Julian E. Zelizer\'s Book Arsenal

¶ … Julian E. Zelizer's book Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security is entitled "The Lost Democratic Opportunity" and spans pages 273-354. This chapter starts with the election of 1976, when Jimmy Carter and the Democrats had huge victories. There were 61 Democrat seats in the Senate, making a filibuster impossible. The Watergate scandal was still reverberating in the American consciousness, and morale was low. People were starting to mistrust the government more because of the way the Vietnam War was handled by the Democratic president Johnson, but the Republicans were bearing the brunt of the sentiments due to Nixon and Watergate. In the aftermath of Watergate, the Republicans themselves were in a state of regrouping and this made it possible for the Democrats to gain seats and win over the trust of the American people.

Furthermore, Jimmy Carter was presented as a candidate that could potentially help bridge the racial gap, as the Republican Party had started to woo racist whites in the South who had been angry at the Democrats for helping to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Carter was a southerner but he was white. In addition to racists, Americans also had a problem with neo-conservatives. Team B. was a group of neo-conservatives determined to stymie Jimmy Carter. Team B. started around the Ford administration, and was a reactionary force against perceived CIA weakness against the Soviet Union. Team B. asserted that the Soviet military arsenal had grown much stronger, and might even be at par with the United States. Team B. proposed a militaristic program that would bolster American missile defense systems. Moreover, Team B. helped to form the Committee on Present Danger, which counteracted pacifism.

Carter contended with several foreign policy issues, as well as domestic issues like a failing economy. The energy crisis was also looming, and presented a national security problem. Added to this was Team B's assertion that the Soviets could strike at any minute. Carter proposed energy independence, for economic and national security benefits. To achieve his vision and goals, Carter pursued peace by working on "arms negotiations, trade agreements, and territorial compromises." (p. 274). Furthermore, the critical component of Carter's foreign policy was an ethical framework. Carter framed foreign policy not as a matter of protecting America but as a matter of promoting human rights around the world. Carter's human rights ideology therefore differed significantly from any of his predecessor presidents.

Carter's plan met with some initial failure. He reached out to a Soviet dissident named Andrei Sakharov, which angered Soviet officials. Carter tried to raise the matter of human rights in the Soviet Union, and Soviet leaders turned the tables on Carter and said that he would critique American human rights records. Another approach Carter championed, and which represented a departure from his predecessors (and successors) was an approach that would not promote fear of communism to the degree of supporting "any dictator who joined us in that fear," (p. 275). Carter also believed it would be possible to pursue a detente policy with the Soviets while simultaneously pushing for human rights reforms.

The human rights underlying impetus for foreign policy was believed to be a winning strategy, and indeed, conservatives initially showed support for Carter's policies. Democrats also issued their support of Carter's program. The fusion of civil rights with foreign policy is comparable to the way FDR conjoined New Deal programs with the United Nations and its policies such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, passed in 1948. Carter also understood the major political and human rights blunders the United States was party to during previous generations, supporting anti-democratic and totalitarian regimes just to fight communism. Thus, human rights became a part of the strategic foreign policy objectives of Carter and the democrats. Carter applied his policy to Africa, Latin America, and various regions around the globe. Indeed, much of what Carter was doing in terms of foreign policy was the attempt to redress many of the problems that had already occurred due to American interventionism.