I always liked this quote from Carter on his legacy:
"We kept our country at peace. We never went to war. We never dropped a bomb. We never fired a bullet. But still we achieved our international goals. We brought peace to other people, including Egypt and Israel. We normalised relations with China, which had been non-existent for 30-something years. We brought peace between US and most of the countries in Latin America because of the Panama Canal Treaty. We formed a working relationship with the Soviet Union."
Carter's being generous to himself. It was Nixon who opened up relations with China (and it probably could only have been a Republican who took that first step), and Carter presided over the mess subsequent to the incredibly disatrous Iranian revolution.
> Carter's being generous to himself. It was Nixon who opened up relations with China
Carter didn't claim to have opened up relations with China, he claimed to have normalized relations with China.
> and it probably could only have been a Republican who took that first step
While there was a popular saying relating to that about Nixon, it doesn't really stand up too much; its hardly as if Kennedy and Johnson were perceived, at home or abroad, in ways which would have made that difficult in any way that it wouldn't be for Nixon. What really set the stage in the 1970s for the opening in relations that began under Nixon and culminated under Carter wasn't the political party of the US participants but the growing rivalry between the USSR and PRC.
This relative peace was forced upon by the Cold War. It largely restrained the militant zeal from both sides.
As soon as the Soviet threat was gone, the US devised the new concept of evil - terrorism - and, with no viable checks and balances, went on fighting it around the world.
Except that, in time, the notion of terrorism became very vague and murky. Anyone is a potential target now.
The region which is now threatened by Soviet troops in Afghanistan is of great strategic importance: It contains more than two-thirds of the world's exportable oil.
The Soviet Union was in Afghanistan which has no oil. President Carter seems to making a very tenuous connection between Afghanistan and the Middle East.
The Soviet effort to dominate Afghanistan has brought Soviet military forces to within 300 miles of the Indian Ocean and close to the Straits of Hormuz, a waterway through which most of the world's oil must flow.
Looking at the Straits of Hormuz on Google Maps, it appears to be not even close to Afghanistan which isn't surprising considering Afghanistan is totally landlocked. Again, President Carter appears to be trying to link Afghanistan to the hot-button topic of the day. i.e. Stop the Soviet Union or they'll be able to stop the flow of oil!
I think that his doctrine was influenced by what happened to Germany in WW2: they had a tremendous war machine, but were hobbled by a lack of oil. The U.S. had enough domestic oil to wage any war they needed to, but diverting that oil to war would have wrecked havoc on the global and domestic economy. That's was the state of the Cold War and the state of things today: a strategy of maintaining economic levels while simultaneously waging war.
With all due respect to Jimmy Carter, and he is a good man at heart, but he appears naive as to what is the true core of the USA. The USA has always been a country of military power. Without military power, the USA would not be what it is today. Even during peace time with the Soviet and others, the underlying military power of the US serves as an important factor to maintain that peace.
The military-industrial complex was basically created from scratch in WWII (The U.S's industrial contribution to WWI was a joke). This was never de-mobilized because the Cold War began immediately after, and Europe was in no position to defend itself.
>The military-industrial complex was basically created from scratch in WWII (The U.S's industrial contribution to WWI was a joke). This was never de-mobilized because the Cold War began immediately after, and Europe was in no position to defend itself.
Actually it was never de-mobilized because the US needed it to play the role of a world hegemonic power -- to control other places with diplomatic and military might, grab resources and such. It was its opportunity to step on to that role, since WWII had destroyed the European colonian empires.
As for Europe, defend itself from what? With the exception of right wing nuts in power, Europeans didn't feel threatened by the USSR. The people of (non Eastern) Europe, were half and half in favor of communism (huge following in Italy, France, Greece, etc. In Western Germany there were lots of sympathizers too, but the communist party was crashed by Hitler (and then the country was divided post war). That would also be the case in Spain and Portugal, if it wasn't for the dictatorships.
Some Europeans certainly didn't, but many of them, in fact, did feel threatened by the USSR: the ruling classes.
Also, opinions on the USSR were quite divided even on the left, with (Moscow-sponsored) hardcore Communist parties being on very different terms with it than traditional Socialist movements.
US military interventionism spans from far before WW2. The Spanish-American war, the Mexican-American war, the war of 1812, and the brutalities conducted under the umbrella of manifest destiny come to mind.
Hey, Canada has been invaded by the US on at least three occasions -- Revolutionary War, War of 1812, and the Fenian Raids. I don't know of another country with a 3-0 record against the US.
Canada wasn't an independent country for any of those (particularly the first two and the beginning of the third), and wasn't a component of the country that won the first of those.
It was not a shining example of successful intervention. It may or may not have been a "shining example" - in the sense of an example that is good as an example - of a tendency toward attempted intervention.
Eh, while that's true of what we think of as the military-industrial complex, prior to WWII American history is still one of pretty consistent war. Or in the case of say the Monroe Doctrine, war posturing.
Cuba was a Spanish colony, and the U.S. gave them formal independence just four years after the war ended. It could easily have been permanently annexed.
Yeah, we just annexed Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.
Then don't forget the Mexican-American war, which started with our annexation of Texas and ended with our "purchase" of 1.2 million square miles of territory at firesale prices from a conquered opponent.
Life as a Spanish Colony wasn't so hot. Anyways, these areas were granted U.S. citizenship and autonomy soon after.
Earlier, Simon Bolivar, who liberated most of Latin America from Spanish control and laid their democratic foundations, loved the American founding fathers, especially Jefferson, and even sent his nephew to the University of Virginia.
America in fact had a very modest military before the WW2 build-up, as others have noted.
Before it could afford that military might, it required a substantial economy to pay for it all.
Land, natural resources, enterprising & hard working immigrants, low regulation, the protections enshrined in the Constitution, ease of starting a business, labor mobility, strong judicial system, checks & balances restraining and slowing down government abuses - just a few of the actual reasons America became what it did.
> Even during peace time with the Soviet and others, the underlying military power of the US serves as an important factor to maintain that peace.
What makes you think that Carter, who was President during that time and initiated the large military buildup that Reagan is often credited with to maintain that peace, is too naive to recognize that?
"Being confident of our own 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. I’m glad that that’s being changed."
"We kept our country at peace. We never went to war. We never dropped a bomb. We never fired a bullet. But still we achieved our international goals. We brought peace to other people, including Egypt and Israel. We normalised relations with China, which had been non-existent for 30-something years. We brought peace between US and most of the countries in Latin America because of the Panama Canal Treaty. We formed a working relationship with the Soviet Union."