United States, new world order, national security, liberal democracy, free enterprise, UN United Nations, Cold War, 1990, rogue states, international community, Gulf War, globalization, George Bush Senior, Yugoslav Wars, Bill Clinton, NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Washington, US United States, failed states, NSS National Security Strategy, Madrid Conference of 1991, 1997, NSC National Security Council, EU European Union, American foreign policy, Clinton Administration, Balkans, human rights, terrorism, multilateralism, Russia, China, Iraq, war crimes, administration, international problems
We remember George Bush's optimism in 1990: he had announced "A New World Order", resting on the promotion of liberal democracy and free enterprise everywhere, resting on the UN (at last again effective due to the end of the Cold War) and on American benevolent hegemony. One could have the impression of going back to Wilson and Roosevelt, back to the hopes of 1945 before the interlude of the Cold War (so was the Cold War period understood in 1990 in many American circles). And in Washington, one hoped for the positive participation of Russia and China.
[...] The public mood supported a change: it was not just the neoconservatives, it's more complex than that, a return to unilateralism appealed to large segments of the American public, who felt more and more that other countries were either opposed to the US or did not realize the magnitude of the new threats which appeared after the end of the Cold War. [...]
[...] Was Washington to promote constructive engagement, or to insist on Human Rights? There were several stages. In April 1999 there was a new treaty with Japan, also covering Taiwan, which was directed actually against China; then in the autumn of the same year there was a return to "constructive engagement": the US would support China's candidacy to the WTO (this was very important for the Chinese, to get equal access to markets and be integrated in the World economy). The Administration was divided. [...]
[...] He campaigned for a more active foreign policy, in order to promote Human Rights, humanitarian intervention and interference in the domestic affairs of States repressing their opposition or minorities; he also promoted "regime change" on an agenda of world extension of liberal democracy as the foundation for a prosperous, peaceful and stable international system. And he intervened militarily in Bosnia in 1995 and in Kosovo in 1999. At the same time, he was even more multilateralist than Bush: He promoted "constructive engagement" with Russia and China. He launched in 1995 the enlargement of NATO to the former People Democracies in Eastern Europe (something Bush did not want to the enlargement became effective in 1997. [...]
[...] And after all, Clinton launched two wars "of choice" in Bosnia in 1995 and Kosovo in 1999, even if he waged war more prudently than his successor (no engagement on the ground, only air strikes, "zero death", reconstruction being left to the Europeans). The divides inside the US foreign policy establishment are much more complex than one tends to believe . An Active Policy In 1992 Clinton had campaigned for a more active foreign policy. He largely delivered: He followed a very aggressive trade policy: the US government was fully at the service of US corporations as never before; it made full use of the WTO to break any protection against American goods or capital. [...]
[...] The rise of ethnic and religious oppositions and wars, in the Balkans, in Africa, in Indonesia. The world appeared to be less stable after the end of the Cold War and of the kind of discipline it forced upon all countries than at the time of bipolarity (although a recent study shows there were actually fewer wars in the World after the end of communism and of Soviet-supported or Soviet-provoked wars and insurgencies). But it was certainly not what George Bush Senior had hoped for. [...]
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