The July 23 Revolution and pacts (27), The US and the Baghdad Pact ii. Containment and encirclement: The United States, although heavily involved in the various security guarantees, did not become an official member of the Baghdad Pact. Nonetheless, the security agreement fit US strategic interests in the region, as indicated in the previous article of this series. Through Turkey, the Middle East was linked to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), and through Pakistan, to the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO). US influence continued through guarantees of military aid and diplomatic support. Moreover, the United States joined the military committee of the pact. Behind such arrangements was the following story: When US President Dwight Eisenhower entered office in 1953, he was committed to two possibly contradictory goals: maintaining — or even heightening — the national commitment to counter the spread of Soviet influence; and satisfying demands to balance the budget, lower taxes, and curb inflation. The most prominent of the doctrines to emerge out of the first goal was ‘massive retaliation', which Secretary of State John Foster Dulles announced early in 1954. Eschewing the costly, conventional ground forces of the Truman Administration, and wielding the vast superiority of the US nuclear arsenal and covert intelligence, Dulles defined this approach as ‘brinksmanship', pushing the Soviet Union to the brink of war in order to exact concessions. In the meantime, however, American attention was being diverted elsewhere in Asia, especially due to domestic influence on foreign policy. The continuing pressure from the ‘China lobby' or ‘Asia firsters', who had insisted on active efforts to restore Chiang Kai-shek was still a strong domestic influence on foreign policy. Moreover, by wielding the nation's huge nuclear superiority, the new Eisenhower-Dulles approach was a cheaper form of containment geared towards offering Americans ‘more bang for the buck'. However, rather than reject the Truman-Acheson containment, Eisenhower and Dulles decided on a policy resting on the impact of nuclear weapons on regional balances, and the role of nuclear weaponry in strategic thinking and military doctrines. Perhaps most influentially, the Eisenhower-Dulles approach adjusted American policy to the emergence of new nations in the ‘Third World'. [email protected]
