Doctrinal Cycles and the Dual-Crisis of 1979
Though presidential doctrines claim to be broad, forward-looking articulations of national security principles, they are in fact reactive and narrow. They emerge following crises and can subsequently constrain security policy, creating ideal conditions for new crises to emerge. This paper thus argues that in the pursuit of security, presidential doctrines can perpetuate a cycle of instability. Using the Nixon Doctrine as the present case study reveals that the strategy first came as a response to the failure in Vietnam, then rendered the US unable to foresee or manage the events of 1979: the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. These crises subsequently forced a wholesale reassessment of security in the form of the Carter Doctrine. In examining this period of US–Middle East relations, the constricting, reactive nature of doctrines and the concomitant cycles of instability become self-evident.
Misguided Morality: Ethics and the Reagan Doctrine
The Iran-contra affair demonstrates once more how strong moral convictions can lead to foreign policies of questionable legality and morality. In particular, it raises larger questions about the morality of the so-called Reagan Doctrine, of which aid to the contras is one expression. The Reagan Doctrine principle that the United States should support "freedomfighters" attempting to overthrow "Marxist-Leninist" regimes in the Third World was first enunciated in President Ronald Reagan's 1985 State of the Union address:
Selected Ethical Issues in Research and Publication: Perceptions of Health Education Faculty
A national random sample of 195 university health education faculty at graduate degree–granting programs completed a 31-item survey with regard to their perceptions of ethical issues in research and publishing. Most respondents were male (57%), tenured (75%), had graduate faculty status (92%), had presented original research at conferences (85%), and had published articles in health education journals (89%). Faculty members were requested to assess whether 21 scenarios dealing with ethical issues in research and publishing were ethical, unethical, questionable, or not an ethical issue. Of the scenarios, 3 were considered ethical and 7 unethical by the majority of respondents. The perceptions of how ethical the remaining 11 scenarios were varied considerably. Perceptions of the ethical scenarios did not differ among respondents by sex, academic rank, years taught as a faculty member, whether the department taught units/classes on research ethics, or whether the respondents were from doctoral-level versus master’s-level programs.