The US has always had an interest and been involved in the Middle East. However, it was the Carter Administration that ultimately gave the Middle East its pivotal role in US foreign policy. It was the Carter Doctrine, enunciated in 1980 which effectively coupled the security of the Persian Gulf region with American global security. The assertion of the Carter Doctrine has traditionally been viewed as a watershed transformation of the Carter Administration’s foreign policy. It allegedly signalled the end of détente and turn towards a more assertive military posture towards the Soviets and a more decisive US commitment to Middle Eastern security. It overturned many of the Administration’s prior foreign policy initiatives, such as nuclear non-proliferation, demilitarisation of strategic regions, curtailment of conventional arms transfers to Third World countries, and the promotion of human rights. In their place emerged a policy which emphasised a massive military build-up, increased military supply to Third World nations, and increased US global military presence. In particular, the Carter Doctrine represented a momentous shift in US geopolitical and geostrategic considerations by transforming the Middle East into a new critical defence zone.
The Carter Doctrine has received widespread scholarly attention over the last three decades. Nevertheless, research has focused almost exclusively on explaining why the Carter Administration radically altered its foreign policy, particularly regarding the Middle East. Numerous accounts have emphasised the systemic and domestic forces underlying such change. Most conventional accounts tend to point out a series of crises arising midway throughout the Carter Presidency as responsible for the change in foreign policy. While there are many different theses regarding why the Carter Administration’s foreign policy changed, few endeavours have been made to explain how it changed. In fact, most accounts of the emergence of the Carter Doctrine do not provide a precise theoretical framework for understanding its origins and development.
Accordingly, the current paper argues in favour of two broad and provocative propositions. The first proposition claims that, while not explicitly acknowledging it as such, the majority of the accounts explaining the change in the Carter Administration’s foreign policy and the development of the Carter Doctrine use theoretical assumptions intrinsic to punctuated equilibrium and planned change models. The second proposition argues that the development of the Carter Administration’s Middle East policy and the emergence of the Carter Doctrine is best understood using an emergent change approach which highlights the continuous and cumulative policy adaptations and adjustments that decision-makers enacted to try to deal with their perceived international environment since the beginning of the Carter Presidency. Therefore, the change in the Administration’s foreign policy resulted from the incessant dynamics involved in foreign policy decision-making. It was the product of intentionally planned endeavours, as well as of the unexpected opportunities and consequences ensuing from the continued interactions between decision-makers. Accordingly, while the Middle East was initially viewed optimistically as a place of cooperation and reconciliation, the continuously changing nature of the Administration’s mental maps ultimately mapped a region fraught with danger and conflict.
