Jimmy Carter, a Man before His Time?

The Emergence and Collapse of the First Post-Cold

War Presidency
Author(s): Jerel A. Rosati
Source: Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3, The Domestic and Foreign Policy
Presidencies (Summer, 1993), pp. 459-476
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the Center for the Study of the Presidency
and Congress
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27551107
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Jimmy Carter, a Man Before His Time?
The Emergence and Collapse of the First
Post-Cold War Presidency*

JEREL A. ROSATI
Associate
Professor of Government and International Studies

University of South Carolina

Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to determine the significance and meaning
of President
Carter's national security when hefirst came into and to the Carter years
policy office place
in historical perspective. The thesis
of the paper is that President Carter and his administration
entered office with a world order approach that was intended to war
replace the cold (and
detente) policies of his post-World War II predecessors. In other words, the Carter presidency
war
represented thefirst post-cold foreign policy since World War II.
Where cold war policies were premised on a strategy a
of containment, realpolitik
to international relations, and an anti-communism
approach ideology of revolving around the
Soviet Union, members of the Carter Administration a world order
identified with approach
based on three very different intellectual roots: a strategy of adjustment and preventive
underlying
a
diplomacy, global complexity and interdependence approach to international relations, and
the pursuit of human rights and global not
community. The paper only addresses why Jimmy
Carter represented thefirst post-cold war but his a
pursuit of post-cold
war
presidency, why
foreign policy collapsedby the end of his term of office.

Public evaluations of President Jimmy Carter have fluctuated over

dramatically
time. Upon winning the presidency in 1976, Carter in the minds of
symbolized
many Americans the effort to restore a sense of honesty, and
morality, optimism
in the White House and the country following the Vietnam War and Watergate.
By the end of his administration in 1980, Carter was
overwhelmingly
seen as a failed
? a
President weak leader evidenced by double-digit and inflation, the
unemployment
Iran hostage crisis, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Yet by the late 1980s,
public perceptions of Carter began to change again for the better as he won a new
sense of respect and admiration for his post-presidential activities.
Assessments of the Carter Administration's foreign policy have also evolved with
time. During the late seventies and early eighties there were
conflicting interpretations
concerning the Carter Administration's worldview and its foreign policy. Some
individuals, such as John Lewis Gaddis, James Fallows, and Arthur Jr.,
Schlesinger,
argued that the Carter Administration's was and inconsis
foreign policy confusing
tent, for high-level policymakers never a coherent worldview. Instead,
developed

459
460 PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY
j

Security Advisor Brzezinski and

different officials, especially National Zbigniew
Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, represented and promoted different worldviews with
the President from one set of beliefs to another. Other
gravitating foreign policy
individuals, such as Robert Tucker, Leslie Gelb, and Simon Serfaty, argued to the

contrary?that Carter Administration policymakers did indeed share a common opti

mistic and complex view of the world from the beginning. They believed that this
worldview changed with time, although there has been little agreement among
them concerning how the Carter Administration's worldview changed, when this

happened, and why.1

the end of the 1980s, a consensus position formed among
By increasingly
students of U.S. foreign policy that the Carter Administration entered office with
a based on an idealistic view of the world that changed over time.
foreign policy
This optimistic image began to crack due to growing among
splits policymakers:
first in 1978 with Brzezinski
emphasizing the need to contain Soviet
expansionism;
then intensifying in 1979 with Carter wavering between the optimistic policy views
of Vance and the hardline policy views of Brzezinski. By the last year in office, the
Carter Administration's was its worldview became
foreign policy change complete:
decidedly pessimistic,
symbolized by Vance's resignation, in which the containment
of Soviet was restored to the forefront of U.S.
expansionism foreign policy. This
interpretation has been documented in two studies of the Carter Admin
book-length
istration's foreign policy published in the late eighties: first by historian Gaddis Smith
in Reason, and Power: American Diplomacy in the Carter Years; subsequently
Morality,
by political scientist Jerel Rosati in The Carter Administration's Quest for Global Commu
nity.2
there now appears to be a consensus the evolution of the
Although concerning
Carter Administration's worldview and its foreign policy, there remains disagreement
over to what extent Carter's a
early foreign policy represented change from the cold
war past. Some argue that the Carter Administration's foreign policy represented
?
"containment by other means" that it operated within the tradition of detente
initiated under the stewardship of Henry Kissinger during the Nixon and Ford
Administrations. Others argue that the Carter Administration "rejected contain
ment" as the basis of its thus a in U.S.
foreignpolicy, representing major change
foreign policy since World War II. Overall, however, there has been little effort
to fully explore the level of continuity and change represented by the Carter Adminis
tration's foreign policy and its ultimate implications for understanding the post-war

history of U.S. foreign policy.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the significance and meaning of
President Carter's national security policy when first came into office and to
they
place the Carter years in historical perspective. As Gaddis Smith argues, "the four
years of the Carter Administration were among the most significant in the history
of American foreign policy in the twentieth century," both for the uniqueness of
its foreign policy as well as for the light it sheds for better understanding the broad
sweep of U.S. over time.3 Three are addressed: To what
foreign policy questions
extent did Carter Administration in the first two years, see
policymakers, especially
 JIMMY CARTER, A MAN BEFORE HIS TIME? | 461

the world differently from its predecessors? To what extent did the theory and

practice of the Carter Administration's foreign policy represent change from the
cold war patterns that dominated U.S. foreign policy since the Second World War?
What explains why the Carter Administration's initial foreign policy met with failure
and reversal by its fourth year in office?
I take the position that the Carter Administration entered office with aworld
order approach that ultimately supplanted the strategy of containment. A world
was to war
order approach intended replace the cold and detente policies of its
War II which were both based on of containment:
post-World predecessors strategies
global containment of Soviet communism during the cold war years from Presidents
Truman to Johnson, followed by selective containment of the Soviet Union under
Presidents Nixon
and Ford. Therefore, not only did the Carter Administration reject
the strategy of containment as the basis of its when it entered office,
foreign policy
it can be argued that it represented the first "post-cold war foreign policy" since
World War II.

Thinking of the Carter Administration's toward the world as the

approach
first post-cold war foreign policy should be easier to understand in light of the rise
of Mikhail Gorbachev, the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern

Europe, the reunification of Germany, and proclamations about "the end of the cold
war." In this respect, Jimmy Carter was the first, and only, post-war American
leader to take the initiative and promote a war a
post-cold foreign policy?almost
decade before Gorbachev's war initiatives. The rest of the
post-cold foreign policy
paper examines to what extent the Carter Administration's world order approach
to war
foreign policy differed from the cold policies of the past, why Carter's post-cold
war over time, and what the implications are for a
foreign policy collapsed post-cold
war U.S. in the future.
foreign policy

Carter's Post-Cold War Foreign

Policy
As most observers of U.S.
foreign policy have concluded,
a considerable
amount of continuity has existed in U.S. from President Truman to
foreign policy
President Johnson.4 Continuity in American cold war were based on three
policies
major underlying intellectual roots:

1. A of containment,
strategy
2. A to international relations, and
realpolitik approach
3. An ideology of anti-communism.

U.S. cold war policies pursued

a strategy of global containment of the Soviet Union
based on a and an on anti-communism. These three
realpolitik approach emphasis
elements operated in tandem and were mutually reinforcing, thus providing the
basis of American cold war the fifties and sixties.
policies throughout Ultimately,
this led to short-hand concepts such as the "domino theory" and the continuing
escalation of American intervention in the Vietnam War.
The Vietnam War shattered the cold war consensus
throughout society and
the foreign policy establishment that supported American cold war policies. The
462 PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY
I

lessons of Vietnam for many foreign policy elites were to reject cold war global policies
based on containment, realpolitik and anti-communism. U.S. cold war policies, in
fact, began to change during the presidencies of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford
under the direction of Henry Kissinger. The major break in U.S. cold war policies,
however, came with the onset of President Carter who was the first American leader
to pursue a post-cold war foreign policy.
President Carter staffed his administration with personnel who believed
"Vietnam had changed the world and America's role in it so drastically that earlier

[cold war] 'lessons' had become largely irrelevant."5 Instead, members of the Carter
Administration identified more with a world order approach based on three very
different underlying intellectual roots from previous cold war policies:

1. A strategy of adjustment and preventive diplomacy,

2. A global complexity and interdependence to international relations,
approach
and
3. The pursuit of human rights and global community.

Although these underlying elements have occasionally surfaced in U.S. foreign

since World War II, it was not until President Carter entered office that
policy
they became the foundation of American foreign policy. In order to better understand
the significant foreign policy change that occurred under President Carter, each of
the three elements that laid the foundation of American cold war policies is examined
separately
to demonstrate how they were superseded by another approach during
the early Carter years in order to pursue a post-cold war foreign policy.

From Containment to a Strategy of Adjustment

and Preventive Diplomacy
American foreign policy during the post-war years came to be based on
the strategy of containment, where Soviet communist expansion was to be deterred
and contained through the threat of force, first in Europe, then in Asia, and eventually

throughout the world. The development of the American strategy of containment

World War II was influenced a in
following heavily by George Kennan, diplomat
the State Department at the time and embodied inNSC-68 (National Security Council
document number 68) approved in 1950.6 Bruce Jentleson has summed up the assump
tions of the global strategy of containment, or what he calls
"global commitments
The United States strategy of containment was based on three
theory."7 key postu
lates:

1. Commitments must be made on a scale because threats are interdepen

global
dent,
2. Commitments, once made, must be maintained as inviolable, and
3. Commitments must be reinforced, as necessary, uses of military
by political
force.

The U.S. strategy was to surround the Soviet Union, and its allies in Eastern

Europe and mainland Asia, with American allies, alliances, and military forces, thereby
 JIMMY CARTER, A MAN BEFORE HIS TIME? | 463

making global commitments intended to deter the Soviet Union from a

initiating
military strike for fear of triggering World War HI. Containment of the Soviet
Union and the People's Republic of China in Eurasia was to be princi
accomplished
pally through the threat and use of conventional and, especially, nuclear military
force. In the third world, where the U.S.-Soviet confrontation tended to be fought
more
indirectly over the "hearts and minds" of local elites and peoples, the U.S.
relied on assistance, counterinsurgency, and the use of covert paramilitary action.

Diplomacy, and other non-coercive of policy, were pushed to the wayside

instruments
in east-west relations and superseded by the threat and use of force. Hence, the U.S.
used overt military force, in Korea, Lebanon, the Dominican Republic, and Vietnam
and relied heavily on covert operations in responding to what American leaders saw
as major to American commitments.
challenges
Differences in emphasis and policy instruments did occur with each new adminis
tration as cold war policies evolved, but they were variations on the same containment
theme. Under the Truman Administration the initial focus was on the economic

rebuilding of Western Europe through the Marshall Plan, while the containment
was in the process of being globalized with the Korean War. the
policy During
Eisenhower Administration, containment was based on the nuclear threat of "massive
retaliation" and the use of the CIA to maintain
friendly third world regimes. The
Kennedy and Johnson Administrations emphasized counterinsurgency and nation

building in fighting the cold war throughout the third world. Yet, all these variations
were part and
parcel of the global strategy of containment, ultimately leading to
the Americanization of the war in Vietnam.

Although the Nixon and Ford Administrations under Henry Kissinger replaced
a strategy of containment with selective containment of the Soviet Union in
global
its detente policies, the Carter Administration supplanted the strategy of containment
as the basis its foreign policy when
of it took office in 1977. This position was
made clear in President Jimmy Carter's first and most famous public address at Notre
Dame University on June 13, when Carter declared that American cold war policy
this was two ?a belief that Soviet
"during period guided by principles expansion
was almost inevitable, but it must be contained, and the corresponding belief in the

importance of an almost exclusive alliance among non-Communist nations on both

sides of the Atlantic. system could not last forever unchanged."8
That Vietnam
demonstrated the bankruptcy of that kind of strategic thinking. Since that time,
"we've learned that this world, no matter how has shrunk distances, is
technology
nevertheless too large and too varied to come under the sway of either one of two

superpowers."9
A beliefin the end of the cold war and the need to move beyond containment
was not mere nor limited
solely to President Carter. This
was a
window-dressing
perception that was widely shared among major Carter Administration officials early
in the administration. In an address before the American Foreign Service Association
inWashington, D.C. on December 9, 1977, National Security Advisor Zbigniew
Brzezinski reiterated the same themes. "We have witnessed perhaps, the end of a

phase in our own foreign policy, shaped largely since 1945, in which preoccupation
464 PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY
I

the Cold War as a dominant no

particularly with [concern] of U.S. foreign policy,
seems warranted we
longer by the complex realities within which operate."10
Whereas cold war administrations feared global change as threats to interna
tional stability and the status quo, Carter officials were optimistic about the potential
of change and the ability to take a leadership position. They emphasized the impor
tance of a to the inevitability of global change. Brzezinski
strategy of adjustment
communicated this sense of optimism about the future of global change and U.S.
an address before the Trilateral Commission on October
foreign policy in 25, 1977:

We have that, for far too long, the United

sensed States had been seen ?often
to to
correctly?as opposed change, committed primarily stability for the sake
of stability, preoccupied with the balance of power for the sake of the preserva
tion of privilege. We set out to
deliberately identify the United States with
the notion that change is a positive phenomenon; that we believe that change
can be channeled in constructive directions; and that internationally change
can be made our own
compatible with underlying spiritual values.11

A strategy of adjustment meant that U.S. no

foreign policy longer could revolve
around the Soviet Union and the maintenance of the international status quo. Instead,
the Carter Administration the need to address a
emphasized variety of national
security issues and to take a preventive diplomacy approach. In this respect, the key
was to address with the involved to
problems by working closely parties directly
resolve conflict and promote constructive change before they led to heightened
conflict and war. Soviet-American conflict, for example,
was best addressed through
the pursuit of arms control. More was the perceived need to tackle regional
important
conflicts by addressing their fundamental causes, rather then seeing them in east-west
terms and treating the symptoms on containment and force.
by relying
Secretary of State Cyrus Vance was active in
particularly addressing regional
conflict. As Vance explained the preventive diplomacy approach with respect to
Africa, "The history of the past 15 years suggest that efforts by outside powers to
dominate African nations will fail. Our challenge is to find ways of being supportive
without interventionist or intrusive." This meant that the United States
becoming
needed to "work with African nations, and with our allies, in positive
European
efforts to resolve such disputes. . . . The most effective policies toward Africa are
affirmative policies. They should not be reactive towhat other powers do, nor to crises
as in original
they arise." [underline address]12 Hence, major preventive diplomacy
initiatives were taken, for example, to to fruition the Panama Canal treaties,
bring
to address the Arab-Israeli conflict through the Camp David Accords, and to resolve
the racial conflict in Rhodesia by promoting black majority rule in the new country
of Zimbabwe.
In the minds of Carter officials, the policy of containment was anachronistic
and counterproductive in a new world of great change and global complexity. Yet,
members of the Carter Administration understood that a strategy of adjustment and
preventive diplomacy would be a difficult undertaking. As President Carter stated
before the United Nations, "we can ifwe are realistic
only improve this world about
 JIMMY CARTER, A MAN BEFORE HIS TIME? | 465

its complexities. The disagreements that we face are deeply rooted, and they often
aswell as territorial issues.
raise difficult philosophical They will not be solved easily.
will not be solved This was why the Carter Administration felt
They quickly."13
it was to work with others in resolving problems and adjusting to the
imperative
was this worldview held by Carter Administra
global change. It of global complexity
tion policymakers that compelled them to downplay realpolitik, the second element
behind the cold war policies.

From Realpolitik to Global and Interdependence

Complexity
The U.S. strategy of containment was a function of a
heavily realpolitik,
or power view of the world. Political realists believe that states act to
politics,
promote their "national interests" an international for power.
through struggle
Therefore, international peace and can be maintained a precar
stability only through
ious "balance of power." The major threat to international peace and stability comes
from the rise of unsatisfied and "revolutionary" states who the status quo
challenge
to
and attempt change the system.14 In accordance with this realpolitik vision of
the world, American cold war policies following World War II attempted to maintain
a favorable balance of power to contain the threat to international peace and stability
posed by Soviet expansionism.
Three assumptions provided the basis for the intellectual tradition of realpolitik
and, likewise, for U.S. national
security policy during the cold war. First, states,
are the dominant actors in international
especially great powers, politics. Other
actors exist, but they are the threat and use of force is
peripheral players. Second,
the most effective instrument of statecraft. Other instruments are available, but none
as and effective as force. Finally, realists assume a hierarchy of
important military
issues inworld politics inwhich the "high politics" of national security issues dominate
the "low politics" of economics and other issues. The high politics of national security
"constitutes a issue in a single system and entails a ceaseless and
single occurring
repetitive competition for the single stake of power."15 From Presidents Truman to
Ford, the practice of U.S. foreign policy revolved around the struggle for power
between the two ?the United States
great powers (and its allies) and the Soviet
Union (and its allies)?where American interests, international peace, and global
were the threat and use of force embodied in
stability pursued principally through
the containment strategy.16
Carter Administration officials saw aworld of much greater global complexity
than their predecessors. U.S. at the of the Carter years
foreign policy beginning
did not operate on the assumptions of realpolitik. Instead, foreign policy under
President Carter was much more consistent with an
approach toward international
relations emphasizing the importance of global
complexity and interdependence. A global
complexity and interdependence to world is based on three very
approach politics
different than the tradition as outlined such as
assumptions realpolitik by works
Stanley Hoffmann's orWorld Order and Robert Keohane and
Primacy Joseph Nye's
Power and amultitude of different actors comprise the interna
Interdependence.17 First,
tional system. Such a world is extremely of a
pluralistic, consisting large number
 466 PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY
I

of states, aswell as non-state actors. Second, the utility of military force has declined
and, correspondingly, there has been a rise in the importance of other instruments
of foreign policy. Third, the agenda of world politics consists of multiple issues that
are not in a clear or consistent
arranged hierarchy. "Foreign affairs agendas ?that
sets to are ?
is, of issues relevant foreign policy with which governments concerned
more diverse. No
have become larger and longer can all issues be subordinated to

military security."18
In accordance with the assumptions of global complexity and interdependence,
the Carter Administration downplayed the role of great powers such as the Soviet
Union, the of force, and a with traditional issues.
utility preoccupation security
Instead, Carter officials saw a world of great complexity, where and
pluralism
interdependence reigned supreme. In this new world neither the United States nor
the Soviet Union could control the destiny of the planet. Where national security
issues previously revolved around American leader preoccupation with the U.S.
a
Soviet relationship, variety of actors had become globally important. In the words
of President Carter, and Japan rose from the rubble of war to become
"Europe
great economic powers. Communist parties and governments have become more
and more varied, and I say more from one another.
widespread might independent
Newly independent nations emerged into what has now become known as the 'Third
World.' Their role in world affairs is becoming In fact,
increasingly significant."19
for Brzezinski these changes have led to the conclusion of a "long chapter in the
history of theWest, namely theWest's over the as awhole."20
predominance globe
the United States could but it could no or
Therefore, lead, longer command
control. "However wealthy and powerful the United States may be?however capable
the leadership," stated President Carter, "this power is increasingly only relative,
the leadership increasingly is in need of being shared. No nation has a monopoly
of vision, of creativity, or of ideas. these from many nations is
Bringing together
our common and our common Given this vision of
responsibility challenge."21 global
complexity, Carter Administration officials felt they had no choice but to address
a issues that involved numerous
variety of international relevant international actors.
As explained by Brzezinski, "we do not have a realistic choice between an
approach
centered on the Soviet Union, or with our trilateral friends, or on
cooperation
North-South relations. Indeed, each set of issues must be approached on its own
terms. . . We
. did not wish the world to be this but we must deal with
complex;
it in all of its complexity."22
Hence, the traditional focus on the Soviet Union and the high politics of
East-West security issues was deemed anachronistic members of the Carter Admin
by
istration. Not were the Soviets no longer the dominant
only priority within the
Carter Administration, were not seen in a
they particularly threatening light? having
a limited to affect the environment, constrained
capability by the complexity of the
international system, and, although occasionally opportunistic, generally cooperative
in its intentions. Secretary of State Vance and, in particular, President Carter were
the most optimistic in this regard.
This image of global complexity and interdependence accounts for Vance's
position that "when our Administration came into office, we decided that we were
 JIMMY CARTER, A MAN BEFORE HIS TIME? | 467

not
merely going to react to situations, but that we were going to
shape
an
agenda
of items which we considered to be of the and would to
highest priority proceed
deal with those issues."23 In fact, the Carter team to tackle numerous
attempted
issues: the promotion of human rights and democracy, the normalization of relations
with former adversaries as the People's Republic of China), the pursuit of
(such
arms control, the resolution of Third World conflicts, a concern with Third World

development, and the maintenance of a healthy global economy. The pursuit of

such a full foreign policy agenda by the Carter Administration can best be understood
in light of a vision of complex interdependence.

From Anti-Communism to Human

Rights
and Global Community
The post-cold war policies of the Carter Administration differed from its
cold war in a third way by no driven by the
predecessors longer being ideologically
fear of communism. Itwas the combination of realpolitik and anti-communism that
the basis for a strategy of containment that dominated U.S.
provided global foreign
policy throughout the cold war. As explained by Bruce Jentleson, "For all their
criticism of isolationism and idealism, traditional realists have definite limits to the
commitments were to support." Yet,
they prepared "global commitments theorists
all such limits on the scope of American commitments."24 Itwas the
dropped ideology
of anti-communism fused with a so fearful
realpolitik approach that made Americans
of the Soviet Union and so willing to treat world
politics in tight bipolar, zero-sum
terms.

Anti-communism became a issue in U.S.

prominent foreign policy following
World War II with the collapse and the rise of the United
of Europe States and
the Soviet Union as two great powers. Problems over a divided
competing Germany,
the communist coup d'etat in Czechoslovakia, the "fall" of China, and the North
Korean attack of South Korea convinced most Americans, in and out of government,
that the Soviet Union was indeed a revolutionary, state bent on
communist achieving
world domination. The paramount lesson of II that was conveyed?
World War
that the "appeasement" of Adolf Hitler and fascism by England and France atMunich
more transformed to the post-war international
only produced aggression?was
environment: the United States must not appease Stalin and communist aggression.
Instead, the American response was that the United States must build up its military
and contain communist aggression wherever it occurred.25
Anti-communism has been a dominant strain in American
politics throughout
the twentieth century. During the post-World War II years, McCarthyism rose as
a force American U.S. ?
political throughout society, attacking the government
?
especially the Truman Administration for being soft on communism and making
anti-communism the most prominent issue on the foreign policy agenda. The political

challenge represented by McCarthyism, thus, helped generate an anti-communist

consensus at home and behind a U.S.
conformity global policy of containment of
Soviet communism reliant on the threat and use of force.26
This cold war and bipolar vision of a world divided into two opposing forces
was saw themselves, not
reinforced by American political culture where Americans
468 PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY

as self-interested or
(more in accordance with realpolitik), but as
imperialistic
an innocent a benevolent
society, and exceptional people who symbolize progress
and a hopeful future. This strong sense of American nationalism was shared by
most Americans, including American political leaders, thus infusing the U.S.
an and evil,
Soviet struggle for power with ideological struggle between good
versus totalitarianism, versus communism, and
democracy capitalism Christianity
versus atheism.27 In short, the U.S.-Soviet confrontation more then great
represented
power politics; it symbolized the struggle between the "free world" led by the
United States and "communism" under the control of the Soviet Union.
The Nixon and Ford Administrations, under the tutelage of Henry Kissinger,
were the first to shed the anti-communist ideological baggage that has influenced
American cold war policies of containment. However, Kissinger's realpolitik orienta
tion did not alter a with containing the Soviet Union, in
preoccupation although
modified form during the detente years. Therefore, it is not until President Carter
entered office that a major effort was made to move beyond anti-communism,
and containment in a war
realpolitik, initiating post-cold foreign policy.
The people who staffed the Carter Administration did not see a bipolar world
that pitted communism against the free world in a global cold war. As President
Carter stated in the most memorable part of his address at Notre Dame University:

Being confident of our 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. . . . For too many years, we have been willing to
adopt the flawed and
erroneous and tactics of our adversaries, sometimes our
principles abandoning
own values for theirs. We have fought fire with fire, never that fire
thinking
is better quenched with water. This approach failed, with Vietnam the best

example of its intellectual and moral poverty. But through failure, we have
now found our way back to our own and values, and we have
principles
our lost confidence.28
regained

was to
What replace anti-communism? ?the promotion of human rights and
the quest for global community. For President Carter, human rights and
democracy
were the essence of what America As Carter
represented. argued in his memoirs,
"I was familiar with the widely accepted arguments that we had to choose between
idealism and realism, or between morality and the exertion of power; but I rejected
those claims.
To me, the demonstration of American idealism was a practical and
realistic to foreign affairs, and moral were the best foundation
approach principles
for the exertion of American power and influence."29 This was "testimony of a
neo-Wilsonian saw American not in terms
populist who diplomacy primarily of
interests but as the external reflection of popular 'ideals and goals and
geopolitical
hopes'."30
These principles allowed the U.S. to to and take the lead
respond alongside
aswell as to act as a beacon to attract support from
global change, people throughout
the world. As Carter stated with typical optimism, America's commitment to the

goals of human rights, freedom, and justice "are the wave of the future. We should
 JIMMY CARTER, A MAN BEFORE HIS TIME? | 469

not fight this

wave. We ride it, be part of it, encourage
should it, let it nurture
a better life for those who yearn and for those of us who already enjoy."31 Nevertheless,
this view was widely shared within the administration. As suggested by Brzezinski,
"if we do not stand for something more than anticommunism, then indeed we may
confront the decline of the West."32
was to promote a new system
Thelarger goal of the Carter Administration
of world order ?a quest for global community. The principal architect of this quest
was Brzezinski, as his 1970 book, Between Two Ages:
Zbigniew represented by
America's Role in the Technetronic Era and his directorship of the Trilateral Commis
sion.33 Brzezinski described his vision of what he meant a
by global community
before the Trilateral Commission on October 30, 1977:

A secure and community of the advanced industrial

economically cooperative
democracies is the necessary source of a
stability for broad system of international
are aware of the a ?
cooperation. We pitfalls of constructing geometric world
?
whether bilateral or trilateral or pentagonal that leaves out the majority of
mankind who live in the developing countries. ... At the same time, a wider
and more cooperative world system has to include also that part of the world
which is ruled by communist . . We. are therefore to
governments. seeking
create a new political and international order that is truly more participatory
and genuinely more responsive to the global desire for greater social justice,
and more for individual self-fulfillment.34
equity, opportunity

In sum, the Carter

Administration attempted to pursue the first post-cold war

foreign policy. The Carter Administration, like its continued to exercise

predecessors,
a a
global leadership role. However, instead of developing foreign policy revolving
around a strategy of containment, a
realpolitik vision, and an ideology of anti
communism centered on the Soviet Union, the Carter Administration officials shared
aworld order approach based on a strategy of adjustment and preventive diplomacy,
an
image of global complexity and interdependence, and the ideals of human rights
and global community. According to Richard Melanson, "As a result of this redirec
tion the Carter Administration defined 'world order' in less hegemonic terms than
any of its postwar predecessors."35

TheCollapse of the Post-Cold War Approach

some notable such as the Panama
Despite foreign policy achievements,
Canal Treaties, the peaceful transition to majority rule in Zimbabwe, the Camp
David Accords, the normalization of relations with the People's Republic of China,
and the SALT II treaty with the Soviet Union, Carter's post-cold war foreign policy
over time. By the last year in office, in fact, the Carter Administration
collapsed
reinstated the strategy of containment based on a realpolitik orientation?best symbol
ized by the Carter Doctrine ?hence repudiating its initial post-cold war orientation.
The Carter Administration justified the Carter Doctrine no
by longer emphasizing
change, but continuity with America's cold war past. Brzezinski specifically argued
that the Persian Gulf represented the "third central strategic zone" ?after, first,
 470 PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY

Western and then the Far East ?vital to the United States and the West
Europe
after World War II that was under challenge by Soviet expansionism.36
Thus, the policy innovation initiated under President Carter at the beginning
of his administration failed. Why did Carter's post-cold war foreign policy collapse?
to Gaddis Smith,
According
Carter failed because he asked the American to think as citizens of the
people
world with an toward future He offered a
obligation generations. morally
responsible and far sigh ted vision. But the clamor of political critics, the behavior
of the Soviet Union, voices of his advisers, and the impossibility
the discordant
of seeing clearly what to be done ?all
needed combined to make Carter's vision

appear naive. In 1980, he fell back on the to the combative, nationalistic

appeal
instincts of the American people.37
More specifically, there were five mutually reinforcing
reasons that
explain the
of Carter's war resistance to a war
collapse post-cold foreign policy: post-cold approach
throughout much of the national security bureaucracy; policymaker infighting due
to Brzezinski's in image; Carter'snaivete
early change (and bad luck) concerning
the international environment and, in particular,
the Soviet Union; President Carter's
lack of strong leadership to promote and maintain domestic behind his
legitimacy
and the rise of conservatism as a force in the domestic
policies; powerful political
arena. Each contributed to a growing the American
perception among public of
Jimmy Carter as a failed in his to get re-elected in
presidency, resulting inability
1980.
to promote a war
President Carter's effort post-cold foreign policy met consider
able resistancethroughout much of the national
security bureaucracy. This is a
problem that all Presidents face when they enter office, especially if they want
to promote that are different from those which the has been
policies bureaucracy
for some time. In President Carter's case, he over a
implementing presided huge
national security bureaucracy born out of World WarII and the cold war which
was in the business of implementing cold war for thirty years based on
policies
containment, realpolitik and anti-communism. Thus, it is not surprising that the
national security bureaucracy, for example, resisted President Carter's to
proposal
reduce the number of American troops in South Korea.
The bureaucratic resistance that President Carter found for many of his post-cold
war initiatives also existed with his senior advisors as well who tended to
policy
be much more pragmatic as to what was achievable. According to Leslie Gelb,
former Director of the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs in the State Department
under Secretary of State Vance, "what fascinated me was the subtle struggle between
the President on the one hand and almost all of his senior
foreign policy advisors,
on the other."38 to to the
including Vance, They "were, varying degrees, right of
Mr. Carter on most matters."39 Unlike the bureaucratic resistance, however, most
of this early resistance by senior officials efforts to moderate some of
represented
President Carter's more optimistic inclinations.
Second, by 1978 National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski began to argue
in favor of a to prevent threats to
realpolitik approach and containment strategy
 JIMMY CARTER, A MAN BEFORE HIS TIME? | 471

global stability posed by growing perceptions of Soviet expansionism, thus under

cutting Carter's post-cold war Brzezinski was committed
foreign policy. Although
to a world order approach based on preventive and
diplomacy, global complexity
and human he had a as a cold warrior which
interdependence, rights, long history
quickly resurfaced in response to events in the Horn of Africa in 1978. Therefore,
when Soviet and Cuban-backed Ethiopia appeared to be threatening Somalia's territo
rial integrity in 1978, Brzezinski reverted to his earlier, pessimistic orientation empha
sizing power politics and the need to contain Soviet expansionism.40 From that time
on, Brzezinski highlighted the importance of the "arc of crisis" from the Persian
Gulf down to South Africa as an area of great and vulnerability to Soviet
instability
expansionism. Brzezinski thus came to represent a critical perspective that dominated
the National Security Council staff and permeated other parts of the national security
bureaucracy, resulting in considerable governmental that reached its peak
infighting
in 1979.
One
point of clarification needs to be made about Brzezinski's role in the
Carter Administration's foreign policy process. Conventional wisdom has portrayed
Brzezinski as a "hawk" who focused on Soviet expansionism and global instability
from the very beginning in opposition to Vance and Carter ?a view promoted by
Brzezinski, for instance, in his memoirs. There is no doubt that during the first
year Brzezinski was less about Soviet intentions and behavior than Vance
optimistic
and, in particular, Carter. Although more
skeptical, Brzezinski was, at the same
time, hopeful that the Soviet Union would act in a "more less imperially
cooperative,
assertive fashion and begin participating inwhat is gradually, truly emerging: namely,
a Therefore, with reference to the Soviet Union there were
global community."41
subtle differences in image that contributed to some between Brze
disagreements
zinski and Vance early on, reinforced by two very different
personal styles of interac
tion. This being said, Carter, Vance, and Brzezinski nevertheless shared a belief in
a world order as the basis of U.S. the Soviet
general approach foreign policy?where
Union was no the As stated above, Brzezinski was
longer major preoccupation.
very much the architect of the world order approach and, in fact, acted as Carter's
major foreign policy tutor before office. A close reading of Brzezinski's
entering
memoirs, in fact, supports this interpretation ?such as when he states that "the first
of Carter's
phase foreign policy, which lasted till early 1978, was thus dominated
by high expectations and ambitious goals." Substantive differences,
policy especially
between him and Vance, arose "first, over the issue of the Soviet-Cuban role in the
African Horn
and the likely impact of that on SALT."42
Third, many of Carter's foreign policy beliefs about the international environ
ment were quite naive. Carter lacked the pragmatism of Vance, with his considerable
governmental experience and involvement in diplomacy, and the teachings of Brze
zinski, given his tenure as a professor and Sovietologist. Carter's experience level
and personality were such that his positive view of human nature and the future
provided the guideposts by which he evaluated much of the world around him.
this led him to harbor optimistic and to set
Quite naturally, impressions high standards
of behavior for many of the world's actors, most notably the Soviet Union. It is
472 PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY
j

in this respect that he was naive: to assume a cooperative and forthcoming Soviet
Union under General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev; to think that he could lecture
Soviet leaders on human rights; and to believe that he could downplay and ignore
the role of the Soviet Union after thirty years of American and Soviet preoccupation
with each other. As Stanley Hoffmann, a observer forewarned, itwould
sympathetic
a
be mistake for an American President to pursue a new world order policy while,
at the same time, the very real conflict in Soviet-American relations,
downplaying
for this would the need for sufficient order in a and
damage fragmented complex
world. This iswhy Hoffmann advocated aworld order policy of "moderation plus"
and why Keohane and Nye in terms of and interdependence."43
argued "power
In fact, whenever the Soviets acted opportunistically abroad and violated Car
ter's high expectations, he experienced events
periods of dissonance. Two beyond
Carter's control in particular overwhelmed his thinking: the taking of American

hostages in revolutionary Iran and the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan.

to reassess his
They compelled Carter optimistic notions of the Soviet Union and
the world. Carter's naivete was clearly revealed when he actually confessed on national
T.V. how the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan profoundly affected his thinking: "My
opinion of the Russians has changed most drastically in the last week than even the
two and a half years before that. ... to repeat myself, this action of the
previous
Soviets has made a more dramatic change in my own opinion of what the Soviets
ultimate are than done in the time I've been in
goals anything they've previous
office."44 This new realization about the Soviet Union made President Carter much
more to the containment that were
receptive policies being pushed by National
Security Advisor Brzezinski.
Fourth, President Carter also was unable to
provide the political leadership
necessary to promote and maintain domestic support for his war
post-cold foreign
policy. The post-Vietnam years were a time when the foreign policy consensus had
collapsed. Hence, it was difficult for any President to gain sufficient support for his
over a But was an extra burden on President
policies prolonged period of time.45 there
Carter since he was to initiate a war
attempting post-cold foreign policy which
went the of of cold war since the
against political grain thirty years conditioning
end ofWorld War II. As Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye warned those attempting
to pursue a on
foreign policy based complex interdependence, "foreign policy leaders
with these new issues will have to pay even more attention than usual to
dealing
domestic politics."46
Itwas an innovative and complex foreign policy that he had to sell to Americans
throughout the government and society. In this he clearly failed. President Carter
never the interest or
developed requisite leadership skills that may have allowed the
American public to understand and support his ?he lacked "the power to
policies
persuade."47 President Carter's personality and governing style also contributed to
a failure, as to
Stanley Hoffmann repeatedly pointed out, develop priorities and agree
to a coherent strategy in pursuing a war Instead, the
post-cold foreign policy.48
Carter Administration after entering office went on an activist
foreign policy binge
numerous issues which gave observers little appearance of any rhyme or
addressing
reason.
 JIMMY CARTER, A MAN BEFORE HIS TIME? | 473

was attacked and he was on the

Finally, Carter's foreign policy placed political
defensive as the power of conservatism grew in the late seventies. With the onset
of the Iran hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, double-digit inflation
and unemployment, and a growing perception of Carter as aweak leader, President
Carter was unable to counteract the rise of the political right throughout American

society. This increasingly conservative domestic environment and the approaching

1980 presidential election helped spur the reinstatement of containment by President
Carter to the forefront of U.S. Carter's new cold war foreign
foreign policy. Although
was consistent with the mood of the country, the public was disenchanted with
policy
President Carter and his administration, resulting in the election of Ronald Reagan
as the new President of the United States.49

Defeat, Isolation, and Renewal?

Under the Reagan Administration a cold war was instituted
foreign policy
based on containment, and anti-communism reminiscent of what tran
realpolitik,
spired during the cold war years. Thus, the effort by President Carter to engage
in a post-cold war foreign policy resulted in complete As Stanley Hoffmann
collapse.
wrote at the time, "the
tragedy of the Carter failure is that, far from furthering
an discussion of the issues, it has thrown us back to the simplicities of
intelligent
cold war containment and bipolarity. The absence of a strategy has paved the way
for those who seem to have one, however or it may be."50
inadequate antiquated
What of the future? Certainly, the Carter years have not to
helped legitimize
a war in the minds of many Americans. If anything, the
post-cold foreign policy
perception of a failed Carter presidency has made it that much more difficult to
circumvent the cold war legacy that continues to permeate the government and

society: the beliefs of political leaders, the institutions that makeup the national
security bureaucracy, the existence of a industrial and scientific infrastructure
large
in support of the national security bureaucracy, and the beliefs of a public conditioned
for over to to international conflict
forty years respond predominantly through
intervention and the use of force.
the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev as General
Yet, Secretary of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union has opened up new opportunities for a post-cold war
United States foreign policy. Communism has collapsed in Eastern Europe and the
Soviet Union; Germany has been reunified; and greater integration of the European

Community is rapidly taking place. Clearly, the East-West conflict that had been
the justification for a cold war foreign policy based on containment, realpolitik and
anti-communism no seems to exist. More and more Americans seem to have
longer
acknowledged the existence of a post-cold war global era. In such a climate a post-cold
war a greater chance of
foreign policy has being successful and gaining political
support.
Such a warenvironment to account for the renewed
post-cold helps public
interest and admiration that Jimmy Carter has received for his post-presidential
activities, such as with his involvement in the promotion of human rights, the

overseeing of for?ig?i democratic elections, the negotiation of regional conflicts, and

474 PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY
I

his assistance in promoting third world development. In the final analysis, Jimmy
Carter may have been, at least in the area of foreign and national security policy,
a man before his time.

This is a revised version of a paper thatwas originallypresented at theEighth Presidential Conference on

Jimmy Carter atHofstra University, November 15-17, 1990. I would ?ike to thankKen Clements, Roger
Coate, John Creed, Betty Glad, Ray Goldstein,Joe Hagan, Paul Kattenburg, Charles Kegley, Ken Menkhaus,
RaymondMoore, Donald Puchala,William Quandt, Gaddis Smith,Harvey Starr,Kenneth Thompson, Stephen
Twing, Art VandenHouten, Darin Van Tassell, StevenWalker, and Brian Whitmore for their very helpful
comments and suggestions.

Notes

1. This debate is summarized in Jerel A. Rosati, The Carter Administration's Commu

Quest for Global
nity: Beliefs and Their Impact on Behavior (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press,
1987), chapter 1.
2. Gaddis Smith, Reason, and Power: American in the Carter Years York:
Morality, Diplomacy (New
Hill andWang, 1986); Rosati, Carter Administration'sQuest.
3. Smith, Reason, and Power, p. 4.
Morality,
4. See Seyom Brown, The Faces of Power: Constancy and Change inUnited States Foreign
Policy from
Truman toReagan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983); Charles W. Kegley, Jr. and
Eugene American Foreign Pattern and Process York: St. Martin's Press,
Wittkopf, Policy: (New
1987); John Spanier, American Foreign Policy SinceWorld War II (Washington, D.C.: Congres
sional Quarterly Press, 1988).
5. Richard A. Melanson, Writing History andMaking
Policy: The Cold War, Vietnam, andRevisionism
(Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1983), p. 178.
6. See F. Kennan, 22, in Thomas G. Paterson, editor,
George "Long Telegram," (February 1946),
Major Problems inAmerican Foreign Policy, Documents andEssays, Volume II: Since 1914 (Lexington,
MA: D.C. Heath, 1984); George F. Kennan, "The Sources of Soviet Conduct,"
Foreign Affairs
(July 1947); U.S. Department of State, "A Report to the President Pursuant to the President's
Directive of January 31, 1950" (NSC-68, April 7, 1950), Foreign Relations of theUnited States,
1950, Volume I, pp. 235-292.
7. Bruce Jentleson, "American Commitments in the Third World," International 41
Organization
(1987), pp. 667-704. See also Alexander L. George and Richard Smoke, Deterrence inAmerican
Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974); John Lewis
Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy
(Fairlawn, NJ: Oxford University Press, 1982).
8. President Jimmy Carter, "A Based on America's Essential Character"
Foreign Policy (address
made at the commencement exercises of Notre Dame in South Bend, IN, on
University May
22, 1977), Department of State Bulletin (June 13, 1977), p. 622.
9. President Carter, "The U.S.-Soviet made before the Southern
Jimmy Relationship" (remarks
Legislative Conference atCharleston, S.C., on July 21, 1977), State Department Bulletin (August
15, 1977), p. 194.
10. National Advisor Brzezinski, Address made to the American Service
Security Zbigniew Foreign
Association in D.C. on December 9, 1977, DOD Selected Statements 1,
Washington, (March
1978), p. 19.
11. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, "American Policy and Global Change" (address
made before the Trilateral Commission in Bonn, on October 25,
Germany, 1977), Congressional
Record (November 1, 1977c), p. H11999.
12. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, "The United States and Africa: Positive
Building Relationships"
(addressmade before the annual convention of the National Association of Colored People at
St. Louis, MO, on July 1, 1977), State Department Bulletin (August 8, 1977), p. 166, 169.
 JIMMY CARTER, A MAN BEFORE HIS TIME? | 475

13. President Carter, "Peace, Arms Control, World Economic Progress, Human Rights;
Jimmy
Basic Priorities of U.S. Foreign Policy" (address before the U.N. General Assembly, on March
17, 1977), State Department Bulletin (April 11, 1977), p. 329.
14. See E.H. Carr, The Twenty Years Crisis, 1919-1939 (New York: Harper andRow, 1964); Hans
J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Strugglefor Power and Peace (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1978); A.F.K Organski, World Politics (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1958).
15. Richard W. Mansback and John A. Vasquez, In Search of Theory: A New Paradigm for Global
Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), p. 8. See also Robert Gilpin, War and
Change inWorld Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); John A. Vasquez, The
Power of Power Politics (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1983).
16. See Richard Barnet, Roots ofWar: The Men and InstitutionsBehind U.S. Foreign Policy (Baltimore:
Penguin, 1971); Leslie H. Gelb and Richard K. Betts, The Irony of Vietnam: The SystemWorked
(Washington, D.C: Brookings, 1979); David Halberstam, The Best and theBrightest (New York:
Random House, 1971);Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, The Wise Men: Six Friends and the
World They Made (New York: Touchtone, 1986).
17. Stanley Hoffmann, Primacy orWorld Order: American Foreign Policy Since theCold War (New
York: McGraw-Hill, 1978); Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Power and Interdependence
Scott, Foresman, See also Seyom Brown, New Forces inWorld Politics
(Boston: 1989). (Washington,
D.C: Brookings, 1974); Edward L. Morse, Foreign Policy and InterdependenceinGaulist France
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973).
18. Keohane and Nye, Power and p. 26.
Interdependence,
19. Carter, "The U.S.-Soviet p. 194.
Relationship,"
20. Brzezinski, "Address made to the American Service Association," 19.
Foreign p.
21. President Jimmy Carter, "U.S. Role in a Peaceful Global Community" (address before the 32nd
U.N. General Assembly, on October 4, 1977), State Department Bulletin (October 24, 1977),
p. 552.
22. Brzezinski, "American Policy and Global Change," p. H11999.
23. of State Cyrus Vance, Interview on Issues and Answers on June 19,1977, State
Secretary Department
Bulletin (July 18,1977), p. 81.
24. Jentleson, "American Commitments in the Third World," p. 671.
25. See Gabriel Almond, The American People and Foreign Policy (New York: Praeger, 1960); R.B.
Levering, The Public and American Foreign Policy, 1918-1978 (New York: William Morrow,
1978); M.J. Rosenberg, "Images in Relation to the Policy Process: American Public Opinion
on Cold-War Issues," in InternationalBehavior:A
Social-PsychologicalAnalysis, edited by Herbert
C. Kelman (New York: Holt, Rinehart andWinston, 1965), pp. 277-334.
26. See Eric F. Goldman, The Crucial Decade?and After, America 1945-1960 (New York: Vantage,
1961); Robert Griffith, The Politics of Fear:Joseph R. McCarthy and theSenate (Hasbrouk Heights,
NJ: Hayden, 1970); Godfrey Hodgson, America inOur Time: FromWorld War II toNixon, What
Happened andWhy (New York: Vintage, 1976); Daniel Yergin, ShatteredPeace: The Origins of
theCold War and theNational Security State (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978).
27. See Loren Baritz, Backfire: A History ofHow American Culture Led Us intoVietnam andMade Us
Fight theWay We Did (New York: Morrow, 1985); Tamil R. Davis and SeanM. Lynn-Jones,
"City Upon aHill," Foreign Policy 66 (1987), pp. 20-38; Hodgson, America inOur Time; Stanley
Hoffmann, Gulliver's Troubles or theSetting ofAmerican Foreign Policy (New York: McGraw-Hill,
1968); Michael H. Hunt, Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1987).
28. Carter, "Foreign Based," pp. 621-622.
Policy
29. Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith:Memoirs of a President (Toronto: Bantam, 1982), p. 143.
30. Melanson, Writing History andMaking Policy, p. 143.
31. President Jimmy Carter, "The United States and Its Economic made
Responsibilities" (remarks
at the opening session of the 26thWorld Conference on the International Chamber of Commerce
in Orlando, FL, on October 1, 1978), State Department Bulletin (December 1978), p. 13.
476 PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY
I

32. Brzezinski, "Address made to the American Service Association." p. 25.

Foreign
33. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Between Two Ages: America's Role in the TechnetronicAge (New York:
Penguin, 1973).
34. Brzezinski, "Address before the Trilateral Commission," p. H12000.
35. Melanson, and Making p. 191.
Writing History Policy,
"Remarks before the Woman's National Demo
36. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski,
cratic Club" inWashington, D.C, on 21, 1980, White House Press Release
February (February
21, 1980); National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, "The Quest for Global Security: The
Third Phase" before the Council on Relations in Denver, Colorado, on October
(remarks Foreign
25, 1980), White House Press Release (October 25, 1980).
37. Smith, Reason, and Power, p. 247.
Morality,
38. Leslie H. Gelb, "Beyond the Carter Doctrine," The New York Times Magazine (February 10,
1980), p. 26.
39. Leslie H. Gelb, "The Struggle over Foreign Policy: Muskie and Brzezinski," The New York
Times Magazine (July 20, 1980), p. 39.
40. See Simon Serfaty, "Brzezinski: Play It Again, Zbig," Foreign Policy, 32 (1978), pp. 3-21.
41. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, "Interview with The Washington Post on October
9, 1977," Department of Defense Selected Statements (November 1, 1977), p. 29.
42. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle:Memoirs of theNational Security Adviser, 1977-1981
York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, pp. 81, 193. See Rosati, Carter Administration's
(New 1983),
It is interesting to note that Richard
Quest, pp. 107-111. Melanson's study of U.S. foreign policy
?
during the Carter years arrived at the same conclusion,
although based on a different method
interviews of NSC and StateDepartment Policy Planning staff officials. Melanson, Writing History
andMaking Policy, chapters 6 and 7.
43. Hoffmann, or World Order; Keohane and Nye, Power and
Primacy Interdependence.
44. President Jimmy Carter, "Interview with Frank Reynolds of ABC-TVs World News Tonight,
on January 19, 1980, The New York Times (January 20, 1980), p. 4.
45. See I.M. Destler, Leslie H. Gelb, and Anthony Lake, Our Own Worst The
Enemy: Unmaking
ofAmerican Foreign Policy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984); Oli R. Holsti and James N.
Rosenau, American Leadership inWorld Affairs: Vietnam and theBreakdown of Consensus (Boston:
Allan and Unwin, 1984); Jerel A. Rosati, "The Domestic Environment," in Peter J. Schraeder,
editor, Intervention in the 1980s: U.S. Foreign Policy in the Third World (Boulder, Co.: Lynne
Rienner, 1989), pp. 147-160.
46. Keohane and Nye, Power and p. 237.
Interdependence,
47. See Erwin Hargrove, Jim my Carter as President:Leadership and thePolitics of thePublic Good (Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988); Charles O. Jones, The Trusteeship Presidency:
Jimmy Carter and theUnited StatesCongress (BatonRouge: Louisiana StateUniversity Press, 1988).
48. See, for example, Stanley Hoffmann, "The Hell of Good Intentions," 29
Foreign Policy (Winter
1977-78), pp. 3-26.
49. It is important to out that Carter's commitment to a cold war at the end of his
point approach
administration did not outlast his losing bid for reelection. President Carter's farewell address
in January 1981 focused on three themes that reflected his earlier post-cold war
major foreign
the threat of nuclear destruction, the of the physical resources of the planet,
policy: stewardship
and the preeminence of the basic of human His war also has
rights beings. post-cold approach
continued to inform his activities since he has left office. President Carter, "Farewell
Jimmy
Address," on January 14, 1981, The New York Times (January 15, 1981), p. BIO.
50. Stanley Hoffmann, "Requiem," Foreign Policy 42 (Spring 1981), p. 17.