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Containment As Foreign Policy Doctrine in Two United States 'Wars

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Containment As Foreign Policy Doctrine in Two United States 'Wars Containment as Foreign Policy Doctrine in Two United States ‘Wars’ : from the Cold War to the War on Terror : How Do Arab Spring Countries Fit into the Scheme? Hamda Tebra To cite this version: Hamda Tebra. Containment as Foreign Policy Doctrine in Two United States ‘Wars’ : from the Cold War to the War on Terror : How Do Arab Spring Countries Fit into the Scheme?. History. Université Paris-Est, 2020. English. NNT : 2020PESC0029. tel-03230848 HAL Id: tel-03230848 https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-03230848 Submitted on 20 May 2021 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Université Paris Est Creteil UPEC Ecole Doctorale Cultures et Sociétés Laboratoire de Recherche: Institut des Mondes Anglophone, Germanique et Roman (IMAGER) Thèse de Doctorat en Langue, Littératures et Civilisations Etrangers (Anglais) Specialité : Civilisation Américaine. par Mr Hamda TEBRA Containment as Foreign Policy Doctrine in Two United States ‘Wars’: From the Cold War to the War on Terror How Do Arab Spring Countries Fit into the Scheme? Directrice de Recherche Mme. Le Professeur Donna Kesselman Professeur des Universités en Civilisation Américaine, Université Paris Est Créteil. Présenté et soutenu publiquement à l‘UPEC le 13 Janvier 2020 pour l‘obtention de titre de docteur en Etudes Anglophone - Civilization Americaine. Membres du jury. Mme. Isabelle VAGNOUX, Professeure des universités, Université Aix-Marseille, Présidente. M. Olivier FRAYSSE, Professeur des universités, Université Paris-Sorbonne, Rapporteur. M. Mokhtar BEN BARKA, Professeur des universités, Université de Valenciennes, Rapporteur. M. James KETTERER, Professeur, Université Bard College, New York, Examinateur. M. Mohamed Salah HARZALLAH, Maitre de conférences HDR, Université de Sousse, Examinateur. Mme. Donna KESSELMAN, Professeure des universités, Université Paris-Est, Directrice de Recherche. Table of contents Abstract --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- v Résumé -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- vii Dedication ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ix Acknowledgements ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- x Acronyms ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ xi List of tables and figures --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- xiii 1. INTRODUCTION -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 The framework of neo-containment ---------------------------------------------------------------- 4 Neo-containment in the MENA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 8 Political Islam and containment ------------------------------------------------------------------- 13 The dissertation’s main hypothesis --------------------------------------------------------------- 18 The PhD setting --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18 Methodology ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 21 Dissertation outline ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 23 1. HISTORIOGRAPHY OF U.S. FOREIGN POLICY OF CONTAINMENT: THE COLD WAR AND THE WAR ON TERROR ------------------------------------------------------------------ 28 1.1 Cold War studies ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 30 1.1.1 Orthodox perspective on containment ------------------------------------------------------------------- 30 1.1.2 Revisionist perspective ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 39 1.1.3 Post-revisionism and the notion of containment ---------------------------------------------------- 51 1.2 Terrorism studies: The U.S. War on Terror and the containment policy ----------------- 60 1.2.1 Orthodox terrorism studies ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 61 1.2.2 Revisionist terrorism studies --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 67 1.3 Twenty-first century Cold War studies ---------------------------------------------------------- 76 i 2. CONTAINMENT IN THE COLD WAR AND POST-COLD WAR PERIODS: REVISITING THE MAJOR PHASES TOWARDS NEO-CONTAINMENT ------------------ 82 2.1 Containing the Middle East in the Cold War: historical perspective----------------------- 85 2.1.1 Truman doctrine as MENA universal program ----------------------------------------------------- 85 2.1.2 Eisenhower: the Middle East and the rise of Nasserism ----------------------------------------- 92 2.2 Containment in the post-Cold War era ---------------------------------------------------------- 93 2.2.1 Persian Gulf Wars and Iraq War -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 97 2.2.2 Alliance system ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 100 2.2.3 War for oil and primacy -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 102 2.2.4 President Bill Clinton’s Dual Containment---------------------------------------------------------- 103 2.3 The War on Terror: from Bush to Obama ----------------------------------------------------- 117 2.3.1 The War on Terror: a pretext of convenience? ---------------------------------------------------- 117 2.3.2 Bush Doctrine and the War on Terror in the MENA. ------------------------------------------ 120 2.3.3 War on Terror: a war for primacy ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 123 2.3.4 Afghanistan --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 124 2.3.5 War on Iraq -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 132 2.4 The President Obama administration: was it a departure from the War on Terror framework? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 145 2.4.1 The Middle East as the main area for the U.S. ----------------------------------------------------- 148 2.4.2 Iran : from containment to engagement -------------------------------------------------------------- 150 3. MAJOR MECHANISMS OF CONTAINMENT FROM THE COLD WAR TO THE WAR ON TERROR --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 157 3.1 Economic containment ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 158 3.1.1 Economic aid ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 158 3.1.2 Aids as national security ------------------------------------------------------------------ 161 3.1.3 The USAID ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 162 3.1.4 Forms of aids ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 164 3.1.5 Fighting Poverty as a containment policy --------------------------------------------- 165 3.1.6 The Middle East and North Africa: specific region for economic aid ----------- 169 3.1.7 Economic rewards ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 171 3.2 Defending democracy as a means of containment ------------------------------------------------ 173 3.3 The military containment ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 188 3.3.1 Proxy wars ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 188 ii 3.3.2 The shift to the militarization of containment ------------------------------------------------------ 190 3.3.3 Regime change ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 198 3.3.4 Military spending ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 199 3.3.5 The Military-Industrial complex ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 201 4. CONTAINING THE MENA: ARAB SPRING COUNTRIES AS CASE STUDY ------ 203 4.1 U.S. Response to the Arab Spring and the alliance system ---------------------------------- 209 4.1.1 U.S. response to the uprisings: reluctance and the arc of history----------------- 211 4.1.2 The Importance of Ben Ali to the United States ------------------------------------- 215 4.1.3 Egypt: the U.S. response ------------------------------------------------------------------ 221 4.2 The immediate post Ben Ali Tunisia and Mubarak Egypt: primacy at stake ----------- 230 4.2.1 Tunisia --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 235 4.2.2 Egypt -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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