President Nixon's Foreign Policy Successes and Failures
Although President Richard Nixon is known more for the Watergatescandal and as the only US President to have resigned from office, he wasresponsible for introducing a number of bold and innovative foreign policy When Nixon took over the office of US President in 1969, the VietnamWar was the main issue in the country. During his election campaign, Nixonhad promised to bring the American soldiers home. He started to implement a
This resulted in signing of important anti-ballisticmissile (ABM) and SALT treaties between the two super-powers and loweredthe Cold War tensions. Until his historic visit toMainland China in 1972, any dealings with the Communist Chinese regime wereconsidered to be taboo in the United States; therefore Nixon's initiativein engaging the most populated country in the world was a bold diplomaticmove. tion" policy aimed at a gradual withdrawal of US troops fromVietnam while encouraging greater involvement of South Vietnam in the war. Bybasing the US foreign policy on "realist" rather than "moral" principles,Nixon pursued a policy of detente and developed more cordial relations withthe Soviet Union. His handling of the Vietnam War can be consideredhis biggest foreign policy failure. " These contradictory aimsled to his escalation of the War in April 1970 when the invasion ofCambodia was authorized, supposedly to pursue the North Vietnamese forces. The US was alsoperceived to have lost the war disastrously and Nixon gained little bydelaying the withdrawal. Nixon's greatest foreign policy success was thedevelopment of relations with Communist China. Nixon was more successful in other foreign policy initiatives. However, Nixon desired that the US should not be perceived as having lostthe war and "peace should be achieved with honor. By the time Nixon finally pulled out of Vietnam in 1973, thousands ofadditional Vietnamese and American soldiers had died.
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