Quote from AAAintheBeltway:
Are you kidding? Brzezenski was National Security Advisor for Carter. The russkies ran all over him. At the end of the day, the President is CinC and has to make the tough call.
Can you please explain how Russia Ran all over Carter or Brzezinski ?
Brzezinski Masterminded the plan to make Russia go to War with Afghanistan.Keep Russia tied down with an Iraq/Vietnam type war thus making them weaker against the US
Carter by threat of force also prevented Russia from expanding into the persion gulf.Reagan expanded many of Carters programs that dealt with Russia.
"Carter's national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, has stated that the U.S. effort to aid the mujahideen was preceded by an effort to draw the Soviets into a costly and presumably distracting Vietnam War-like conflict. In a 1998 interview with the French news magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, Brzezinski recalled: "We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would... That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Soviets into the Afghan trap... The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, "We now have the opportunity of giving to the Soviet Union its Vietnam War."
The Carter Doctrine was a policy proclaimed by President of the United States Jimmy Carter in his State of the Union Address on January 23 1980, which stated that the United States would use military force if necessary to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf region. The doctrine was a response to the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, and was intended to deter the Soviet Unionâthe Cold War adversary of the United Statesâfrom seeking hegemony in the Persian Gulf. After stating that Soviet troops in Afghanistan posed "a grave threat to the free movement of Middle East oil," Carter proclaimed:
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 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. The Soviet Union is now attempting to consolidate a strategic position, therefore, that poses a grave threat to the free movement of Middle East oil.
"Let our position be absolutely clear: Any attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force. "
This last, key sentence of the Carter Doctrine, was written by Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's National Security Adviser. Brzezinski modeled the wording of the Carter Doctrine on the Truman Doctrine,[1] and insisted that the sentence be included in the speech "to make it very clear that the Soviets should stay away from the Persian Gulf."[2]
. The Carter administration began to build up the Rapid Deployment Force, which would eventually become CENTCOM. In the interim, the administration expanded the U.S. naval presence in the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.
Carter's successor, President Ronald Reagan, extended the policy in October 1981 with what is sometimes called the "Reagan Corollary to the Carter Doctrine", which proclaimed that the United States would intervene to protect Saudi Arabia, whose security was threatened after the outbreak of the IranâIraq War. Thus, while the Carter Doctrine warned away outside forces from the region, the Reagan Corollary pledged to secure internal stability.