The Nixon Doctrine and Detente

The Late Vietnam War and Early Post-Vietnam Consensus, 1969-74

Jun 25, 2007

In the wake of the Vietnam War, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger were prepapred to accept some degree of American decline in a multipolar world.

Richard Nixon’s ideas about détente were not new and he was well aware of the Post-Korea Consensus in the Eisenhower Administration in 1953-61. John Morton Blum noted détente’s similarities to the New Look, with its reduced military spending and reliance on the CIA and local allies rather than direct intervention, as well as seeking negotiations with the Soviets.[1] This retreat from the Middle Cold War consensus not only provided “containment-on-the-cheap”, it also “gave the president a rationale for pulling back from Vietnam.” Having been Ike’s vice president, Nixon was nothing if not a realist and pragmatist with highly flexible principles, who adjusted to “the relative decline of American power” and agreed to arms control and economic assistance to the Soviets in return for their help in easing America out of Vietnam and reducing tensions worldwide. Nixon and Kissinger were “cautious” advocates of “trade liberalization and economic inducements to the Soviet Union, basically linked to Moscow’s conduct in foreign policy”, but Congress never gave the Soviets Most Favored Nation Status.[2]

Nixon seemed to grasp that nationalism was stronger than Communism far more than earlier Cold War presidents, except possibly John F. Kennedy. He understood that traditional Chinese xenophobia was asserting itself against Russia, bringing about the opening to that country in 1972. Indeed, about the only place in the world where this was not true was Western Europe, which had had enough of war and was uniting in its own interests to form a bloc under the control of neither Russia nor America. Nixon and Kissinger continued the containment policy they inherited from past administrations, and added China to the team, which gave the Russians a huge strategic problem had they ever planned any type of ground war against the opposing coalition. It is not likely that they did, and Nixon assumed correctly that the great powers would never fight each other directly. Like Eisenhower, he was prepared to negotiate arms control agreements and trade deals, and declare their rivalry one of peaceful competition, and no one at the time imagined the Soviet Union would be anything other than a great power in 1989 or 2000.[3]

Nixon favored the Chinese with a discussion of grand strategy during the Beijing summit in 1972. America would “preserve a nuclear balance with the Soviet Union and…sustain its military power in Europe and the Pacific”, in keeping with the realpolitik dictum that Great Industrial Powers like Germany and Japan were the most important allies. He deftly brushed the Taiwan issue aside in his eagerness for an alliance with China and also stated he did not want the U.S. to be “tied down” in Vietnam any longer. In turn, he urged the Chinese and Soviets to pressure North Vietnam to negotiate and accept “Thieu’s continuing presidency.” As Dean Rusk rightfully lamented, “any Democratic president visiting Peking [sic] would have been torn to pieces by the Republicans, likely with Nixon himself leading the way”, but the new alliance with China was one of the keys to détente and the Post-Vietnam Consensus.[4] Here was a country that could not really be defeated militarily in any meaningful sense, and with Japan thoroughly balanced the Soviet Union in Asia.

For all the sound and fury about the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) at the time, the reality was that they did not end the arms race or even slow it down significantly. Nixon and Kissinger did not negotiate on submarine-launched missiles, aircraft or multiple warheads in which the strategic balance heavily favored the United States. For all the discussion about parity and balance of power, they “intended to maintain overall American nuclear superiority.” For their part, the Soviets expected economic concessions in return for these agreements, and assumed these would be readily forthcoming because “the enormous power of business and its self-interest would eventually weigh decisively” in American politics. It came as a great shock to the Soviets when the 1974 Jackson-Vanik Amendment denied them Most Favored Nation status, and did sever damage to détente.[5]

In the 1970s, the U.S. needed as much of a breathing space as Gorbachev did in the next decade, and the Soviets thought that “the Vietnam war and militarism in general were running into stiff and often violent opposition in America, while demands for social spending were steadily growing.” American corporate leaders were becoming alarmed about inflation, the high cost of oil, and German and Japanese imports, leading Nixon and other Republican leaders reduce Cold War tensions. Nixon was mostly an opportunist, out to “get himself a prominent place in twentieth-century history”, but American weakness and the crisis at home forced him to look for “alternatives” to the Cold War.[6] Unlike Reagan, Nixon and Kissinger were prepared to accept relative American decline within a multipolar world order, and in the long run, their foreign policy may well be remembered as the most farsighted of the last half of the 20th Century.

[2] LaFeber, 259; Feinberg, 44, 140, 170-79; Isaacson, 316-32, 399-438; Brands, 103-23; Ash, 225, 238

[3] Paterson, 222-31; Kolko, 265-72: Feinberg, 43-44, 81, 250; Beschloss and Talbott, At The Higest Level, 12, 166, 359

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