The US foreign policy during the presidency of Richard Nixon (1969–1974) focused on reducing the dangers of the Cold War among the Soviet Union and China. President Richard Nixon's policy sought détente with both nations, which were hostile to the U.S. and to each other in the wake of the Sino-Soviet split.
He moved away from the traditional American policy of containment of communism, hoping each side would seek American favor. Nixon's 1972 visit to China ushered in a new era of U.S.-China relations and effectively removed China as a Cold War foe. The Nixon administration signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union and organized a conference that led to the signing of the Helsinki Accords after Nixon left office.
When Nixon took office, the United States had approximately 500,000 soldiers stationed in Southeast Asia as part of an effort to aid South Vietnam in the Vietnam War. Nixon implemented a policy of "Vietnamization", carrying out phased withdrawals of U.S. soldiers and shifting combat roles to Vietnamese troops. As peace negotiations continually bogged down, Nixon ordered major bombing campaigns in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The U.S., South Vietnam, and North Vietnam agreed to the Paris Peace Accords in early 1973, and the U.S. subsequently withdrew its remaining soldiers in South Vietnam. The war resumed as North Vietnam and South Vietnam violated the truce, and in 1975 North Vietnam captured Saigon and completed the reunification of Vietnam. His initiatives were in many ways continued in the foreign policy of the Gerald Ford administration.
Leadership
Appointments
President Richard Nixon and his top aide Henry Kissinger focused on the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, the Middle East, Pakistan, and major arms limitation agreements. Unless a crisis erupted on other matters, they let the State Department handle it with secretary William P. Rogers in charge. He was an old friend of Nixon—a good administrator with little diplomatic experience and less interest in geopolitical dynamics.Melvin Small, The Presidency of Richard Nixon (1999) p 46.See United States Foreign Policy 1969–1970: A report of the Secretary of State (1971), online and subsequent annual volumes for the details of lesser issues.
Kissinger
The relationship between Nixon and Kissinger was unusually close, and has been compared to the relationships of Woodrow Wilson and Edward M. House, or Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins. In all three cases, State Department was relegated to a backseat role in developing foreign-policy.Geoffrey Warner, "Nixon, Kissinger and the breakup of Pakistan, 1971." International Affairs 81.5 (2005): 1097-1118. Historian David Rothkopf has compared the personalities of Nixon and Kissinger: They were a fascinating pair. In a way, they complemented each other perfectly. Kissinger was the charming and worldly Mr. Outside who provided the grace and intellectual-establishment respectability that Nixon lacked, disdained and aspired to. Kissinger was an international citizen. Nixon very much a classic American. Kissinger had a worldview and a facility for adjusting it to meet the times, Nixon had pragmatism and a strategic vision that provided the foundations for their policies. Kissinger would, of course, say that he was not political like Nixon—but in fact he was just as political as Nixon, just as calculating, just as relentlessly ambitious....these self-made men were driven as much by their need for approval and their neuroses as by their strengths.David Rothkopf, Running the world: the inside story of the National Security Council and the architects of American foreign policy (2004), pp. 111–12. Kissinger who was the last surviving member of the foreign policy team and Nixon cabinet died in November 2023, Nixon himself having died in April 1994.
The Nixon Doctrine
The Nixon Doctrine shifted the main responsibility for the defense of an ally to the ally itself, especially regarding combat. The United States would work on the diplomacy, provide financial help and munitions, and help train the allied army. Specifically: The U.S. would keep all its treaty commitments. The U.S. would “provide a shield if a nuclear power threatens the freedom of a nation allied with us or of a nation whose survival we consider vital to our security.” In conflicts involving non-nuclear aggression, the U.S. would “look to the nation directly threatened to assume the primary responsibility of providing the manpower for defense.”Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (1994) p 708.
The Doctrine was exemplified by the Vietnamization process regarding South Vietnam and the Vietnam War.John G. Keilers, "Nixon Doctrine and Vietnamization" (U.S. Army Military History Institute, June 29, 2007) online It also came into play elsewhere in Asia including Iran,Stephen McGlinchey, "Richard Nixon's Road to Tehran: The Making of the US–Iran Arms Agreement of May 1972." Diplomatic History 37.4 (2013): 841–860. Taiwan,Earl C. Ravenal, "The Nixon Doctrine and Our Asian Commitments." Foreign Affairs 49.2 (1971): 201–217. CambodiaLaura Summers, "Cambodia: Model of the Nixon doctrine." Current History (Dec 1973) pp. 252–56. and South Korea.Joo-Hong Nam, and Chu-Hong Nam. America's commitment to South Korea: the first decade of the Nixon doctrine (1986). The doctrine was an explicit rejection of the practice that sent 500,000 United States Armed Forces soldiers to Vietnam, even though there was no treaty obligation to that country. A major long-term goal was to reduce the tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and China, so as to better enable the détente process to work.Robert S. Litwak, Détente and the Nixon doctrine: American foreign policy and the pursuit of stability, 1969–1976 (1986).
Détente and Arms Control, 1969–1979
Nixon and Kissinger were both committed to a realism that focused on American economic advantages and jettisoned moralism in foreign policy, seeking détente with Communism and confrontation with old allies who now had become economic adversaries. Everyone assumed, mistakenly, that Nixon's anticommunist reputation at home indicated a hard-line cold warrior. But as early as 1959 (in his "kitchen debate" with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev), he was moving away from containment. Nixon concluded that containment (which he saw as a Truman policy) had failed. As a realist in foreign policy, it was time to emphasize economic goals in foreign policy, and to de-emphasize expensive ideological or peripheral commitments. Furthermore, having rich allies meant the American economy no longer could dominate or control the world economy. By the mid-1960s, China and the USSR had become bitter enemies. Their armies growled at one another across a long border; the risk of war was serious.Jeremi Suri, Henry Kissinger and the American century (2007), pp 179–86.
Both Moscow and Beijing realized it would be wise to de-escalate tensions with the US, but the Johnson administration had ignored them both. Sensing fresh opportunity, Nixon played the two Communist giants one against the other.Evelyn Goh, "Nixon, Kissinger, and the “Soviet card” in the US opening to China, 1971–1974." Diplomatic history 29.3 (2005): 475–502. Nixon's utterly unexpected trip to China in 1972 was set up by Kissinger's negotiations using Pakistan as an intermediary. The trip in effect ended the cold war with that nation and ushered in an era of friendship that was still unfolding a half-century later.Margaret MacMillan, Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World (2008) Moscow rushed to catch favor, and Nixon's summit meetings with Leonid Brezhnev produced major arms agreements—especially a treaty banning anti-missile defenses in space; it was thought that the balance of terror, with each side having thousands of nuclear missiles, guaranteed peace, and that a successful defense against missiles would dangerously destabilize this equilibrium.Allen S. Whiting, "Sino-American Détente." China Quarterly 82 (1980): 334–341.
Arms race US vs USSR
SALT I Agreements, 1969–72
The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) led to START I and START II, which were Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties with the USSR. The goal was to limit multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle capacities and impose other restrictions on each side's number of nuclear weapons. Thanks to negotiations in Helsinki, Finland, in November 1969, SALT I produced an Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and an interim agreement between the two countries. The agreement expired on December 31, 1985 and was not renewed. START never was ratified. A successor to START I, New START, was proposed and was eventually ratified in February 2011.Raymond L. Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan (2nd 1994), pgs. 146–223.
Nixon and Kissinger achieved breakthrough agreements with Moscow on the limitation of Anti Ballistic Missiles and the Interim Agreement on Strategic Missiles. Nixon was proud that he achieved an agreement that his predecessors were unable to reach, thanks to his diplomatic skills. Nixon and Kissinger planned to link arms control to détente and to the resolution of other urgent problems regarding Vietnam, the Mideast, and Berlin through the employment of linkage. The linkages never worked out because of flawed assumptions about Soviet plans.Tal, David. "“Absolutes” and “Stages” in the Making and Application of Nixon's SALT Policy." Diplomatic History 37.5 (2013): 1090–1116.
Helsinki Final Act, 1975
Nixon and Kissinger set up the international "Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe" (CSCE) in Helsinki, bringing together nearly all of Europe in 1973. Washington's goal was to strengthen relations with the Soviet Union through détente. However, there was opposition at home from Ronald Reagan and the conservatives, and Gerald Ford's weak defense of the Accords hurt his reelection chances in the 1976 United States presidential election.Sarah B. Snyder, "Through the Looking Glass: The Helsinki Final Act and the 1976 Election for President." Diplomacy & Statecraft 21.1 (2010): 87–106. The 1975 accords were signed by all of Europe, the USSR, the US and Canada. The key provisions included legitimizing the current borders, and a pledge by each nation to respect the human rights and civic freedoms of their own citizens. For the first time the USSR recognized its own people had rights regarding free speech and travel.William Korey, The Promises We Keep: Human Rights, the Helsinki Process, and American Foreign Policy (St. Martin's Press, 1993).
China
After the end of the Chinese Civil War, the United States refused to formally recognize the People's Republic of China (PRC) as the legitimate government of China. Instead, the U.S. supported the Republic of China (ROC), which controlled Taiwan. By the time Nixon took office, many leading policy figures in the United States had come to believe the country should end its policy of isolating the PRC. The Chinese population presented American businesses with a large untapped market, and the Sino-Soviet split gave the United States an opportunity to play the two communist powers against each other. Chinese leaders, meanwhile, were receptive to closer relations with the U.S. for several reasons, including hostility to the Soviet Union, a desire for increased trade, and hopes of winning international recognition. Nixon personally sought closer relations with China (and the Soviet Union) as part of his larger strategy to end the Vietnam War on more accommodating terms, which he articulated in the following way: