Key Facts

Key Facts

• The end of the Cold War led to renewed questioning of the US global role and in particular its

involvement in peacekeeping and humanitarian interventions (Somalia, Rwanda, Kosovo) and in

nation building. However, there was little real national debate on foreign policy interests and

priorities.

• The US responded to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait by massing a huge military force for “Operation

Desert Storm.” In the wake of a rapid Gulf War victory, President Bush’s optimism about a “new world order’’ was short-lived as the US struggled to deal with conflicts in the Balkans and elsewhere.

• President Clinton’s priorities were expanding democracy, free markets, and preparing the US for the challenges of globalization. His emphasis on multilateral institutions should not hide the fact that his administration was also prepared to go it alone on many issues. Republican control of Congress from 1995 onwards made life difficult for Clinton.

• George W. Bush appointed an experienced team to run foreign policy. He began by rejecting many of Clinton’s policies and adopted mainly a unilateralist approach during his first nine months in office. Several international treaties were rejected and “new realism” was proclaimed as the guiding principle.

• The US response to the September 2001 terrorist attacks demonstrated the importance of multilateral cooperation. Bush secured support of a broad international coalition to tackle global terrorism. But there was little sign of wider US interest in multilateralism. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

President George H. W. Bush

The end of the Cold War did not lead to any rejoicing in Washington. There were no victory speeches, celebrations, or medals. A certain justified, quiet satisfaction was apparent, but President George H. W. Bush rightly held that there was no need to rub Soviet faces in the mud, particularly as there were many daunting problems to overcome, including the reunification of Germany and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

George H. W. Bush was the last US President to have direct experience of the Second World War. He also came to office with an excellent pedigree in foreign affairs, having been a former envoy to China and the UN as well as director of the CIA (Bush 1999). Despite his considerable experience, Bush did not find it easy to articulate what should be the US role in the post-Cold War world. One of those who did try and set down some guidelines was Francis Fukuyama. In a widely read and highly influential article (later a book), The End of History, Fukuyama postulated that the collapse of  communism meant that liberal democracy had triumphed. Not all states were democratic or had market economies but that was their common goal. This meant the end of history in the sense of searching for the best system and the end of major wars. The Fukuyama thesis was challenged by many, including Samuel Huntington, who predicted that the new fault lines in the world would be cultural and religious leading to a “clash of civilizations” (Huntington 1996). Even if there were to be no more major wars, there were numerous smaller wars that posed difficult choices for the US. One of the problems Bush faced was a reduced budget to buttress his foreign policy efforts. Largely as a result of the massive arms expenditure during the Reagan years (1981–9), the US had moved from being a creditor nation to being the largest debtor nation in the world. As the treasury coffers were empty, albeit not for the Pentagon, Bush could not offer the new emerging democracies in Eastern Europe anything like the Marshall Plan that had benefited Western Europe after 1945. Nearly all

US assistance in the early 1990s was directed to Israel and Egypt plus the small countries of Central America.

The lack of finance was also an important factor in the US response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in the summer of 1990. The invasion took the US and the rest of the world by surprise. The Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, had made threatening noises before toward his oil-rich neighbor but nothing had happened. Iraq had also benefited from US weaponry during the 1980s and Saddam Hussein did not believe that the US would go beyond imposing sanctions on his country. President Bush, however, was not prepared to allow such naked aggression to go unpunished, especially as it would irreparably damage any prospect of a “new world order” being established. The President also argued that it was essential to protect America’s vital oil interests in the region. If the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was ignored, then neighboring Saudi Arabia, with a sixth of proven world oil reserves and a main supplier to the US, might be next in line.

Despite these arguments, there were considerable doubts in Congress as to whether the US should respond militarily as Bush wished. Many argued that the imposition of sanctions would be a sufficient response. The decisive vote in the Senate was only 52–47 in favor of using force at that time. Meanwhile, Bush had succeeded not only in securing UN approval for a military response, but also stitched together a coalition that financed the war (especially the large contributions from Japan, Germany, and Saudi Arabia). Former Secretary of State, James Baker, has described how Bush was keen to ensure that American action had the widest international support in order to disprove the impression that American foreign policy followed “a cowboy mentality” (Baker 1995). With a broad international coalition, including the Soviet Union, supporting the US, the American military, under the leadership of General Norman Schwarzkopf in the field and Colin Powell as chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs, was free to launch a massive attack on the Iraqi forces in February 1991. Within a matter of days, the US military, complete with the latest weaponry and aided by contingents from Britain and France, won an overwhelming victory in “Operation Desert Storm.” Courtesy of CNN and the BBC, millions of television viewers around the world were able to see American cruise missiles strike targets in Baghdad and elsewhere with amazing precision. President Bush decided to end the war when Iraqi forces retreated from Kuwait. This decision was then, and later, widely criticized as it left Saddam Hussein in power and free to persecute the minority Kurds and Shiite groups in Iraq. As a consequence of his defeat, Saddam Hussein had to accept the presence in Iraq of UN inspectors who had a mandate to search for weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The inspectors faced innumerable problems in carrying out their activities and eventually Saddam Hussein ordered them out of Iraq under the pretence that they were spying. The UN had also imposed a strict sanctions regime on Iraq and a “no-fly zone’’ covering the north and south of Iraq. The sanctions regime did not lead to any weakening of Saddam Hussein’s grip on power but it was blamed for the deaths of many children through malnutrition and lack of medicines. This suffering was used by the Iraqi leader to considerable propaganda effect against the US. The no-fly zone was monitored by the US and British airforces that regularly bombed Iraqi military installations if there was a violation of the zone. This game of “cat and mouse” continued throughout the 1990s. When George W. Bush took office there was a hardening of the US stance toward Iraq with a number of senior officials, led by Deputy Defense Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, arguing that this Bush administration should finish what the previous Bush administration had failed to do – topple Saddam Hussein. These arguments increased in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 2001. The opponents of this policy, led by Secretary of State, Colin Powell, argued that overthrowing Saddam Hussein would be a highly risky operation involving massive American forces operating alone as the international coalition to counter terrorism (with the exception of Britain) had made clear its opposition to any invasion of Iraq. Furthermore, there was no certainty that removing Saddam Hussein would lead to a more stable or democratic Iraq. President Bush, with approval ratings topping 90 percent, was delighted at the military success in the Gulf, believed that the Vietnam syndrome had been buried in the desert sands, and considered that the world was on the verge of a new era. In his State of the Union address in January 1991, the President proclaimed that there was the very real prospect of a new world order in which the principles of justice and fair play protect the weak against the strong…a world in which freedom and respect for human rights find a home among all nations…a world in which the United Nations – freed from Cold War stalemate – is poised to fulfill the historic vision of its founders.

Bush rejected the idea that the US should become the world’s policeman but in the wake of the Cold War, “as the only remaining superpower, it is our responsibility – it is our opportunity – to lead.” This vision of a “new world order” had echoes of Wilsonian idealism but Bush did not maintain his grandiose rhetoric for long. His administration was faced with numerous pressing problems including the break up of the Soviet Union, the unification of Germany (a task it managed with considerable skill), a humanitarian catastrophe in Somalia, and the tragedy of Yugoslavia. The break-up of the Soviet Union was a major headache for the US as there were around 30,000 nuclear weapons spread around the constituent republics of the former communist superpower. It became a top priority to ensure that these weapons remained under safe control. Washington helped Moscow financially to secure the return of these weapons to Russian territory and their eventual destruction.

Despite having won a spectacular victory in the Gulf War that demonstrated US military dominance, Bush was reluctant to become involved in the Balkans. 1992 was an election year and Bush, already under attack by his Democratic rival, Bill Clinton, for spending too much time on foreign policy, was not willing to commit American troops in a precarious situation. In a reference to the Yugoslav conflict, James Baker, his Secretary of State, said that the US “did not have a dog in that fight” and despite protests from some members of the administration, Washington refused to get involved in the early years of the conflict (Zimmerman 1996). Apart from the lack of an agreed policy on the Balkans, the US was also afraid of taking any action that might have a negative impact on Mikhail Gorbachev’s chances of survival. Although Bush was slow in coming to trust Gorbachev, his later support for the Soviet leader dwarfed all other foreign policy considerations including support for Ukrainian independence and readiness to intervene in Yugoslavia (Halberstam 2001). The refusal to become involved in the Balkans led some observers to suggest that the US was guilty of double standards. It was ready to act quickly and decisively when its oil interests were threatened, but not otherwise. Others criticized the new US formula for warfare that required massive firepower, followed by a speedy withdrawal from the scene of destruction, regardless of the havoc and anarchy that followed (Ambrose and Brinkley 1997:377–8). In dealing with the reunification of Germany, Bush displayed a sure touch. He quickly recognized the geopolitical importance of securing a united, democratic Germany in the center of Europe, and ensured that the US was in the driving seat of the four-power (US, Soviet Union, Britain and France) negotiations that dealt with German reunification. He dealt firmly with Soviet attempts to weaken the new German state, rejecting the idea that it should be neutral and not fully in NATO. He also dealt firmly with a highly skeptical British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, and a reluctant French President, Francois Mitterrand, both of whom would have preferred to slow down and even postpone German reunification (Rice and Zelikow 1997).

The sudden collapse of communism and the swift success of “Operation Desert Storm” raised a number of questions about America’s post-Cold War role. Would the US be willing to continue playing the role of world cop or sheriff? If so, would it continue to adopt a selective approach? What should be the criteria for intervention? Who would foot the bill? Surprisingly, there was little real debate among the foreign and security policy elite as to what role the US should play and whether the massive resources devoted to external affairs should be reduced. In 1991–2, Bush, supported by a powerful coalition of entrenched bureaucratic interests, arms producers and a Congress reluctant to accept military base closures, rejected calls for a substantial cut in the defense budget. Indeed the Pentagon, in a famous leaked report of 1992 entitled Defense Policy Guidelines argued that the US should do everything possible to maintain its sole superpower status and prevent the emergence of a rival regional or global power. During his four years in office, President Bush managed a huge and complex agenda of difficult foreign policy issues with a sure touch. He found it difficult, however, to explain the changed international environment to the American public and did little to transform the US military and intelligence communities to deal with the changed world. Although his preoccupation with foreign policy may have cost him re-election, his defeat in 1992 ultimately led to his son occupying the White House eight years later. In the intervening years the White House was in Democratic hands under the leadership of William Jefferson Clinton, largely a novice in foreign policy, and the first truly post-Cold War President. Meanwhile Bush had presented a poisoned chalice to the new President. Africa had hardly figured during the Bush presidency but at the very end of his administration, the President agreed to send a small military force to war-torn Somalia, to support UN humanitarian assistance programs. Somalia was to become a major factor in the development of post-Cold War US foreign policy. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

President Bill Clinton

Foreign policy played little or no role in the 1992 election apart from Bill Clinton’s criticism of President Bush for paying too much attention to foreign as opposed to domestic policy. Clinton’s informal campaign slogan was “It’s the Economy – Stupid.’’ Clinton had also sniped at the Republicans for failing to do more on the human rights front in China and in the Balkans but in reality there were no major foreign policy differences between Clinton and Bush. Perhaps as a sign of the public’s lack of interest in foreign affairs, neither candidate was prepared to launch a national debate on what role the US should play in the post-Cold War world. Clinton’s victory occurred when there was much speculation about America’s decline. A headline in Time magazine on 15 October 1992 asked “is the US in an irreversible decline as the world’s premier power?” In the same month the French newspaper Le Monde published a twelve-part series on America in eclipse. A distinguished historian wrote a best seller depicting the likely decline of US power (Kennedy 1993). Americans were worried about the economic challenge from Japan. The glory of the Gulf War had faded fast and brought no lasting political benefits to George H. W. Bush.

As a former governor (like Carter and Reagan), Clinton had no foreign policy experience when he took office in January 1993. He made clear that domestic issues would have priority and appointed a foreign policy team (Anthony Lake as his national security adviser, Warren Christopher as Secretary of State) with clear instructions to keep foreign policy problems away from his desk. One public relations adviser, who served both Republican and Democrat Presidents, estimated that Clinton spent less than 25 percent of his time on foreign affairs, unlike Bush who had spent 75 percent of his time on foreign policy (Gergen 2002). When Clinton assumed office, however, the US faced no serious threats and there was no domestic pressure on the new President to take a more active role in foreign policy. There were, however, numerous foreign policy challenges awaiting Clinton, including the spreading conflict in the Balkans, the economic collapse in Russia, the breakdown of law and order in Haiti, several “rogue states” attempting to develop weapons of mass destruction and rising tension in the Middle East.

Clinton seemed to recognize that he was heading into uncharted waters. In his inaugural address in January 1993 he stated that “not since the late 1940s has our nation faced the challenge of shaping an entirely new foreign policy for a world that has fundamentally changed.” The President promised “bold new thinking” and a bipartisan approach in foreign policy. A few weeks later, speaking at the American University on 26 February, Clinton elaborated on these challenges and introduced globalization and cyberspace as two central features of his foreign policy. The President said that his priorities would be

– to restore the American economy to good health, “an essential prerequisite for foreign policy”

– to increase the importance attached to trade and open markets for American business

– to demonstrate US leadership in the global economy

– to help the developing countries grow faster

– to promote democracy in Russia and elsewhere. 

The President acknowledged that there were other challenges. The dangers we face are less stark and more diffuse than those of the Cold War, but they are still formidable – the ethnic conflicts that drive millions from their homes; the despots ready to repress their own people or conquer their neighbors; the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Clinton added drugs, crime, AIDS and the environment for good measure.

Clinton’s principal advisers reiterated these priorities in all their speeches. The administration’s three primary policy objectives were promoting democracy, promoting prosperity, and enhancing security. Enlargement of the world’s ‘‘free communities of market democracies” was the stated rationale for the Clinton administration’s global posture. Given the fragility of emerging markets and democracies in Russia, Asia, and Latin America, especially during the late 1990s, the theme lost some of its appeal, only to make a strong comeback toward the end of the Clinton presidency. In two speeches, at Nebraska on 8 December 2000, and Warwick, in England on 14 December 2000, Clinton sought to claim a mantle of “progressive internationalist pragmatist” for his foreign policy legacy.

The President’s apparent lack of interest in foreign affairs caused some apprehension with America’s allies in Europe and Asia. To Asians, Clinton seemed preoccupied with NATO and Russia. To Europeans, however, Clinton seemed obsessed with correcting trade imbalances and opening markets in Asia. Despite his emphasis on domestic policy, Clinton soon found that there was no escape from the world outside. The new President could hardly have been confronted with three more difficult issues during his first months in office than Haiti, Somalia, and the Balkans, problems that he inherited from Bush. The basic dilemma Clinton faced in all three cases was whether or not the US should intervene militarily to redress worsening humanitarian situations. With Haiti, Clinton faced a breakdown in law and order, after the ousting from power of the democratically elected President Aristide by General Rauol Cedras. Apart from some interest by the Black Caucus (black members of Congress), there was no significant American domestic constituency interested in Haiti. What prompted Clinton to intervene was the prospect of thousands of refugees seeking shelter and a permanent home in the US as a result of the violence on the island. The first attempt at landing a small military force on October 1993 was foiled by an unruly mob which led one historian to comment that “rarely had the US looked so impotent, its mighty military driven away from a banana republic by a pip-squeak dictator and a hired mob” (Halberstam 2001:271). A year later, Clinton ordered a larger invasion force to Haiti but just before the deadline for their landing, former President Jimmy Carter brokered a deal with General Cedras that allowed him to leave the island. This enabled American troops to land unopposed in order to restore order and to carry out peacekeeping duties, pending the return of Aristide. Clinton was able to proclaim a foreign policy “success” but Haiti would remain a problem country for the remainder of the decade.

The US intervention in Somalia, 1993–4, launched by one President and completed by another, had profound consequences for American foreign policy. For most of the Cold War, Somalia had sided with the Soviet Union and had been largely ignored by the US. But after the Soviet Union sided with Ethiopia against Somalia in the Ogaden War, a US-Somali rapprochement began in 1977 and culminated in a military access agreement in 1980 that permitted the US to use naval ports and airfields in exchange for military and economic aid. During the 1980s, the US viewed Somalia as a defense partner and many Somali officers were trained in America. Toward the end of the 1980s, however, Somalia disintegrated into civil war. The economy was in shambles, and hundreds of thousands of Somalis fled their homes. During 1992 the fighting worsened and the images of homeless, starving women and children began to fill television screens thus increasing pressure on President Bush to send American troops to Somalia. This would later be cited as a good example of “the CNN effect.” A month after losing the 1992 presidential election to Clinton, Bush made a televised address to the nation officially announcing US participation in “Operation Restore Hope.” The former President stated that our mission has a limited objective – to open the supply routes, to get the food moving, and to prepare the way for a UN peacekeeping force to keep it moving. This operation is not open-ended. We will not stay longer than is absolutely necessary. He stated further that the US had no plans to dictate political outcomes in the war-torn East African nation.

Just days before President Bush’s announcement, Smith Hempstone, the US ambassador to Kenya, cautioned in a confidential cable to his State Department superiors that the US should think ‘‘once, twice, and three times” before getting involved in Somalia. He warned that Somalis are “natural-born guerrillas who would engage in ambushes and hit-and-run attacks. They will not be able to stop the convoys from getting through. But they will inflict – and take – casualties.” Referring to the ill-fated US intervention in Lebanon in 1982–3 that ultimately cost the lives of more than 260 marines, Hempstone concluded, “if you liked Beirut, you’ll love Mogadishu.” There was also considerable opposition within Congress to the administration’s decision to send American troops into a civil war situation. The Pentagon offered assurances, however, that American forces would not get bogged down in a Somalian quagmire. Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, compared the US mission to having the cavalry ride to the rescue and then transferring responsibility to the “marshals” (i.e. UN peacekeepers) once the situation stabilized. The Pentagon also hoped that intervening in Somalia would ease the pressure to intervene in the much more difficult Balkans arena. In responding to the public’s demand “to do something,” the administration made sure that the initial military units that landed in Somalia in January 1993 were greeted by a blaze of television cameras. There were indeed ominous similarities between the situation in Lebanon during the early 1980s and the environment in Somalia: for example, politically fractured societies with an assortment of heavily armed militias backing various factions. As in the Lebanon, the US gradually became involved in the internal politics of Somalia – with equally fatal consequences. Although the US was in Somalia under UN auspices, its forces were never under UN command. Washington was also unwilling to coordinate its political and military objectives with UN headquarters. President Clinton, however, was persuaded to move from a policy objective of supporting humanitarian assistance to one of “nation building,” i.e. promoting democracy and political stability. As a result, Clinton agreed to a more robust military posture, at first with a view to disarming some of the local militias, and then capturing one noted warlord, Mohamed Farah Aideed. After a number of attacks on US forces in August 1993, Clinton ordered the elite Delta Rangers to capture Aideed. The attempt to do so, on 3 October, went horribly wrong with hundreds of Somalian casualties killed and wounded in a fierce gun battle in downtown Mogadishu. Eighteen American soldiers died, and seventy-seven were wounded. In the confusion Aideed escaped. The urban battle and loss of American lives resulted in sharp criticism of the President and his national security team. Public attitudes also changed overnight as the naked body of a US Ranger was shown on television being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. The President was in a difficult position. He warned “that if US troops were to leave now, we would send a message to terrorists and other potential adversaries around the world that they can change our policies by killing our people. It would be open season on Americans.” At the same time he set a deadline of 31 March 1994 for a political settlement in order that US troops could be withdrawn. In hoisting a diplomatic white flag, the President sought to place the blame on the United Nations. “We cannot let a charge we got under a UN resolution to do some police work – which is essentially what it is, to arrest suspects – turn into a military mission.” Republicans were highly critical of Clinton’s policy. Senator Nancy Kassebaum said “I can think of no further compounding of the tragedy that has occurred there for our forces than to have them withdraw and see what started out to be a very successful, noble mission end in chaos.” Congressman Dellums stated that “a terrible mistake was made. Rather than maintaining a neutral peacekeeping role for a famine-relief effort implemented by Bush, Clinton became enmeshed in urban combat. Cardinal rules were violated. We chose sides, and we decided who the enemies were.’’

The American involvement in Somalia (later turned into a film, Black Hawk Down) had a major impact on US foreign policy, particularly on relations with the UN and on whether or not to intervene abroad for humanitarian purposes. The Clinton administration’s initial reluctance to become involved in the Balkans and its refusal to respond to the genocide in Rwanda that began in April 1994 was due in large part to its humiliating experience in Somalia. President Clinton issued a policy directive shortly after US forces left Somalia, that implied a sharp curtailment of American involvement in future armed humanitarian interventions and that marked a retreat from his administration’s earlier rhetoric of assertive multilateralism. The efforts by Congress to cut or restrict US contributions to UN peacekeeping were also a direct response to the perceived failures in Somalia.

Meanwhile Clinton was actively pursuing an expansive foreign policy agenda on the trade front. The President sought to increase the economic dimension of America’s foreign policy and gave top priority to the negotiation of new trade deals, opening new markets for American business and encouraging Americans to take advantage of globalization. In Clinton’s view, the US was like a large corporation competing in the global market place. As a sign of the increased attention the President gave to trade and economic affairs, Mickey Kantor, the US trade representative (USTR), enjoyed much better access to the President than Warren Christopher, the Secretary of State. One of the President’s major successes was securing passage through Congress of the North America free trade agreement (NAFTA) between the US, Canada, and Mexico that served, inter alia, to reduce tariffs and promote investment in and between the three countries. The NAFTA was strongly opposed by Ross Perot, the maverick businessman and presidential candidate, some right-wing Republicans, the labor unions and many of their supporters in Congress. As a result of the wide opposition within his own party, Clinton was forced to rely on Republican votes to secure passage of the agreement through Congress. The final vote in Congress on 17 November 1993 was 234–200 in favor of NAFTA. Clinton could claim a number of other successes on the international economic front. Despite widespread unease in Congress and even within his administration, Clinton swiftly recognized the importance of helping Mexico when America’s neighbor faced a major financial crisis in 1994. As one writer put it, “Mexico was the test for what became the signature change in American foreign policy” (David Sanger, Washington Post, 28 December 2000). Apart from leading the rescue of Mexico after its financial crisis and securing passage of NAFTA through Congress, Clinton oversaw the completion of the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations, moved China closer toward membership of the World Trade Organization (WTO), negotiated new trade deals for African and Caribbean States and supported debt relief for poor countries. Clinton’s supporters would also claim many other achievements for his presidency. On the European front, the President had upgraded relations with the EU, re-vitalized, adapted and expanded NATO, and led the alliance in military operations to end the killing in Bosnia and Kosovo. In Asia, the President had reduced the North Korean threat through a mixture of deterrence and diplomacy and helped bring China into the global mainstream. As regards Russia, Clinton had supported its transition to a market economy and its membership of the G8 and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC), and helped it establish a new relationship with NATO. Clinton also helped secure the removal of nuclear weapons from Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazahkstan. Clinton also made major efforts to promote peace in the Middle East, the Balkans, Northern Ireland, the Andes (border dispute between Peru and Ecuador), East Africa as well as tackling a host of new international issues (see A National Strategy for a Global Age, published by the White House in December 2000). A robust defense of the Clinton record was provided by Sandy Berger just before the 2000 presidential election. The President’s national security adviser contrasted the concerns about America’s place in the world in 1992 with the situation in 2000 when the US was not only the unrivalled military and economic power in the world, but was also a catalyst of coalitions, a broker of peace and a guarantor of financial stability. Furthermore, the US was widely seen as the country best placed to benefit from globalization.

Many critics, however, saw Clinton’s foreign policy as lacking in strategic focus and essentially reactive. Former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, charged the President with intermittent attention to foreign affairs and pursuing “band aid diplomacy.” Republican Senator John McCain complained that Clinton had no conceptual vision for US foreign policy (but failed to produce one himself). Clinton was also criticized for having “lost” Russia, for policy inconsistencies toward China and excessive demonization of foreign leaders such as Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Yugoslavia’s Slobodan Milosevic. One critic alleged that Clinton ‘‘stumbled from crisis to crisis, trying to figure out what was popular, what would be effective, and what choices would pose the lowest risk to his presidency, and, especially, to his reputation.” The same critic alleged that Clinton delegated too much to his subordinates who hijacked his foreign policy in the name of “neo-Wilsonian internationalism” that led to a series of failures and disasters. Clinton had missed a “magnificent historical opportunity to mold a new international order” (Hyland 1999:203–4). Another critic gave Clinton “a less than stellar grade” arguing that at the end of the Cold War there was an enormous opportunity to build a new relationship with Russia, restructure US security policy with Europe and East Asia to reduce America’s burdens and exposure and revisit the troubled relationships with Cuba, Vietnam, and North Korea. Instead of seizing the opportunity “we were given an alternating diet of overheated rhetoric, inattention, and, if the going got tough, bombs. Against this background, the record is acutely disappointing” (Clarke 2000). Yet another critic alleged that although the Clinton team succeeded in blending realism and idealism in practice, it never articulated a set of guiding principles that could serve as the conceptual foundation for their actions. Without such conceptual coherence, “the whole of Clinton’s foreign policy ended up being much less than the sum of the parts.” Furthermore, precisely because Clinton failed to arm himself with a clear set of guiding strategic principles that he could impart to the electorate, “he was not able even to begin the task of laying the foundation for a new American internationalism” (Kupchan 2002). In an interview with the author, James Steinberg, deputy national security adviser during Clinton’s second term, rejected these charges claiming that the administration worked hard to develop a new foreign policy concept based on a judicious mixture of defending American interests and support for humanitarian interventions. Clinton was in favor of working through multilateral institutions to achieve greater results. His problem was that for most of his administration he had to deal with a Congress vehemently opposed to his occupation of the White House. There were certainly a large number of Republicans in Congress who let their hatred for Clinton color their attitudes on foreign policy. This was clear from the vote to reject the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), to withhold American UN dues and to micro-manage Balkan policy.

The US was never a willing participant in the entire Balkan imbroglio of the 1990s. During the latter part of the George H. W. Bush administration, there was a marked reluctance to become involved as Yugoslavia disintegrated into civil war. Despite clear evidence that several constituent republics (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina) wanted independence from Belgrade, the Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic, was determined to maintain control of the federation by force. The Pentagon argued that vast numbers of troops would be required to engage in meaningful peace enforcement duties. It would be too much even for NATO to handle. This did not stop some, however, arguing that the EU should take care of the Balkans as it was their back yard. During the election campaign, Clinton had criticized Bush for failing to protect human rights in the Balkans, but on taking office he did not choose to pursue a more robust policy, even as the killings increased and the world watched in horror at the ethnic cleansing that was being blatantly perpetrated. In the eyes of many Europeans, the US sought to maintain the moral high ground while refusing to participate in the UN forces overseeing humanitarian aid distribution in Bosnia. In 1993, Washington effectively vetoed the EU supported Vance-Owen peace plan (drawn up by former US Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, and former British Foreign Secretary, David Owen) that would have ended the fighting. The US vetoed the plan because it would have meant accepting a re-drawing of state boundaries as a result of force. Both these actions angered their European partners and transatlantic relations were severely strained during 1993–5.

Eventually Slobodan Milosevic overreached himself in February 1994 when the Yugoslav army killed nearly seventy Bosnian civilians in the marketplace in Sarajevo. This prompted a diplomatic mission by Richard Holbrooke, a senior US ambassador and renowned troubleshooter, to try and dissuade Milosevic from further aggression. When this failed, Clinton authorized US air strikes on Yugoslav targets (opposed by many congressmen as overstepping presidential authority) that eventually led Milosevic to agree to peace talks with the other parties (Croats and Bosnians) at the Dayton air force base in Ohio. The negotiations were an opportunity for Holbrooke to show his diplomatic skills and press the warring parties to sign the Dayton agreement. To most observers, the Dayton agreement was very much along the same lines as the Vance-Owen plan of 1993 but meanwhile two years had been lost and thousands more had died (Owen 1995; Holbrooke 1998).

Although the Dayton accords brought peace to the central Balkans, there was one noticeable piece of unfinished business – Kosovo, a province of Yugoslavia that had enjoyed considerable autonomy before Milosevic came to power. Its population was very largely Albanian and desired independence from the rest of Yugoslavia. Milosevic rescinded Kosovo’s autonomy and attempted to quell rising civil disobedience with force. This led to an escalation of violence which the international community, including the US, could not ignore. Once more, Holbrooke was sent to persuade Milosevic to agree on a political settlement for Kosovo. When Milosevic refused to comply with the political agreement that had been worked out by the local parties under strong international pressure, the US again launched air strikes on Yugoslav targets. It was several weeks before Milosevic capitulated with much of Yugoslavia’s infrastructure in ruins. The Kosovo campaign was nominally under NATO control but the US military commander chafed at the interference of political leaders and NATO lawyers (Clark 2001). This negative experience would later influence US attitudes during the Afghan War when NATO political support was welcomed but the alliance was not asked to participate in any military operations. Following Yugoslavia’s capitulation, the Clinton administration argued that the US had achieved all its overriding objectives in Kosovo. It had forced Milosevic to accept NATO’s terms including the return of the Kosovo-Albanian refugees while preserving alliance solidarity, avoided an irreparable break in relations with Moscow, and contained the fallout in Beijing from the accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Other critics were less sanguine about the outcome, despite the ostensible success of the American bombing campaign (Mandelbaum 1999). In a speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center on 30 September 1999, Lee Hamilton, former chair of the HIRC, pointed to the troubling implications of exclusive reliance on an air campaign with zero tolerance of allied casualties. He said that it had been an error to forego the use of ground forces and to signal this in advance to the enemy. There had been insufficient efforts to secure the support of Moscow and Beijing. Furthermore, the NATO mandate was no substitute for an UNSC resolution authorizing intervention.

In the months following the conclusion of the Kosovo campaign, there was an unseemly row between the US and EU over peacekeeping troop levels and who should pay for the reconstruction of the province. The fact that the EU contributed over 70 percent of the troops and 80 percent of the budget for reconstruction was usually forgotten or ignored by most congressmen. Clinton had never been able to secure broad public or congressional support for American peace enforcement and peacekeeping duties in the Balkans. When George W. Bush took office, there were fears that the US would pull out completely from the Balkans but Colin Powell won the battle in Washington to ensure that American troops would stay as long as required. But as the US reacted to the terrorist attacks in September 2001 it became clear that Washington expected the EU to continue to take the lead and shoulder even more of the burden in dealing with the problems in Bosnia and the southern Balkans (Kosovo, Macedonia, and Montenegro).

Clinton did not help his case, however, by becoming involved sexually with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern. To most Americans, including the media, Kosovo was a sideshow compared to the developing sex scandal that engulfed Washington in 1998–9. As the Kosovo crisis was developing, Clinton was embroiled in an effort to save his presidency following his admittance of an affair with Monica Lewinsky. Even before the Kosovo conflict, there had been considerable apprehension in foreign capitals that the sex scandal would impair the President’s ability to provide international leadership. The headline in the Economist of 19 September 1998, referring to Clinton, was “Just Go.” Although as a result of the impeachment proceedings the President had little time to devote to foreign policy, he seemed to appreciate the opportunity of a foreign policy crisis to divert attention from the scandal. This in turn led to “wag the dog” accusations, some critics suggesting that Clinton was prepared to order military action in order to divert attention from his domestic political problems.

Notwithstanding domestic criticism for his handling of Kosovo and other foreign crises, Clinton craved a legacy as a peacemaking President. He invested a large personal stake in the Northern Ireland peace process and made Balkan stability a personal priority. His main efforts were toward the Middle East, hoping that a comprehensive settlement could be agreed during his term. In his final months, weeks, and hours in office he immersed himself in the intricacies of the Middle East peace negotiations, inviting PLO chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, to Camp David, the presidential weekend home outside Washington DC in rural Maryland. But despite the marathon sessions and the undoubted progress toward a deal it was not to be. To most Americans, Arafat was to blame for the failure to reach an agreement. The President found it hard to hide his disappointment. Clinton thus deserves mixed marks for his conduct of US foreign policy. After a rocky start, when his focus was almost exclusively on domestic policy, he recognized that he could not simply ignore problems and hope that they would disappear. Like his predecessor, he hesitated to use military force, most notably in the early years of the Yugoslav conflict, and when he authorized such usage the top priority was to avoid American casualties. The main items on his foreign policy agenda were partly forced by events (Bosnia/Kosovo) and partly by domestic lobbies (Middle East/Ireland). Clinton upgraded the importance of trade and economics in foreign policy and arguably succeeded in his aim of promoting market democracies around the world. He was always mindful of domestic opinion and would often consult focus groups before taking decisions.

Clinton might also take some credit for keeping the US engaged globally while the public and Congress were largely uninterested in foreign affairs. In the absence of a coherent “new world order” following the dissolution of the old bipolar world, Clinton struck a reasonable balance between committing US forces and resources where vital interests were at stake, and staving off pressures to become the world’s policeman. In light of his successor’s policies, it should be noted that while Clinton was instinctively in favor of multilateralism; he did not shrink from unilateral action. His administration was divided on the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions with the result that it never reached the Senate for approval, and it was reluctant to sign up to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the land-mines convention. Clinton only signed the ICC treaty on his last day in office. He also decided unilaterally to launch cruise missiles at Afghanistan and Sudan following the bombings of the American embassies in East Africa.

Although foreign policy played only a small role in the 2000 presidential election campaign, there was an open and often acrimonious debate in the US before and after the election as to how the world’s only remaining superpower should conduct its external relations in the twenty-first century. The Senate’s rejection of the CTBT in 1999, the arguments surrounding the proposed national missile defense (NMD), the ICC, and the Kyoto Protocol were testimony to American internal divisions as well as revealing of the significant differences between the US and most of its allies. According to the Financial Times, 15 October 1999, the rejection of the CTBT was “the clearest indication yet of the radical change in US politics and the country’s view of its role in the world. Thumbing its nose at the rest of the world was not an option open to the US during its struggle with communism.” In election year 2000, two articles by Condoleezza Rice and Bob Zoellick, both of whom would figure in key posts in the George W. Bush administration, provided an opportunity for a detailed Republican critique of Clinton’s foreign policy. Rice attacked Clinton’s “Wilsonian multilateralism and fondness for symbolic international agreements and attachment to the illusory norms of international behavior.’’ A Republican administration would most certainly be internationalist, but it would proceed from the firm ground of American national interest. It would embrace power without arrogance, and pursue American interests without hectoring or bluster. Rice also criticized Clinton’s lack of a guiding vision, absence of any strategy, and the “devastating military cuts, the damage of which was compounded by a furious pace of overseas deployments, on average one every nine weeks.” The next President would have to build a force structure for the twenty-first century – lighter, more lethal, more mobile and agile, capable of firing accurately from long distances. Military force was intended to be lethal. It was not meant to be a civilian police force, nor a political referee, and most certainly not intended to build civil society. A Republican administration would devote more attention to its traditional allies. For Rice, the main issues in Europe were NATO enlargement and redefining NATO’s structure and mission. The US welcomed a greater EU military capability as long as it strengthened NATO. Trade liberalization with China was necessary, but China was a “strategic competitor,” not a partner, whose regional ambitions must be contained. US defense relations with Japan and South Korea should therefore be strengthened.

The “one China” policy was wise, but Taiwan required more assurance. As regards Russia, Clinton had a blind spot about Yeltsin and corruption. The US must be resolute and decisive in dealing with rogue regimes. Deterrence required a credible threat of national obliteration in the event anyone used weapons of mass destruction (Foreign Affairs, January/February 2000).

Zoellick’s article (in the same edition of Foreign Affairs), was along similar lines but emphasized more the economic dimension. He identified five key Clinton flaws – drift on trade, erosion of credibility, inability to frame strategies, uncertainty as to when and how to use power, and driven too much by polls and political calculations. The Republicans would respect power, acknowledge the importance of allies, judge international agreements as means to achieve ends, embrace globalization and recognize that there was still evil in the world. Both these articles as well as the one major campaign speech on foreign policy made by George W. Bush, which focused heavily on the need for missile defense, signaled a more muscular, at times more truculent tone. But stripping the rhetoric aside, the Rice and Zoellick articles were not arguing for a fundamental change in foreign policy. Their views were mainstream internationalist and antiprotectionist, far from the semi-isolationist and nationalistic views of Republican Senator Jesse Helms and other right-wing Republicans (Helms 2001). Although the Republicans called for the overarching vision that they complained was so lacking in Clinton’s administration, they were unable to articulate a vision or a concept any more compelling than the Clinton administration’s efforts to cope with an untidy post-Cold War world in which the US sought to strike a balance between its global responsibilities and the risk of over-extending its reach.

Many observers, therefore, thought that Clinton’s national security adviser was perhaps on target when he argued that there was generally a bipartisan consensus on American leadership. That doesn’t mean that the consensus isn’t threatened, or that there aren’t competing visions of our role…the duty of internationalists in both parties is not to agree on every matter of policy, but to come together around the basic principle that Americans benefit when nations coalesce to deter aggression, to resolve conflicts, to open markets, to raise living standards, to prevent the spread of dangerous weapons, and to meet other dangers that no nation can meet alone. (Berger 2001) A year later, however, it seemed that Berger’s hopes for a bipartisan consensus on foreign policy were in danger of being dashed. Moises Naim, editor of Foreign Policy magazine, echoed widespread opinion when he suggested that under George W. Bush, “no country was doing more to undermine the multilateral approach to issues of global concern” (Washington Post, 23 July 2001). 
 
 
 
 
 

President George W. Bush 

On taking office on 20 January 2001, George W. Bush named two Afro-Americans to the most senior foreign policy positions in his administration. He appointed Condoleezza Rice as his national security adviser. She had been a staffer in the NSC during the first Bush administration and later became provost of Stanford University. She had also become a personal friend of the Bush family, spending considerable time at their Texas ranch tutoring George W. Bush in foreign policy.

The President was widely praised for naming former general Colin Powell as Secretary of State. Powell had had an illustrious military career, serving as national security adviser under President Reagan, and ending up as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He had also been a board member of America On Line (AOL) which gave him valuable business experience. Given his immense popularity in the country, Powell had been courted by both political parties as a potential presidential candidate. More surprisingly, Bush chose Donald Rumsfeld to be Secretary of Defense, a post he had held more than twenty years previously. Another former Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney, became his Vice President, with an enhanced role in foreign and security policy. In the second-tier appointments there were also many experienced hands such as Richard Armitage at State, Paul Wolfowitz at Defense, Stephen Hadley at the NSC. The republicans made much of these experienced hands dealing with foreign and security policy. Bush, a self-acknowledged amateur in foreign policy, made clear that he would normally defer to these seasoned hands but that the final decisions would be his and his alone. To many observers it seemed as if the new administration was determined to set its foreign policy in opposition to the course charted by the Clinton administration. There was little evidence of support for multilateral institutions or global engagement. In the early months of his administration, Bush announced that there would be no continuing US engagement in the Middle East peace process (or Northern Ireland); that there would be a suspension of the talks with North Korea; that there would be no new troops sent to the Balkans (and Rumsfeld suggested that those there should leave); that the US would press ahead with national missile defense regardless of the views of others; and that the Kyoto treaty on climate change was “dead on arrival.” The Washington Post summed up the thrust of these unilateralist moves in its headline on 17 March 2001, “Bush Retreats from US Role as Peace Broker.” Another critic suggested that in his first hundred days Bush had succeeded in antagonizing old friends and pushing potential partners into adversaries (Walter J. Clemens Jr, Washington Post, 20 May 2001). Morton Abramowitz, senior fellow at the Century Foundation, criticized the lack of clarity in the Bush foreign policy team which he attributed to divisions within the ranks, uncertainty about the basic orientation and skepticism about whether action and rhetoric coincide. It is hard to think of another administration that has done so little to explain what it wants to do in foreign policy. One day China was a “strategic competitor” and a threat to all of Asia; the next, the US had ‘‘to engage” with China and deepen its involvement in the world. Even more confusion existed toward North Korea – initially an unfit negotiating partner, and then moving to a posture of talking without preconditions. Did the administration want to remove Saddam Hussein? If so, how? Or did it want to tinker with “smart sanctions”? Did the administration want to extricate itself from all peacekeeping missions, or just some? It started off abhorring all IMF bailouts but ended up supporting them.

Several leading figures in the Clinton administration were critical of what they considered the hasty ditching of their policies. Madeleine Albright, interviewed for an article in the Financial Times on 30 June 2001, said that she did not expect the new President’s determination “to obliterate all that happened during Clinton’s two terms.” Sandy Berger, in the same article, also criticized the excessive reliance on military power at the expense of global issues as “fundamentally misconceived.” In an interview before becoming President in January 2001, George W. Bush seemed acutely aware of the need for a country as powerful as the US to show restraint. “If we are an arrogant nation, they will resent us. If we are a humble nation, but strong, they will welcome us.” Yet on the eve of his first visit to Europe in June 2001, the headlines could hardly have been worse. The European press castigated Bush for his alleged arrogant behavior and readiness to defy international opinion whether on arms control, climate change, or the death penalty. Typical headlines referred to “The Texas Executioner,’’ “Bomber Bush,” “Bush Rejects Kyoto,” “US Says No to World Court” (Roger Cohen, The New York Times, 7 May 2001). The world had become accustomed to US participation in and general support for multilateral institutions during the Bush senior and Clinton administrations. Many world leaders, therefore, found it difficult to accept the new Republican view that international organizations often reflect “a consensus that opposes American interests or does not reflect American principles and ideas” (Senator Trent Lott, CNN, 20 June 2001). In his initial meetings with European leaders, Bush made a favorable impression by stating that he wished to hear their views on a number of controversial issues. But as one commentator noted “although the President says ‘no’ with a smile and offers consultations on nearly every issue, the conversations are aimed at conversion, not compromise” (Theo Sommer, Die Zeit, 20 July 2001). European critics were soon followed by further criticism from across the Atlantic. The respected, veteran columnist of the Washington Post, Jim Hoagland, wrote on 29 July 2001 of the danger of Bush’s unilateralism. “In six months the US has rejected, in aggressively stated fashion, a half-dozen important global treaties and negotiations strongly favored by the rest of the world. Bush leaves a first impression that while his government is not deliberately isolationist, it is comfortable with being isolated.” Hoagland went on to criticize Bush’s foreign policy as beholden to domestic interests and electoral needs. “It is hard to recall an American President who has been this open and unapologetic about mixing domestic political needs with foreign policy initiatives.” This was clearly a reference to the powerful energy lobby influencing the Bush administration’s response to the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions. In another editorial on 6 September 2001, Hoagland wrote: there must be a better way to win friends and influence nations than walking out of conferences, denouncing treaties or sitting on your hands while the Middle East burns. Whether by design or by failing to anticipate the cumulative impact of their actions, Bush and his foreign policy aides have created the theme of America the Absent in world affairs.