The Presidential Doctrine

Presidential Doctrine Definition

A presidential doctrine in the United States of America can be defined as the sole policy the government uses to determine the exercise of its powers with regards to foreign relations (Fisher, 2007). The presidential doctrine simply involves the powers exercised by the executive branch of the government and cannot be constrained by the legislature and judiciary. The president comes up with the direction that he or she wants to shape foreign relations. This was especially evident during the Cold War. The presidential doctrine may be stated explicitly by the administration, or it may be identified from a series of related principles and practices adopted by the government (Brands, 2006).

Regional or Global Events

The Truman Doctrine was proclaimed by President Harry Truman who wanted to end the era of isolation that America had adopted after the Second World War. In the immediate aftermath of the war, Greece was faced with a crisis where communists were trying to take over the government. The crisis escalated into a civil war and the Truman administration felt it needed to intervene by sending military support. According to the Truman administration, the United States would always respond to support people that resisted from being taken over by armed minorities. This decision was essentially the beginning of the Cold War. When the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration came into power in 1952, the Cold War had been in existence for a few years (Brands, 2006). During this time, the Suez Crisis that took place in 1956 lead the administration to believing that the communist Soviet Union was trying to acquire influence within the Arab region by sending aid. The Eisenhower administration chose a policy of offering aid to countries to support them in resisting any influence from communist nations. Therefore, these major events led to the establishment of the Eisenhower doctrine as the de facto Cold War doctrine, although it was largely an expansion of the Truman Doctrine (Bostdorff,

The United States offered financial and military support to countries that were engaged in resisting the takeover by communist forces. The policy also allowed the United States to offer support to the forces that were trying to liberate their countries from the communist rule. Given that the communist movement was led by the Soviet Union, the Truman Doctrine allowed the United States to try and lessen their influence around the world. When the Soviet Union fell and communism largely dissipated in the late 1980s, the policy achieved success eventually (Merrill,