conquered South Vietnam as the United States stood by without intervening. After Nixon resigned, president Gerald Ford continued his foreign policy, but came under strong attack from the right by Ronald Reagan, whom he defeated for the nomination in 1976. The Nixon Doctrine The Nixon Doctrine announced in July 1969 shifted the main responsibility for the defense of an ally, to the ally itself, especially regarding combat. The United States would work on the diplomacy, provide financial help and munitions, and help train the allied army. Specifically: The U.S. would keep all its treaty commitments. The U.S. would “provide a shield if a nuclear power threatens the freedom of a nation allied with us or of a nation whose survival we consider vital to our security.” In conflicts involving non-nuclear aggression, the U.S. would “look to the nation directly threatened to assume the primary responsibility of providing the manpower for defense.” The Doctrine was exemplified by the Vietnamization process regarding South Vietnam and the Vietnam War. It also played elsewhere in Asia including Iran, Taiwan, Cambodia and South Korea. The doctrine was an explicit rejection of the practice that sent 500,000 American soldiers to Vietnam, even though there was no treaty obligation to that country. A major long-term goal was to reduce the tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and China, so as to better enable the détente process to work. The particular Asian nation the Nixon Doctrine was aimed at with its message that Asian nations should be responsible for defending themselves was South Vietnam, but Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran seized upon the Nixon Doctrine with its message that Asian nations should be responsible for their own defense to argue that the Americans should sell him arms without limitations, a suggestion that Nixon eagerly embraced. The US turned to Saudi Arabia and Iran as "twin pillars" of regional stability. Oil price increases in 1970 and 1971 would allow funding both states with this military expansion. Total arms transfers from the United States to Iran increased from $103.6 million in 1970 to $552.7 million in 1972; those to Saudi Arabia increased from $15.8 million in 1970 to $312.4 million in 1972. The United States would maintain its small naval force of three ships in the Gulf, stationed since World War II in Bahrain, but would take on no other formal security commitments. India, Pakistan, and