The limits of American power
was exhibited through the non-alignment strategy adopted by Gamal Abdel Nasser (Gaddis, 2005: 126) . Through non-alignment, Nasser played the superpowers against each other (Kissinger, 1994: 445) . He exploited the hopes of both America and the USSR that they might bring him within their respective spheres of influence (Gaddis, 2005, p126) . Nasser persuaded America to fund the Aswan High Dam, which was crucial to Egypt's economic development and ostensibly an expression of solidarity with American capitalism. However, Nasser also bought arms from communist Czechoslovakia and extended diplomatic recognition to mainland China (Gaddis, 2005: 126) . Nasser understood the cold war as a bilateral contest over global influence and he skilfully made the fate of his own leanings, American or Soviet, a bone of contention between the superpowers from he would stand to benefit. Eisenhower’s secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, fumed at Egypt becoming a ‘tool of the Russians’ and Eisenhower cancelled the dam’s f unding (Little, 2008: 170-72) . However, Nasser was a step ahead, as he had already arranged for the USSR to fund the dam in anticipation of American retaliation. Nasser further provoked America and its wartime allies by nationalizing the Suez Canal (Little, 2008, p170-72) . Britain and France conspired with Israel to invade the Suez region in 1956, without consulting Eisenhower (Kyle, 2003, p314) . Evidently, America had little control over the cold war dynamic in Egypt. First, America was pitted against the USSR for control over Egypt by Nasser’s shrewd manoeuvres. Yet, in 1956 it found itself aligned with the USSR on issue of the Suez invasion. Khrushchev felt obliged to protect Nasser from the imperialist Franco-British coalition, threatening the invaders with nuclearmissiles if they didn’t stand down. Eisenhower veh emently opposed a resurgence in European imperialism and threatened grave economic sanctions if the invasion wasn’t halted (Kunz, 2011) . The invasion was duly halted but rather than the superpowers, it was Nasser who was the winner. He kept the Suez Canal and dramatically influenced the cold war by playing the superpowers, humiliating the invaders and cleaving the capitalist western alliance in two (FRUS 1955-57, 1957) . Eisenhower was infuriated with his wartime allies who treacherously double-crossed him, referring to the invasion as the ‘damnedest business I ever saw supposedly intelligent governments get themselves into’ (Hitchcock, 2018, p321) . Thus, it seems clear that America was on the back foot in Egypt and it was Nasser who influenced Eisenhower and the cold war to his benefit. Nonetheless, America was hardly powerless. Despite Eisenhower’s anger with his allies, the Suez crisis marked America’s ascension into world leadership (Kissinger, 1994, p548) . Eisenhower understood the necessity of disciplining his own side in the cold war so he could sustain the narrative that the USSR, not the western powers, was the true source of conflict and trouble in the world (Eisenhower, 1956) . Responsibility for the balance of power in the middle east now fell squa rely on America’s shoulders (Kissinger, 1994, p548) . Eisenhower asked congress for approval of a threefold middle east programme of economic aid, military assistance, and protection against communist aggression (Eisenhower papers, 1957, p6-16) and declared that America’s vital interests were worldwide, embracing both hemispheres and every continent (Eisenhower Papers, 1957, p29) . Yet despite Eisenhower’s middle-eastern containment initiative, Nasser’s wilymanoeuvres towards the superpowersmeant America had limited control over its dealings in Egypt. In short, the cold war, as well as being a period of tension between the superpowers, was a period of contention for client states across the globe. America’s containment doctrine endowed it with the control and responsibility over lesser powers’ fate, and their conflicts with communist adversaries. However, in reality, compounded with the bipolar nuclear world order and America’s desire to avoid nuclear war, the containment doctrine empowered client states such as South Korea and third world
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