Eisenhower Doctrine

This article is part of a series on the
Politics of the United States
Federal government Constitution of the United States Laws Treaties
Legislature United States Congress House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson (R) Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R) Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D) Congressional districts (list) Non-voting members Senate President Kamala Harris (D) President Pro Tempore Patty Murray (D) Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D) Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R)
Executive President of the United States Joe Biden (D) Vice President of the United States Kamala Harris (D) Cabinet Federal agencies Executive Office
Judiciary Supreme Court of the United States Chief Justice John Roberts Thomas Alito Sotomayor Kagan Gorsuch Kavanaugh Barrett Jackson Inferior Courts of the United States Courts of appeals District courts (list) Court of International Trade Alien Terrorist Removal Court Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review Other tribunals
Elections National elections Presidential elections Midterm elections Off-year elections Primary elections Presidential primary Elections by state and territory Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming American Samoa Guam Northern Mariana Islands Puerto Rico U.S. Virgin Islands Elections in the District of Columbia (List of elections)
Political parties Democratic Republican Third parties Libertarian Green List of political parties
Political ideologies Conservatism Black Neo- Paleo- Social Traditionalist Trumpism Liberalism Classical Conservative Modern Progressivism Third Way Abolitionism Anarchism Capitalist Individualist Constitutionalism Environmentalism Feminism Libertarianism Conservative Objectivism Monarchism Nationalism Nativism Populism Protectionism Republicanism Socialism Political culture Political polarization
Federalism State and territorial government Governors Legislatures (list) Courts Local government District of Columbia government District Council Mayor Superior Court
Foreign relations Department of State Secretary of State: Antony Blinken Diplomatic missions of / in the United States Nationality law Passports Visa requirements Visa policy United States and the United Nations United Nations Security Council P5 NATO G20 G7 Russia China India Japan Canada United Kingdom European Union Latin America Arab League
United States portal Politics portal
v t e

This article is part of a series about Dwight D. Eisenhower
Early Life Military Career World War II Supreme Allied Commander in Europe D-Day Operation Overlord Surrender of Germany VE-Day Crusade in Europe 34th President of the United States Presidency Timeline Transition Inaugurations first second First Term Korean War Atoms for Peace Cold War New Look Domino theory Interstate Highway System Second Term Eisenhower Doctrine Sputnik crisis Missile gap NDEA NASA DARPA Civil Rights Act of 1957 Little Rock Nine Admission of states Alaska Hawaii U-2 incident Farewell Address Kennedy transition Presidential campaigns 1952 campaign Draft movement Election 1956 campaign Election Post-Presidency Legacy Presidential library and museum Tributes and memorials
v t e

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]

This section includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this section by introducing more precise citations. (August 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

In the global political context, the doctrine was made in response to the possibility of a generalized war, threatened due to the Soviet Union's latent threat becoming involved in Egypt after the Suez Crisis.^[4] Coupled with the power vacuum left by the decline of British and French power in the region after the U.S. protested against the conduct of their allies during the Suez War, Eisenhower thought that the strong position needed to better the situation was further complicated by the positions taken by Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was rapidly building a power base and using it to play the Soviets and Americans against each other, taking a position of "positive neutrality" and accepting aid from the Soviets.^[5]

On the regional level, the doctrine's intent was to provide the independent Arab regimes with an alternative to Nasser's political control, strengthening them while isolating communist influence through Nasser's isolation. It largely failed on that front, with Nasser's power quickly rising by 1959 to when he could shape the leadership outcomes in neighboring Arab countries such as Iraq and Saudi Arabia; in the meantime, his relationship with the Soviet leaders deteriorated, allowing the U.S. to switch to a policy of accommodation.

The administration also saw the Middle East as being critical for future foreign policy regarding the United States and its allies. The region contains a large percentage of the world's oil reserves needed by the allies. Eisenhower's protests against longtime allies—Britain and France—during the Suez Crisis lead to the collapse of British and French influence in the Middle East, spawning fears of Soviet domination made more credible by Nasser's increasingly pro-Soviet disposition. The Eisenhower Doctrine was a backflip against the previous policy; the U.S. now had the burden of military action in the Middle East to itself.

The doctrine was not successfully applied in that year's crisis in Syria but was instead invoked in the Lebanon crisis the following year, when the U.S. intervened in response to a request by that country's then President Camille Chamoun.

• 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) excerpt pp. 69–72.
• 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, ISBN 978-0521766487.
• 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).

• Text of the January 5, 1957 Special Message to Congress