Eisenhower Doctrine

Eisenhower Doctrine

U.S. foreign policy pronouncement by Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower (1957). The Eisenhower Doctrine promised military and economic aid to anticommunist governments, at a time when communist countries were providing arms to Egypt and offering strong support to Arab states. Part of the Cold War policy developed by John Foster Dulles to contain expansion of the Soviet sphere of influence, the doctrine continued pledges made under the Truman Doctrine.

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Eisenhower Doctrine 

a foreign policy position of the US government regarding the Middle East, adopted after the failure of the Anglo-French-Israeli aggression against Egypt in 1956 and the significant weakening of the position of the colonialist powers in the Middle East. It was developed with the assistance of the US secretary of state, J. F. Dulles. The doctrine was first laid out in an address to Congress by the president of the USA, D. D. Eisenhower, on Jan. 15,1957, and was adopted by means of a congressional resolution in March 1957.

The doctrine was intended to strengthen the position of the USA in the Middle East and to systematically oppose the forces of the national liberation movement. The US president was given the “right” to offer military and economic “aid” to countries in the Middle East and, at his own discretion, to use American armed forces in the area. The doctrine signified the aspiration of the USA to arbitrarily and unilaterally decide questions of war and peace in the Middle East, to interfere in the internal affairs of countries of the area, and to establish control over the foreign policy of these countries. Such objectives were in fundamental contradiction to the interests of peace and security and to the principles of state sovereignty and the independence of peoples. The doctrine grossly violated international law and a number of provisions of the UN Charter. It also violated US constitutional practice, since it bypassed Congress and gave the president virtually uncontrolled military authority.

The USA implemented the doctrine repeatedly (the plots against Syria, 1957; aggression against Lebanon, 1958). The national liberation movements of the peoples of the Arab East—as well as the consistent foreign policy of the USSR and the other countries of the socialist cooperation—directed at ensuring peace and supporting the just demands of the Arab peoples, frustrated the plan of the USA to fully implement the doctrine. However, the basic principles and aims of the Eisenhower doctrine have in open or covert form been a part of US policy regarding the Middle East in later times as well (support of Israel’s aggressive actions and of reactionary forces in Arab states).