American Foreign Policy and Strategy in the Post-Cold War Era, 1990-2001

In his address to the United National (UN) General Assembly in late 1988, Gorbachev asserted that world progress is possible only through a joint movement toward a new world order. Gorbachev called for a reduced role for the use of force and threat in the international stage and ascribed stronger role for the UN. In reaching out to President George H. W. Bush, Gorbachev underlined the need for more cooperation, pluralism and tolerance in this new order.

The U.S. administration initially remained cautious to Gorbachev’s calls in 1988. However, the Malta Summit between the U.S. President Bush and Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev in December 1989 gave a new impetus to the discussions on a new world order. In the summit, the U.S. and the Soviet leaders declared an end to the Cold War. The Summit did not produce any agreements or treaties. That said, the leaders insinuated a new era and emphasized cooperation, in particular on arms control and economic relations.

The U.S. led the creation of a large coalition of countries within a limited time frame against Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and Hussein’s continuing aggression in the region. In addition, President Bush had a good working relationship during the meeting with the Soviet leader in Helsinki to discuss the crisis. These two developments led to a positive atmosphere within the U.S. administration.Drawing on the unprecedented level of cooperation and condemnation against Iraq, President Bush emphasized the emergence of “a new partnership of nations”, and even considered the crisis in the Persian Gulf as a “rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation”. More importantly, the president described his vision of a new world order. According to him, this new era would be “freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace. An era in which the nations of the world, East and West, North and South, can prosper and live in harmony” (The American Presidency Project).

American exceptionalism refers to the history of the U.S. as different from other nations that is based on liberty, egalitarianism, and laissez faire. It also refers to the idea that the US has a unique mission to defend and spread these values in the world.

First was a retreat from global leadership. This is also referred to as neoisolationism. Second one is the strategy of selective engagement in areas that would prevent the great powers to go to war with one another. Third is to act collectively to achieve and sustain peace through international institutions. Fourth and final strategy is to show an effort to maintain both economic and military primacy (Posen and Ross, 1996).

By the late 1980s, the American economy suffered a very high level of twin deficit: federal budget deficit and trade deficit vis-à-vis newly industrialized countries.

He named this as the “New Covenant”.

The U.S. built a large coalition for the mission under the codename Operation Desert Shield.

The mission led by the U.S. included half a million troops from 37 countries. In early September, President Bush and President Gorbachev met in Helsinki to discuss the crisis in the Persian Gulf. Both presidents demanded Iraqi forces to withdraw from Kuwait as stipulated by a series of UN Security Council Resolutions.

Somalia was one of the first countries to attract international attention in the post-Cold War years and the U.S. involvement in Somalia predates Clinton’s presidency. Within the Cold War rivalry, Somalia was first aligned with the Soviet Union and later with the U.S. as its northern neighbour and rival Ethiopia changed sides. Soon after the Cold War ended, opposition groups overthrew the military junta led by General Siad Barre and various armed factions began competing to take control. The state was unable to operate. Coupled with years of drought the already impoverished country drifted into a state of chaos and starvation.

President George H. W. Bush ordered in August 1992 an emergency U.S. airlift of food to Somalia. However, it soon became clear that more needed to be done to address this humanitarian crisis. After having evaluated the alternatives, President Bush decided to send U.S. combat troops to lead an international force to Somalia. The troops were dispatched in December 1992 as part of a humanitarian mission dubbed Operation Restore Hope to distribute food, restore and maintain order. The plan was to accomplish the mission and replace U.S. forces with UN forces by the Inauguration Day of president-elect Clinton in January 1993 (Kaufman, 2017: 129).

Slovenia and Croatia became the first ones to declare their independence in 1991. While Serbian forces intervened, they failed to prevent the breakup. Most European countries granted diplomatic recognition to Slovenia and Croatia and both countries were admitted to the United Nations. In the meantime, Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence in 1992 and the Serbs shifted their focus here. Unlike in Slovenia and Croatia, war in Bosnian did not end quickly. The severity of violence took international attention.

The secret talks between Israel and the PLO started under Norwegian auspices in 1993. The two sides signed the Oslo I Accord at Washington D.C. in September, which started what came to be known as the Oslo (peace) process. During this process, President Clinton was deeply involved in the negotiations not only with Israel and the PLO, but also with other parties including Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.Israel and the PLO signed a second agreement, Oslo II Accord in 1995. The two Oslo Accords, however, did not end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin on November 1995 by a Jewish extremist stalled the peace process. In the face of the growing conflict, President Clinton invited both sides to resume peace talks on the Wye River in 1998. The two leaders, Netanyahu of Israel and Arafat of the PLO, signed another agreement, but could not avoid the outbreak of a new wave of violence. In his last year in office, President Clinton tried to revive the negotiations with a final effort at Camp David Summit in 2000. The Summit failed, also bringing an end to the Oslo process.

The Troubles refers to the ethno-nationalist conflict on the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. The Troubles started in the late 1960s and ended with Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement in 1998.

Globalization is the increasing interaction and integration between companies, economies and governments across the world. Globalization results in growing interdependence.

Unlike President Bush, whose modus operandi was geopolitical, the policy focus of the Clinton administration was economic (domestic or global). This led to a new geo-economic foreign policy, which envisioned expanding free-trading world under the U.S. leadership. Productivity and growth rates became the new symbols of power, and international trade agreements were now the new encounters of economic superpowers. Some dubbed this new strategy the Clinton Doctrine (Walker, 1996).

The member states of the G-20 are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Republic of Korea, Republic of South Africa, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Kingdom, the U.S. and the European Union.

President Clinton’s foreign policy was his emphasis on democracy and its promotion worldwide. There are mainly two reasons behind this. First is the uncertainty that has emerged since end of the Cold War. With ethnic, religious, and territorial conflicts, the immediate years following the Cold War were rather turbulent than peaceful. President Clinton’s strategy to tackle this was to promote democracy and democratic reforms. In 1993, national security adviser of the Clinton administration Anthony Lake said “The successor to a doctrine of containment must be a strategy of enlargement –enlargement of the world’s free community” (Lake, 1993). The second reason links to American exceptionalism. Clinton emphasized American exceptionalism like his predecessor George H. W. Bush (Lake, 1993: 127). The idea of American exceptionalism gives the US the mission to transform the world. And the U.S. democracy promotion follows this unique role to play.

With the end of the Cold War, the relations of the U.S. with the Western European countries became more complex. Western European countries had been moving closer since the 1950s. The six Western European countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands) established the European Economic Community, which soon expanded to include Denmark, Ireland, United Kingdom (1973), Greece (1981), Spain and Portugal (1986). In 1995, the former neutral Austria, Finland and Sweden also joined. Soon after the Cold War ended, the newly independent countries of the Central and Eastern Europe sought membership of this developing and attractive Union as well.

Common Foreign and Security Policy did not aim at merging the foreign and security policies of the EU member states. Foreign and security policy remained an exclusive national policy area, while Common Foreign and Security Policy aimed to encourage better foreign policy coordination among the EU’s member states.