Carter Administration Research Articles

The Carter Administration's Attempt To Reconvene The Geneva Middle East Peace Conference

When the Carter administration assumed power in 1977, it prioritized the achievement of Middle East peace as its foremost task. It endeavored to facilitate a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace by reconvening the Geneva Middle East Peace Conference and inviting representatives from Israel, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Palestine to negotiate a resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict in Geneva. However, the Carter administration encountered challenges in its Arab-Israeli diplomacy, particularly regarding substantive and procedural issues related to restarting the conference. It struggled to reconcile differences between the Arab and Israeli sides on crucial peace-related matters such as borders and the inclusion of Palestinian delegates. Additionally, it faced difficulties in assisting Arab countries in resolving internal contradictions regarding their participation format. Ultimately, the Carter administration’s efforts to reconvene the Geneva Peace Conference fell short. This failure was attributed to several factors, including the deep-seated psychological divide between Arabs and Israelis, internal contradictions among Arab nations, the significant influence of pro-Israel forces in the United States constraining pressure on Israel, and President Carter’s limited experience in international affairs, coupled with underestimations of the complexities inherent in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The J. Carter's administration's perception of Kurdish problem in the context of the Turkish political crisis of 1977–1980

The article is devoted to the administration's perception of J. Carter of the Kurdish problem within the framework of US-Turkish relations during the political crisis in Turkey in the second half of the 1970s and early 1980s. In the first months of his tenure, the administration of J. Carter faced a number of serious problems in bilateral relations with Turkey. The political crisis that began in Turkey became one of the challenges for the entire American policy in the Middle East, which coincided with the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the American-Iranian confrontation and the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan. Under these conditions, the American leadership sought to maintain the previous level of allied relations with Ankara and ensure the functioning of American military facilities in the country. One of the key factors in the destabilization of Turkey during this period was the national liberation struggle of the Turkish Kurds. Based on the assumption that the Soviet Union was behind the activation of the Kurds in Turkey, Washington sought to establish cooperation with the changing Turkish governments and neutralize rumors circulating among the Turkish establishment about American support for the Kurdish movement, and since 1980, to achieve coordinated American-Turkish actions against the potential Soviet threat. The purpose of the article is to determine the place of the Kurdish component in the Turkish policy of the administration of J. Carter in 1977–1980. Based on the materials of the US Department of State and intelligence agencies, the dynamics of perception of the Turkish Kurdish movement in the United States has been traced from ignoring and suspicion to opposition as a potential tool for advancing Soviet interests. Статья посвящена восприятию администрацией Дж. Картера курдской проблемы в рамках американо-турецких взаимоотношений во время политического кризиса в Турции во второй половине 1970-х – начале 1980-х гг. В первые месяцы пребывания у власти администрация Дж. Картера столкнулась с рядом серьезных проблем в двусторонних отношениях с Турцией. Начавшийся политической кризис в Турции стал одним из вызовов для всей американской политики на Ближнем и Среднем Востоке, который по времени совпал с исламской революцией в Иране, американо-иранским противостояниям и вводом советских войск в Афганистан. В этих условиях американское руководство стремилось сохранить прежний уровень союзнических отношений с Анкарой и обеспечить функционирование американских военных объектов на территории страны. Одним из ключевых факторов дестабилизации Турции в этот период стала национально-освободительная борьба турецких курдов. Исходя из предположения, что за активизацией курдов в Турции стоит Советский Союз, Вашингтон стремился наладить взаимодействие со сменяющимися турецкими правительствами и нивелировать циркулировавшие среди турецкого истеблишмента слухи об американской поддержке курдского движения, а начиная с 1980 г., – добиться согласованных американо-турецких действий против потенциальной советской угрозы. Целью статьи является определение места курдской составляющей в турецкой политике администрации Дж. Картера в 1977–1980 гг. На материалах Государственного департамента США и разведывательных ведомств прослежена динамика восприятия в США движения турецких курдов от игнорирования и подозрительности до противодействия как потенциальному орудию продвижения советских интересов.

Breaking the Strategic Glass: The Carter Administration and Oman, 1977–1980

Abstract When Jimmy Carter became the U.S. president in January 1977, the United States and Oman did not have any formal security arrangements, apart from occasional landings of U.S. military aircraft on Oman's Masirah Island. Although Oman's leader, Sultan Qaboos bin Said, hoped to establish closer security ties with the United States, the Carter administration chose to continue President Richard Nixon's policy of relying on the “twin pillars” of Iran and Saudi Arabia to reinforce Western security in the Persian/Arabian Gulf region. Oman remained mostly a strategic afterthought until a series of crises unfolded in the greater Middle East: a Communist coup in Afghanistan in April 1978, the fall of the Shah of Iran in January 1979, and a war between Marxist South Yemen and North Yemen shortly thereafter. In November 1979, Iranian terrorists backed by the Islamic regime stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and seized dozens of hostages. This was followed a month later by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. With the fall of the Shah and the collapse of the “twin pillars” policy, the Carter administration began a sustained effort to create a Rapid Deployment Force for the Middle East and to gain access to Oman's strategic military facilities. After several months of arduous negotiations, Carter and his team were able to conclude a Facilities Access Agreement with Oman in June 1980, a transformative process that gave Washington the ability to insert U.S. military personnel into the Gulf and Indian Ocean on a contingency basis. The Carter administration's effort stands as a significant achievement, converting Oman into the most reliable U.S. ally in the Gulf region in the 1980s.

“I Have Concluded That the US Government Will Adopt a New Focus in Its Policies Towards the Government of South Africa.” President Jimmy Carter and Apartheid South Africa

ABSTRACT This article examines the shift in the bilateral relationship between the United States and South Africa that occurred during the period of the Carter administration. The White House, guided primarily by Carter’s deep commitment to humanitarian principles made a progressive transformation of South African society and the ending of racial discrimination a major foreign policy objective. Both publicly and privately the Carter administration took a tough stance against Pretoria including supporting a mandatory UN arms embargo. Ultimately, however, Carter failed in his goal of dismantling apartheid and his opposition to commercial sanctions led to a deepening of economic ties between Washington and Pretoria. His administration was also unable to stop South Africa from joining the nuclear club.

Passing a Bill “Nobody Especially Cared About": The Creation of the Department of Education

This article is a case study of the creation of the Department of Education. President Jimmy Carter promised to create a separate Department of Education during his 1976 campaign. The National Education Association (NEA) provided the impetus for the legislation but it was the White House Domestic Policy staff and OMB Director that guided the bill through by working to narrow the scope of the conflict over the proposed legislation to ensure passage. Using both primary and secondary sources I explore the methods the Carter administration used to advance passage of the bill. Carter domestic policy advisor Elizabeth Abramowitz noted that, “if we get the Department, it will be a good example of the President’s ability to get something through Congress nobody especially cared about” (Abramowitz 1979). As a result, a new cabinet agency was created with little broad-based political support and substantive policy change, creating a Department that continues to be vulnerable to calls for abolishment partially due to a lack of broad public support.

‘Something that apparently troubles the Cubans significantly’: Jimmy Carter’s attempt to pressure Cuba ‘out of Africa’ through the Non-Aligned Movement, 1977-78

ABSTRACT This article contributes to the literature on the US’ and Cuba’s ‘conflicting missions’ in Africa by focusing on a little-known (and failed) attempt by the Jimmy Carter administration, particularly between late 1977 and the summer of 1978, to mobilize the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to pressure Cuba ‘out of Africa’. Based on a wide array of both primary and secondary sources, including declassified documents from US and French archives, this article shows that the Carter administration deployed a tactic, as yet virtually unexplored, to achieve its goal by attempting to bring about a diplomatic encirclement of Cuba in the Third World. This was particularly in the Non-Aligned Movement, of which Havana was scheduled to host the Sixth Summit conference in 1979. This essay enriches our understanding of Carter’s approach to one of the issues which defined his presidency and sheds new light on his administration’s interactions both with Cuba and with the NAM.

Beyond the Arc of Crisis: Jimmy Carter and the Arab ‘Radicals,’ 1978–79

ABSTRACT After signing the Camp David Accords, the Carter administration pushed to increase American security cooperation and military presence in the Middle East. Though often seen as a response to the regional instability caused by the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the hardening of US policy toward the region was also due to the Arab rejectionist threat to the Egyptian-Israeli peace process that Washington saw as a prerequisite to regional stability. This essay highlights the connections between the peace process, the collapse of Soviet-American détente, and the reorientation of US policy in the region toward the Persian Gulf.

The Kurdish Movement’s Factor in US Politics at the Peak of Iran and Afghanistan Crises, 1979 – January 1981

At the close of 1979, the United States encountered a critical need to realign its Middle East strategy in the wake of the capture of the American Embassy in Tehran by supporters of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah R. Khomeini on November 4, and the subsequent deployment of Soviet troops in Afghanistan on December 25. Faced with the challenges presented by the Iranian and Afghan crises, the United States' analytical, intelligence, and military bodies navigated various resources in search of viable solutions.This study delves into the consideration of the Kurdish factor as a potential instrument in shaping the regional landscape. The National Security Council (NSC), State Department, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the US Department of Defense all scrutinized the Kurdish movement, evaluating its prospects for advancing American interests. Drawing from documents obtained from the State Department, National Security Council, and CIA, this article tracks the evolution of US policy concerning the Kurdish movement and its utility in realizing Washington's strategic objectives during the most critical phases of the Iran and Afghanistan crises.The analysis underscores the fundamental flaw in the initial evaluation of events in Afghanistan and Iran, misinterpreting them as a calculated move within a Soviet strategy to extend influence into the Persian Gulf region. This misconception was the primary cause of the Carter administration's failure in utilizing the Kurds as a counterforce against the Khomeini regime and its erroneous perceptions of the Iranian political regime's vulnerabilities. Inconsistencies in Washington's relationship with Tehran hindered the formulation of a coherent approach toward the Afghan-Iranian direction.

A Plea for Pluralism

Mainstream economics is one way of understanding how the economy works, but mainstream economists argue much more: that mainstream economics is the onlyway of understanding the economy. Mainstream economists should embrace pluralism for reasons suggested by John Stuart Mill: as a guard against the tyranny of the majority, a tyranny that fortifies itself against doubt not by reason but by power; even if the majority is right and the doubters wrong, engaging with doubt is a way to strengthen correct arguments; and, most likely, according to Mill, there is partial truth on the side of heterodoxy as well as on the orthodox side. The two elements of the power of mainstream economists are related: the police power over what is and what is not published in the major journals, and the role of publication in these journals in the tenure process. Pluralism is not an issue of concern to academics only. Economists of all stripes may try to construct the economy in the image of their theories, but for some time the mainstream has had the upper hand, just as it does in the academy. The push to deregulate the economy, which began in the United States during the Carter presidency, had its full flowering in the financial crisis of 2008.What will it take to allow heterodoxy into the academy? If history is any guide, innovations in economics take root when they are allied to successful political movements. One case in point is the symbiosis between Keynes’s General Theory and the New Deal and social democracy. Another is the resurgence of pre-Keynesian theory dressed up in the high-tech mathematics of New Classical theory and the coming to power of the apostles of neoliberalism in the 1980s. It’s a good bet that for a new economics to take hold in this century, it will do so in partnership, however tacit, with a new politics.

The Carter administration’s policy towards Afghanistan

The Carter administration’s policy towards Afghanistan

Jimmy Carter's cold war legacy

AbstractJimmy Carter's presidency lasted only one term before Ronald Reagan defeated him in 1980. Since then, scholars have debated—and many have maligned—Carter's legacy, especially his foreign policy efforts. The criticism of Jimmy Carter's foreign policies seems particularly mistaken when it comes to the Cold War. With the counsel of his National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter exposed Soviet weaknesses, which included their global influence, economy, and record on human rights. Declassified government documents, census data, and the reflections of former policymakers and government insiders support a revised view of Carter's Cold War policies. The president's Soviet policies helped exacerbate the Soviets' domestic and international troubles, and were far more effective than earlier critics claimed in helping to end the Cold War and contributing to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Strategic Setbacks: Analysis of Carter Administration's Middle East Policy

After World War II, successive U.S. presidents have steadily advanced the U.S. strategic presence in the Middle East, but such efforts were challenged under the Carter administration. At the time of the Carter presidency, he actively promoted the Egyptian-Israeli reconciliation and further reaffirmed his support for Israel, while focusing on addressing the potential risks of oil supply and prices in the Middle East, but many of his Middle East policies did not fundamentally achieve the expected results. Despite the Egyptian-Israeli reconciliation, the Arab-Israeli conflict remains unsettled; the re-emergence of the oil crisis had once again triggered a crisis in the Western world, and the failure of the Iranian Hostage Crisis and the Islamic Revolution has destroyed a pillar of the U.S. Middle East strategy. Consequently, Carter’s foreign policy is not without impediments but settles the basis for subsequent U.S. Middle East policy with inveterate impacts and the concepts of peace and democracy.

Amerikan Başkanlık Doktrinlerinin Türkiye-İran İlişkilerine Etkisi: 1970’li Yıllar

The American Presidential Doctrines play a crucial role in international politics because they provide a general strategy for United States’ (U.S.) allies to follow. The United States' international policies, like the policies of all states, are complicated and broad-based. Presidential doctrines, on the other hand, reveal a basic strategy framework.
 This study examined the events that occurred in the axis of Iran-Türkiye-Northern Iraq from President Richard Nixon to Jimmy Carter's administration and investigated the main outline of the American presidential doctrines that focused on the 1970s.
 Poppy cultivation, the Cyprus issue, and the embargo crisis, which caused the crisis between Türkiye and the US in the 1970s, together with the policies implemented by the US to maintain balance in Northern Iraq and Iran, were all evaluated with a holistic approach.
 In this study, it was determined that the international crises of the 1970s engendered a significant level of mistrust between regional countries, specifically in relation to the United States, as well as among various regional actors. During this time, the United States implemented a policy of supporting the Northern Iraq region and Kurdish elements in order to create a balance of power between Iran and Türkiye. This policy had the consequence of increasing feelings of insecurity among neighboring countries, but also created opportunities for non-regional actors to devise new strategies.

Fusion mania

John Deutch is an emeritus institute professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1970. He has served as chairman of the Department of Chemistry, dean of science, and provost. In the Carter administration, he served as director of energy research (1977–1979), acting assistant secretary for energy technology (1979), and undersecretary (1979–1980) in the US Department of Energy. He has been a member of the President’s Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee (1980–1981), the White House Science Council (1985–1989), the President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (1997–2001), and the secretary of the Energy Advisory Board (2008–2016). John Deutch has published widely on technical and policy aspects of energy and the environment and has been a member of the board of directors or of the technical advisory committees of several energy companies. John Deutch is an emeritus institute professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1970. He has served as chairman of the Department of Chemistry, dean of science, and provost. In the Carter administration, he served as director of energy research (1977–1979), acting assistant secretary for energy technology (1979), and undersecretary (1979–1980) in the US Department of Energy. He has been a member of the President’s Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee (1980–1981), the White House Science Council (1985–1989), the President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (1997–2001), and the secretary of the Energy Advisory Board (2008–2016). John Deutch has published widely on technical and policy aspects of energy and the environment and has been a member of the board of directors or of the technical advisory committees of several energy companies.

A Diplomatic Meeting: Reagan, Thatcher, and the Art of Summitry by James Cooper

<i>A Diplomatic Meeting: Reagan, Thatcher, and the Art of Summitry</i> by James Cooper

President Carter Policy Toward Arabian Gulf Carter Doctrine how it was drawn

The aim of this study is to discuss United States of America foreign policy toward the Arabian Gulf during President Carter Administration. The emphasis of the paper is on mainly in the role of the National Security Adviser namely Zbigniew Brzezinski securing Carter Doctrine as a policy.&#x0D; After the Iranian revolution and the Soviets invasion of Afghanistan, US policy toward the Gulf region was rather passing through tremendous changes. To protect the American interests in the area, President Carter had to draw a new policy. In the end he came up with Carter Doctrine. This research is more interested in the decision-making during Carter’s era. Therefore, the process of this policy and how it came about would be discussed in detail. Furthermore, a background of those participants in drawing that policy as well as the struggle among them would be discussed too.

Human rights and the Jimmy Carter administration’s policy towards Poland, 1977–80

ABSTRACT This article reviews the Carter administration’s use of human rights in relations with Poland since 1977. Recently declassified archival documents show that Washington had limited opportunities in this field due to the rigid attitude of Warsaw: divided families were a main point of friction. The US government was not really able to support dissident activity in Poland. The Polish government’s relatively subtle handling of dissidence probably reflected its concern with domestic political factors. The formation of ‘Solidarity’ in Poland in 1980 was in accordance with Carter’s human rights policy, yet compromised Washington’s interests at the same time.

Untold Stories of Polish Heroes from World War II

Untold Stories of Polish Heroes from World War II

Zbigniew Brzezinski’s Arc of Crisis and the Origin of U.S. Involvement in Afghanistan

Zbigniew Brzezinski misrepresented Soviet motivations in their Afghan invasion to pursue his own geo-political agenda in the “arc of crisis” region that became a primary focus for the shift in strategic planning during the Carter administration. Based on State Department documents released in December 2018, in addition to former Soviet-era primary sources from the Cold War International History Project, the article describes how Brzezinski misread Soviet intentions and facilitated a response that later metastasized into something the U.S. could not control once the Reagan administration continued Carter’s arming of the most radical elements of the Afghan rebellion. Despite Brzezinski’s efforts to increase the U.S. footprint in the Middle East having such a consequential impact on American foreign policy during the past 40 years, scholars are only beginning to understand the full weight of these moves during the final years of the Carter administration.

Race and Diplomacy in Zimbabwe: The Cold War and Decolonization, 1960–1984 by Timothy Lewis Scarnecchia

<i>Race and Diplomacy in Zimbabwe: The Cold War and Decolonization, 1960–1984</i> by Timothy Lewis Scarnecchia