". Under the Eisenhower Doctrine, a Middle Eastern country could request American economic assistance or aid from U.S. military forces if it was being threatened by armed aggression.^[1] Eisenhower singled out the Soviet threat in his doctrine by authorizing the commitment of U.S. forces "to secure and protect the territorial integrity and political independence of such nations, requesting such aid against overt armed aggression from any nation controlled by international communism."^[2] The phrase "international communism" made the doctrine much broader than simply responding to Soviet military action. A danger that could be linked to communists of any nation could conceivably invoke the doctrine.

Most Arabs regarded the doctrine as a transparent ploy to promote Western influence in the Middle East by restraining Nasser's brand of Arab nationalism that opposed Western domination, and some like the Syrians publicly denounced the initiative as an insidious example of U.S. imperialism. Following the 1958 crisis in Lebanon and accusations by U.S. senators of exaggerating the threat of communism to the region, Eisenhower privately admitted that the real goal was combating Arab nationalism.^[3]

Foreign policy doctrine

Foreign policy of the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration

Syrian Crisis of 1957

United States foreign policy in the Middle East

Brands, H.W. Into the Labyrinth: The United States and the Middle East, 1945–1993 (1994) pp. 69–72.

excerpt

Hahn, Peter L. "Securing the Middle East: The Eisenhower Doctrine of 1957." Presidential Studies Quarterly 36.1 (2006): 38–47.

online

Lesch, David W. "The 1957 American–Syrian Crisis: Globalist Policy in a Regional Reality", in The Middle East and the United States: History, Politics, and Ideologies; David W. Lesch and Mark L Hass eds., Westview Press, 2013 edition, pp. 111–127.

Meiertöns, Heiko (2010): The Doctrines of US Security Policy – An Evaluation under International Law, Cambridge University Press, 978-0521766487.

ISBN

Takeyh, Ray. The Origins of the Eisenhower Doctrine: The US, Britain and Nasser's Egypt, 1953–57 (2000)

Yaqub, Salim. Containing Arab nationalism: the Eisenhower doctrine and the Middle East (University of North Carolina Press, 2004).