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Zbigniew Brzezinski and the Triumph of Neo

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Zbigniew Brzezinski and the Triumph of Neo The Triumph of Containment: Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter and the Demise of Détente by Kevin Embick A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Masters of Arts Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, Florida December 2008 VITA Kevin Embick, son of William and Lillian Embick, was born December 30, 1979 in Fort. Lauderdale, Florida. He graduated from William T. Dwyer High School in 1999. He attended Ferrum College in Ferrum, Virginia for four years graduating cum laude in December of 2003 with a Bachelor of Arts degree (History). He married Ann Marie Daniels in June of 2005. He began teaching History and Political Science at Jupiter High School in Jupiter, Florida in August of 2005 and continues to do so. In May of 2008, his wife gave birth to a son, Andrew Graydon Embick. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author wishes to express a sincere thanks to the research assistants and staff at the Jimmy Carter Library in Atlanta, Georgia. Their efforts in helping a novice researcher access the relevant source material needed proved pivotal in making this project a reality. Their recommendations on new approaches to writing about the Carter administration were of tremendous help as well. iv ABSTRACT Author: Kevin S. Embick Title: The Triumph of Containment: Zbigneiw Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter and the Demise of Détente Institution: Florida Atlantic University Thesis Advisor: Dr. Kenneth Osgood Degree Masters of Arts Year 2008 President Jimmy Carter’s foreign policy changed significantly and progressively over the course of his four year term. What began as a liberal- internationalist approach to foreign policy ended in a traditional Cold War stalemate with the Soviet Union. There are many causes for this shift: changes in the international environment, shifting public opinion, and other domestic-political pressures. One of the most consistently undervalued causes for Carter’s overall foreign policy shift was the personal influence of his National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. Through a variety of advocacy pressures and framing tactics, Brzezinski was able to utilize the changes in the international system, and especially, changes within domestic-political environment to convince Carter of an extensive reformation of his foreign policy perspective and priorities. v Table of Contents Chapters 1. Carter’s First Two Years—a Divided Liberal Internationalist Perspective. 1 Demonstrating Change—Notre Dame Speech to the Carter Doctrine . 3 Literature Review . 9 Brzezinski’s Role and the Domestic-Political Connection . 13 The Carter Administration’s Trilaterialist Thought . 19 The Carter Administration’s Philosophical Divisions . 22 Carter’s First Two Years—Liberal Internationalism . 30 Human Rights . 31 The Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty . 34 The Panama Canal . 35 Middle East Peace . 38 Normalization with China . 39 2. Africa and the Seeds of Discord . 42 Ethiopia, Somalia, Cuba and the Soviet Union . 44 Vance and Brzezinski’s Conflicting Interpretations . 47 Linkage Wars . 52 Brzezinski’s Initial Policy of Containment (Reciprocity and Linkage) . 55 vi 3. Domestic Opposition and Foreign Policy Transition . 58 Domestic/Political changes (78-79) . 59 Conservative Mobilization . 60 Media Criticism: Vance/Brzezinski Divide, Africa and Linkage, the Neutron Bomb, Carter’s Growing Image Problem . 63 The Conceptual Foundation of Brzezinski’s Policy of Containment . 74 The Domestic Backdrop of Brzezinski’s Policy of Containment . 75 Brzezinski’s Lobbies for Policy Change . 78 4. The Soviet Brigade in Cuba . 96 The Announcement of the Brigade . 97 Differing Positions of Vance and Brzezinski . 98 Solidifying of Brzezinski’s Policy of Containment . 103 5. Afghanistan, Iran and the Triumph of Containment . 114 Background on Afghanistan and Iran . 114 The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan . .. 119 Revolution in Iran . 122 Brzezinski, Carter, and the Case for Foreign Policy Reform . 125 The Immediate Response to the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan . 130 Brzezinski and the Long-Term Response to Persian Gulf Instability . 133 Carter’s Containment Conversion . 136 The Carter Doctrine, Strategic Renewal, and a New China Relationship . 143 Conclusion: Brzezinski’s Advocacy Strategy in Retrospect . 147 vii Introduction To many Americans in the 1970’s, the traumatic events that ended both the Vietnam War and the Nixon presidency provoked serious questions regarding the overall direction of American foreign policy and the proper use of American power. Jimmy Carter spoke to such concerns with his new, timely portrayal of an American government and an American foreign policy as “good as its people.” Carter was an outsider who defied much of the conventional political wisdom. He was a democratic governor of a fairly conservative southern state; he talked eloquently and openly about his Christian faith and moral values. He spoke of the need to make racial equality a reality and in the same breath he criticized government spending as wasteful and inefficient. His foreign policy ideals, much like his domestic politics, were unconventional as well. He rejected the containment of communism as the guiding principle of American foreign policy. He was openly critical of past U.S. interventions, especially the “moral poverty” of Vietnam. He spoke of the need to place the U.S. on the right side of history as an advocate of universal human rights. He viewed the international arena not as a strategic chessboard but as a global community of which the U.S. was just one member. The changing tide of public opinion in the mid-70s brought an individual to the presidency with a truly unique 1 perspective. That perspective, in turn, brought about an unprecedented foreign policy agenda.1 The Carter administration pursued a vigorous and comprehensive policy agenda throughout its first year in office. In retrospect, the issues being simultaneously pursued were staggering: implementing a new, reformed détente policy, pursuing comprehensive arms cuts and limitations, drafting Middle East peace proposals, negotiating the controversial Panama Canal Treaty, pursuing majority rule in Africa, and applying a comprehensive human rights policy. The pace and level of activity, especially in Carter’s first year but also throughout the administration’s term was unprecedented.2 The Carter administration’s early foreign policy agenda, while unique, lent itself to confusion and criticism. The sheer range of activity and divergent policies that were being simultaneously pursued were daunting.3 This range of activity was a natural outgrowth of an administration that rejected the conventional view of the international system—namely, a bipolar, east-west perspective that relied on the containment of communism as the unifying theme. In its place, the Carter administration substituted a complex, interdependent, global view of the international system that tended to downplay the threat of the Soviet Union and the utility of force. 1 For the most recent general accounts of Carter’s foreign policy see: Scott Kaufman, Plans Unraveled: The Foreign Policy of the Carter Administration (Dekalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 2007). 2 Gaddis Smith, Morality, Reason, and Power: American Diplomacy in the Carter Years, (New York: Hill and Wang, 1986), 7-8. 3 Michael Mandelbaum and William Scneider, “The New Internationalisms: Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy”, in Kenneth A. Oye, Donald Rothchild, and Robert J. Lieber, Eagle Entangled (New York: Longman Inc., 1979). 2 Carter attempted to legitimize this new foreign policy stance by emphasizing the moral character of the U.S. and the role that it might play in promoting human rights. For a variety of reasons, however, Carter’s foreign policy agenda would be challenged both internally and externally. Domestic critics, both inside of his party and from without, lambasted the administration for its inconsistency and weakness. Externally, the Soviet Union was perceived as having exploited a weak and naïve administration in places like North Africa and Afghanistan. Carter’s critics claimed that the USSR was challenging U.S. resolve. As a result of the internal and external pressures on Carter personally and on the overall administration, a dramatic shift of goals, tactics and image occurred over the span of 1978 -1980. Explaining this shift and the question of why and how it occurred will be the principle task of this study. One only has to contrast Carter’s public pronouncements early on in the presidential term with those after the foreign policy shift occurs to get a sense for how dramatic of a conversion actually took place. For instance, in June of 1977, Carter used a commencement address at the University of Notre Dame to proclaim a new American foreign policy identity abroad: “Democracy’s great recent successes — in India, Portugal, Spain, and Greece— show that our confidence in this system is not misplaced. Being confident of our own future, we are now free of that inordinate fear of communism which once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in that fear. I’m glad that that’s being changed.”4 Carter’s declaration of freedom from fear of communism was a watershed event. Never before had an American president taken 4 Jimmy Carter, “Address at the Commencement Exercises at the University of Notre Dame,” 22 May 1977, Public Papers of the President. 3 such a stance toward the Cold War; it seemed Carter sought to win the war or at least bring it to an end by exposing the frailty of its justification. Carter went on to condemn the philosophy and tactics of past administrations. In doing so, he attempted to ground his new foreign policy perspective in those lessons: “For too many years, we’ve been willing to adopt the flawed and erroneous principles and tactics of our adversaries, sometimes abandoning our own values for theirs. We’ve fought fire with fire, never thinking that fire is better quenched with water.” Carter dealt head on with what he perceived as the best example of applying such flawed policies and perspectives: “This approach failed, with Vietnam the best example of its intellectual and moral poverty.
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