Nikolas Gvosdev is a Russian-American international relations scholar who is concerned that President Trump is repudiating the Carter doctrine on the Middle East.   What is this doctrine that Gvosdev is referring to?  No, it's not what you might first suspect, appeasement. Rather, it's that the U.S. considers instability in the Persian Gulf region an assault on vital American interests which will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force. This doctrine was not a Senate-ratified treaty or anything so formal. Rather, it was defined in a State of the Union address that Carter gave in 1980 in the midst of the second oil shock. The Carter doctrine was essentially a promise to the world that the U.S. would ensure the free flow of oil through the Persian Gulf.   According to Gvosdev, to the Carter Doctrine a 'corollary' was added in 1981 by President Reagan. It held that the internal...(Read Full Post)