The Early Ages of Cold War Containment: Part 2

USFP Lecture 3 – Dr Stephen McGlinchey

Outline

1. Eisenhower’s ‘New Look’

2. The Suez Crisis
3. The Eisenhower doctrine
4. As we do this, situate the
evolution in US
containment policy in the
Middle East in the 1950s
Recap: Truman’s 5 Policies in
the Middle East
1. Nurturing direct American economic interests and
expanding political influence
2. Cold War containment (Iran 1946)
3. On-going support for colonial powers such as Britain
and France
4. Official recognition and support of the newly formed
State of Israel
5. Championing Arab nationalist movements

Deeply contradictory on multiple levels

Would require a wholesale rethink as the Cold War
headed South – as it did in the mid-late 1950s
1.1 – Eisenhower’s Four Top
Priorities
Noted in his diary, January 10 1953:
1. Re-write containment by having a ‘new look’ at NSC-
68
2. Resolve the Iran situation (economic blockade by
British over oil)
3. Resolve the worsening UK-Egyptian stand-off over
Suez
4. Stabilise Arab-Israeli tensions

Note the prominence of Middle Eastern issues here

(source of 3 out of his 4 priorities)
The Cold War had a new frontier
1.2 – Eisenhower’s
‘New Look’

• Eisenhower not a fan of NSC-68 due to its cost (up to 20% of GNP). But he firmly
believed in containment and was not an optimist like George Kennan
– His ‘New Look’ mandated a cheaper, more sustainable (realistic?) way to contain communism than
symmetrical warfare / conflict (like Korea)
• Was built on 3 core pillars
1. Seek more burden sharing from allies
2. Utilise economic and intelligence based warfare to undermine the enemy in asymmetric
ways
3. ‘massive retaliation’ via a permanently deployed global nuclear deterrent (air and sea)
 The 3rd was the most important
– Cheaper and simpler than having conventional forces deployed worldwide
– Deter communist expansion with nuclear arms
1.3 – Asymmetric Containment
1. We are back to asymmetric containment
– A more varied approach that incorporates economics, espionage,
diplomacy and the range of tools the US has at its disposal
2. But importantly, introduces the threat of nuclear weapons use as a regular tactic of containment – whereas
Truman had been hesitant to do so.
– Remember he fought the Korean war symmetrically – by meeting conventional communist forces with US
conventional forces.
3. Eisenhower frequently said that he would decide on how to respond militarily to future problems with all
options on the table “under circumstances of our own choosing”
4. Eisenhower was normalising the potential battlefield use of nukes, especially the newest tactical nukes – small
and manoeuvrable
– At this point, the Soviets did not have enough nuclear force to deter the US, so the approach made
containment sense.
– Though this policy sparked a missile race as both sides sought mutually assured destruction (MAD) capability
1.4 – Opposition Mounts
Mainly in the Pentagon
1. Fears in the military that it would lock the US
into an ‘all or nothing’ response to threats
– Would remove options
– But the idea of using bombs, not men was very popular with congress and the US public
2. Department of Defence (mainly army) fears of cuts in troop levels would make meeting the
enemy conventionally more difficult (if needed)
– A series of top military officials resigned in protest
3. But, Eisenhower’s thinking reflected the modernisation of warfare. With new tools (strategic
air power and tactical nuclear weapons) there was less need for vast standing armies
4. In reality – despite the rhetoric, Eisenhower was not a hawk. He was known for his relatively
peaceful tendencies and his reluctance to use force in foreign affairs
– This was more about fiscal conservatism and reigning in the military industrial complex via a
cheaper form of containment
1.5 – Finally, the CIA
1. The New Look placed a new premium on the CIA
– Initiated its ‘glory days’ as it matured following its creation under Truman
2. Seen as an effective alternative to warfare
– intelligence would help prevent costly wars
– and also leverage the US favourably in diplomacy by getting access to clandestine information
on opponent’s intentions/strategies
– For Example: Only a small amount of money (estimates range from $1–20 million) and effort
‘saved’ Iran in 1953 via a coup
– Compared to $30 billion spent in Korea
*(multiply these figures by 10 for today’s approximate figure with inflation)
3. Congress pre-emptively allowed such operations to go on without accountability, trusting in the
win-win that an empowered intelligence agency would effect.
– The CIA got all the money they needed from Congress, who did not ask, nor want to know, of
most covert operations
2.1 – Egypt and the
Suez Canal
1. With containment rethought, and Iran solved,
next on Eisenhower’s list was Suez
2. Vast UK base at Suez with 70,000 troops
– Protecting the only waterway linking Europe
to the Middle East and Africa
– The British lifeline to its Empire ‘East of Suez’
– But, in an age of decolonisation, controversial
3. Egypt: emerging pan-Arabism under Nasser,
and hostility to imperialism
4. Uninterested in US offers to join the western
side in the Cold War, preferring to steer its own
course
– US support for Israel was a sticking point
1. The ‘Northern Tier’: A NATO for the Middle
East?
2. A US plan, cemented in NCS-5428 (July 1954)
3. Its roots were in a Turkey-Pakistan security pact,
which was gradually extended to include Iraq, ‘The Northern Tier’ / Baghdad
Iran and the UK. Pact (later called CENTO)
– Egypt was invited, but declined and seemed
distant
4. Signed by all nations in 1955 – in Baghdad
(hence the name ‘Baghdad Pact’)
5. Congress forbid the US to join
– Hesitant to enter into more collective
security treaties Suez Canal
– Worried over how it would affect emergent
relations with Israel (Congress consistently
more pro-Israel than the executive)
– Instead, Eisenhower signed individual
bilateral security agreements with each Pact
nation via executive order
 2.2 – The Northern Tier
1. These nations were developing / poor. To fulfil a collective
security mandate they would need military aid from the
US. Another cost of containment
– The administration was split over to what extent the US
should arm these nations. But, they began to agree on
protecting any investment made by making sure long-
term stable regimes were in place prior to aid flowing
– This would have repercussions for US foreign policy
2. British membership turned Egypt against it
– Declared the pact was a neocolonial attempt to divide
and rule the Middle East
– Egypt denounced the Pact and declared themselves
‘non-aligned’. A new category for nations in the Cold War
3. Highlighted the contradiction in the existing US policy of
supporting the colonial powers (France/UK)
– By keeping this policy, and supporting British entry to
the Northern Tier, the US pushed Egypt out of its orbit
2.3 – The Suez Crisis
1. Nasser (Egyptian President / military leader)
nationalised the canal by force in June 1956
2. Britain, France and Israel conspired to take it back, and moved
forces into place to secure it
3. Eisenhower speaks out against the move in the UN, and presses
hard diplomatically with the British to end their occupation of
Suez
4. By December 1956 the British/French and Israeli forces were
removed by a UN peacekeeping force
5. British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Harold MacMillan, the
British actions in Suez ‘was the last gasp of a declining power’
– Quoted in Douglas Little (2003), American Orientalism p. 131
2.4 – Analysis
1. By opposing the Suez occupation, Eisenhower
removed two of the of the five contradictory
policies left by Truman for the Middle East
I. Support for Israel was frozen / doubtful
• Suez seen as bridge building toward Arab nations
• But, Egypt (and Iraq) began to court the Soviets showing the danger of the policy of
supporting the Arab nations
II. Support for the old colonial allies was no longer unconditional
2. This had implications, especially as the British maintained a neo-colonial role in the Gulf. If
they also removed this, containment would be in crisis
3. If Soviet gestures towards Egypt and Iraq became alliances, the USSR would leapfrog over
the Northern Tier and trigger a major containment issue in the Middle East – making the
security pact useless
3.1 – Towards the Eisenhower Doctrine
1. Three developments: The rise of Arab nationalism + overtures to the Soviets + the
new phenomenon of ‘Non-alignment’ pushed Eisenhower post 1957 to also side-
line the policy of supporting the newly independent Arab states (like Egypt)
– So now, THREE of Truman’s former Middle East policies are dropped
2. Instead, Eisenhower decides to provision for direct US force in the region to effect
containment, as and where it may be needed.
3. January 5 1957 he announces to Congress that:
“Russia’s rulers have long sought to dominate the Middle East” as part of a desire to
“communize the world” – Eisenhower, Statement to Congress, 5 January 1957
4. Congress agrees to fund US military operations and economic aid in the Middle East,
and potentially anywhere else Eisenhower needs it
5. The US was now an offshore regional power, ready to deploy force
3.2 – The Doctrine in Action
1. Iran makes tentative moves towards the Soviets in 1957
– Using brinkmanship to get more US military and economic aid
– Eisenhower agrees to use new provisions agreed by Congress
to increase Iran’s aid by $40 million, continuing the investment
made post 1953
2. 1958: Lebanon and Jordan ask for US military assistance to help
oppose Egyptian-sponsored anti-regime forces
– Eisenhower responds by sending the US Sixth fleet into the
Eastern Mediterranean and giving economic aid to Jordan
– And follows by sending 14,000 US troops into Lebanon
3. Also: The Baghdad pact is renamed CENTO as Iraq withdraws
following a Ba’athist coup… in doing so leaving the US orbit
– The collective security system failed to save the Iraq monarchy
– The Shah states that collective security in the region is
‘moribund’
– Contributed to his ever military mindset and deep paranoia
3.3 – What did all this mean?
1. Eisenhower’s doctrine + his reactions to events in the Middle East led to a
very clear preference for stability in foreign allies.
“A new, authoritarian regime, though less democratic than its predecessor,
may possess much more stability and may well lay the ground for ultimate
return to a more firmly based democracy”
– State Department Study, May 1959
2. The US approach to containment would now jettison any optimistic
sentiment about self determination etc..
– Instead it was more important that a state was stable + pro-US
– The internal character of a regime was irrelevant so long as those
conditions were in place
3. The Eisenhower doctrine did not translate into frequent uses of US
military power, only a few cases. But, it did materially shape the character
of US foreign policy in years to come, especially via supporting (or
installing) rulers like the Shah
3.4 – Eisenhower’s
Policymaking
Consolidation: From 5 to 2

1. Nurturing direct American economic interests and expanding

political influence
2. Cold War containment (by direct US force, economic aid and
supporting pro-US rulers, no matter who they were)
3. On-going support for colonial powers such as Britain and France
4. Official recognition and support of the newly formed State of
Israel
5. Championing Arab nationalist movements
3.5 – In Sum
1. The Eisenhower doctrine was a more
multifaceted / asymmetrical approach
to containment than NSC-68 and the
alarmist outlook of the early 1950s
2. Force / action was only used
selectively in a few cases, and the
administration was more conservative
than alarmist
3. Eisenhower actually reduced defence
spending despite the escalation in Cold
War tensions
– All part of his opposition to
symmetrical containment due to its
cost and ineffectiveness
The Eisenhower Years In Context
1. A tale of two halves – from triumph to depression
2. 1953–1956 one of US superiority in the Cold War … able to set a new pace in
containment
3. But, following 1957, events in the Middle East signalled that the Cold War
was heating up as both sides raised the stakes
4. Also consider:
– Soviet advances in rocketry, demonstrated in their launch of Sputnik and
space programme
– The Soviet crushing of a rebellion in Hungary
– Trust with key Cold War allies – UK and France – in doubt after the Suez
crisis
– Communist rise in Vietnam starting to raise a containment fear
– And, a communist revolution underway in Cuba
5. It seemed containment was failing … or perhaps it was heading for a
crunch… (which means, for us, another shift in policy!)
Our Next Case Study
2 weeks exploring the North–South
tensions in the Cold War as
containment required ever more
application of US force – and the limits
of nuclear brinkmanship was tested
• Vietnam
• Cuba
... and more
Workshop Task
• To what extent did
Eisenhower begin the US
obsession with the
Middle East?
• In groups make a 3
minute presentation of
key points