From the Nixon Doctrine to the ‘Obama Doctrine’: A Guide to a Multipolar World

On July 25, 1969, during an informal press conference on the island of Guam, Richard Nixon reflected on the role of the United States in Asia at a time when American diplomacy was searching for an end to the stalemate in Vietnam. Historians point to this moment as the beginning of the Nixon doctrine. It did not only affect the situation in Asia, but it also prompted the recognition that the world at that moment no longer looked like the world of the post-World War II era.

Almost half a century later, it´s necessary to emphasize a series of coincidences between the Nixon doctrine and what has come to be called the “Obama doctrine” since his speech at West Point on May 28, 2014. The current chief executive of the White House enrolled in the school of political realism a long time ago, and even though Nixon will never figure as being among the other historical presidential parallels that we have come to expect from Obama´s terms in office — his ideas have been present in his speeches and related media, and they span [in likeness] Lincoln, Roosevelt and Kennedy, and have recently included Eisenhower and even Reagan — if we substitute Vietnam for Afghanistan or Iraq, we will see that Obama’s policies reflect Nixon´s realistic approach.

In Guam, Nixon questioned whether the United States would continue to play a role in Asia after Vietnam, or if it would join with Great Britain, France and the Netherlands upon its departure from the continent. The answer was categorical, and it reminds us of Obama´s “Asian pivot” – that geography converts the United States into a powerful player in the Pacific. This ocean does not bathe only the coasts of Hawaii and Alaska, but the American territories of Guam and the Mariana Islands, situated not far from the Philippines and Indonesia. Furthermore, Nixon concluded that the frustration born of the Vietnamese conflict should not be a reason for a U.S. retreat. For the American head of state, Vietnam was the result of having acted hastily to events, and the new foreign policy needed to be approached from a long term perspective. In this regard, Nixon considered that his country should continue to play an important role in Asia. There was just one difference from the previous situation: It was no longer necessary to get involved directly in the conflicts, a viewpoint born of the experiences with Korea and Vietnam.

On this particular issue, the president cited advice that Field Marshal Ayub Khan, president of Pakistan, gave him during a private meeting in 1964: “The role of the United States in Vietnam or the Philippines or Thailand or any of these countries which have internal subversion is to help them fight the war but not fight the war for them.”

Nixon, a politician with an anti-communist crusade during his vice presidency under Eisenhower, now considered that if the United States assumed the internal and external problems of its allies, those countries would never take care of themselves. As such, he not only called for military cooperation, but also for economic development, indispensable to changing each country´s political and social environment. Nevertheless, Nixon continued to affirm in the press conference that Washington would maintain its promises to its allies, something very similar to what the Obama administration often says to its network of partners in the Pacific, which at times feels like Lilliputians in the face of the Chinese giant.

Nixon´s pragmatism was also expressed in his announcement to reduce controls concerning trips to communist China, and increase commercial relationships with that country, although he assured his Asian allies that they had no reason to worry. It would be three years until Kissinger´s historic trip to Beijing, but it was no coincidence that the habitual Chinese hostility toward the United States in world affairs was weakening. The Chinese choice caught the Soviet diplomacy off guard, but it symbolized Washington´s recognition that the world was no longer bipolar.

The “Obama doctrine” was not born at West Point even though that was a well-chosen forum for its presentation. We can observe it in the State of the Union address of 2013, when the president emphasized that the most important issues to the average American are the economic crisis, the federal budget and employment. From there, it follows that our foreign policy should consist in surveillance of our land and assistance to allies: no conflicts in the name of democracy and no nation-building projects in foreign countries. The only difference is that Obama openly declared at West Point that the American interests in world peace and liberty do not equal the belief that every problem has a military solution, and the president stresses that point with a quote that tries to come to terms with the country´s recent past. It belongs to Eisenhower in 1947, still not involved in politics, who affirmed that looking for or advising the deliberate provocation of war is a crime against humanity.