Whether by design or happenstance, President Donald Trump’s national security policy resembles the national security policy pursued by President Richard Nixon between 1969 and 1974. Both presidents operated in political environments of war exhaustion—Trump with Iraq and Afghanistan; Nixon with Vietnam. Both presidents wanted to wind down U.S. involvement in wars—Trump in Afghanistan and Ukraine; Nixon in Vietnam. Both dealt with major Middle East crises by coming to the aid Israel, of our chief ally in the region, but also used leverage to restrain Israel in the interests of a broader Middle East strategy. Both presidents emphasized great power politics at the expense of peripheral interests. And both presidents responded to years of imperial overstretch by attempting to husband limited resources and shift defense responsibility to allies. The Trump Doctrine is the Nixon Doctrine 2.0.
The two presidents emerged on the political scene from very different backgrounds. Nixon grew up in humble circumstances and through grit and determination attained a law degree, served in World War II, and chose a life in the political arena that culminated in winning the presidency. Trump is from a wealthy family and used that wealth to make more money in the business and entertainment world before entering the political arena late in life. Nixon’s worldview was shaped by his reading of history and his experiences as a U.S. Senator and Vice-President. Trump’s worldview was shaped by deal-making in the ruthless world of business. Nixon was a serious student of domestic and international politics and emerged as a pragmatic conservative with an internationalist outlook. Trump is perhaps the least ideological of our modern presidents, but his instincts are conservative and nationalist.
As president, Nixon eschewed ideology and governed as a pragmatist. So does Trump. Nixon was a conventional political leader who accepted the beltway culture. Trump, on the other hand, has been our most unconventional president who plays by his own rules rather than those of the political establishment in Washington, D.C. Nixon mostly surrounded himself with “insiders,” while Trump chose officials and advisers (like Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard) who are willing to be as unconventional as he is. Nixon faced a hostile media, some of which never forgave him for helping to reveal the Soviet spy Alger Hiss in the late 1940s. Trump also has faced a hostile media, but has benefited, unlike Nixon, from the modern alternative media without which he may have suffered the same fate as Nixon.
The genesis of the Nixon Doctrine was Nixon’s determination to wind down America’s participation in the Vietnam War. Nixon inherited that costly and increasingly unpopular war from the Kennedy-Johnson administrations, some of whose former officials turned against the war once Nixon took office. Nixon sought to lessen the U.S. role in the fighting while supplying South Vietnam with military assistance, training, intelligence, and other aid to enable South Vietnamese forces to hold their own against the Soviet and Chinese-supplied North Vietnamese army. Nixon called the strategy “Vietnamization,” and it soon formed the basis for what was dubbed the Nixon Doctrine.
The Nixon Doctrine emerged initially from a briefing for reporters by Nixon in Guam on July 25, 1969. Nixon outlined America’s future role in Asia by explaining that “we must avoid that kind of policy that will make countries in Asia so dependent upon us that we are dragged into conflicts such as the one that we have in Vietnam.” Nixon further stated that he hoped “this is an era . . . of negotiation rather than confrontation,” especially with the Soviet Union. We will provide military assistance to our Asian allies and keep our treaty commitments, Nixon said, but the responsibility for meeting military threats on the ground will be theirs, not ours. The U.S. is not going to fight the wars for our Asian allies, Nixon said, and “that is a good general principle, one which we would hope would be our policy generally throughout the world.”
In his memoirs, Nixon explained the key aspects of the doctrine: the U.S. was not going to make any more commitments—in addition to existing treaty commitments—“unless they were required by our own vital interests.” “[F]rom now on,” he wrote, “we would furnish only the materiel and the military and economic assistance to those nations willing to accept the responsibility of supplying the manpower to defend themselves.” Nixon extended the doctrine beyond Asia into the Middle East—furnishing military assistance to Israel, the Shah in Iran and the House of Saud, and later to Egypt’s Sadat.
The Nixon Doctrine would enable the U.S. to focus on great power politics and diplomacy—with China and the Soviet Union. Nixon believed that winding down our involvement in Vietnam and shifting responsibility for their defense to our allies complemented his triangular diplomacy with Beijing and Moscow. American troops would only be used to protect and defend America’s vital interests.
President Trump has approached the world in a similar manner. The Trump Doctrine essentially applies the Nixon Doctrine to our NATO allies and to Europe in general. Trump insisted that NATO members provide more for their own defense and take the lead in defending Western Europe from external conventional military threats, including threats from Russia in Ukraine. Our NATO allies (except Spain) have responded by pledging to spend at least five percent of GDP on defense. Trump has also pressured Ukraine to make peace with Russia, even if it is an imperfect peace like the one Nixon negotiated with North Vietnam. Trump has also urged South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan to provide more for their own defense.
Trump, like Nixon, has provided military assistance to Middle East allies such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, and smaller Gulf countries, but has made it clear that he will not get bogged down in another endless war in the region. Nixon during the 1973 Yom Kippur War ordered an airlift of military supplies to Israel and issued a “nuclear alert” to deter possible Soviet intervention but also restrained Israel’s offensive operations to forge a ceasefire with Israel’s enemies and the beginnings of an eventual deal with Egypt. Trump aided Israel’s war against Iran by ordering a U.S. military strike on Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities but has also pressured Israel to make peace with Iran and Hamas in Gaza, while at home resisting calls for using our military to bring about regime change in Iran.
Trump is focused on our relations with China the way Nixon focused on our relations with the Soviet Union. The Nixon Doctrine complemented Nixon’s strategic approach to the Soviet Union. The Trump Doctrine complements Trump’s strategic approach to China. A recent essay in Foreign Affairs called Trump’s approach a strategy of “prioritization.” Trump prioritizes China, just as Nixon prioritized the Soviet Union. That is what strategy and effective national security policy are all about.
Francis P. Sempa is a lawyer and writes on global affairs.
