Abstract
Following the Gulf War of 1991, when asked whether he envisioned the post-Cold War as a new era of using US military power, and, hence, of assertiveness, President George H. W. Bush was unequivocal. “Because of what’s happened we won’t have to use US forces around the world. I think when we say something … people are going to listen. Because I think out of all this will be a new-found—let’s put it this way: a reestablished credibility for the United States of America.”1 That was to say that with US power and prestige at an all-time high, the post-Cold War seemed to usher in a golden age of restraint. Yet the roots of assertiveness are to be found precisely in this interval headed for uneventful tranquility. When the United States chose assertiveness in the late 1990s, it did so chiefly because the alternative option of restraint was seen as having been tried and having backfired.
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Notes
William Hyland, “A Mediocre Record,” Foreign Policy 101 (Winter 1995): 69–74; also see
Hal Brands, From Berlin to Baghdad: America’s Search for Purpose in the post-Cold War World (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2008), p. 195.
For a similar assessment of the post-Cold War, see Gideon Rachman, Zero-Sum Future: America’s Power in an Age of Anxiety (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011).
Joseph S. Nye, “What New World Order?” Foreign Affairs 71 (Spring 1992): 83–96.
Lake expressed the view that “backlash states” (basically recalcitrant challengers) had made a commitment “to remain on the wrong side of history.” Anthony Lake, “Confronting Backlash States,” Foreign Affairs 73 (March/April 1994): 55.
Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992), pp. 211–2, 276–7.
Michael E. Brown, Sean Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, eds., Debating the Democratic Peace (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996).
Anthony Lake, “From Containment to Engagement Speech at Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC, September 21, 1993,” in The Clinton Foreign Policy Reader: Presidential Speeches with Commentary, ed. Alvin Rubinstein, Albina Shayevich, and Boris Zlotnikov (London: M. E. Sharpe, 2000), pp. 22–4.
Strobe Talbott, “Democracy and the National Interest,” Foreign Affairs 75 (November/December 1996): 48–9, 63. In a footnote, Talbott makes extensive reference to the literature on democratic peace theory. See notes 2 and 49.
Charles Krauthammer, “Unipolar Moment,” Foreign Affairs 70 (1990/1991): 23–33, 24–5.
Janne Nolan, “The Concept of Cooperative Security,” in Global Engagement: Cooperation and Security in the 21st Century, ed. Janne Nolan (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1994), pp. 4–10; William Perry, “Military Action: When to Use It and How to Ensure its Effectiveness,” in ibid. Global Engagement, ed. Nolan, pp. 235–41; Janne Nolan, “Cooperative Security in the United States,” in Global Engagement, ed. Nolan, pp. 507–42, 512–7;
Ashton Carter, William Perry, and John Steinbrunner, A New Concept of Cooperative Security (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1992), pp. 6–8, 24–5.
Thomas L. Friedman, Lexus and Olive Tree (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1999), pp. 195–8;
Richard Rosecrance, Rise of the Trading State: Commerce and Conquest in the Modern World (New York: Basic Books, 1986).
Robert Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Power and Interdependence, 2nd ed. (Glenview: Scott, Foresman, 1989), p. 18.
Eric Larson, David Orletsky, and Kristin Leuschner, Defense Planning in a Decade of Change (Santa Monica: Rand, 2001);
Michael Klare, Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws: America’s Search for a New Policy (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), pp. 108–19. Even so, the US military expenditures topped those of the next ten major powers combined. Both the Bush and Clinton administrations accepted the need for a large defense establishment as presented by the consecutive Pentagon plans: the Base Force plan (1991), the Bottom-Up Review (1993), and the Quadrennial Defense Review (1997).
Quoted in William Hyland, Clinton’s World: Remaking American Foreign Policy (Westport: Praeger, 1999), p. 128.
Ibid.; Derek Chollet and James Goldgeier, America between the Wars: From 11/9 to 9/11 (New York: Public Affairs, 2008), pp. 80–5.
The doctrine consisted of rules of intervention: conduct no interventions except in contexts vital to strategic interests, when deciding to do so use overwhelming force, have clearly defined objectives as well as an exit strategy, and amass sufficient domestic and international legitimacy to guarantee victory. Colin Powell, “US Forces: The Challenges Ahead,” Foreign Affairs 71 (Winter 1992): 32–45;
Colin Powell, My American Journey (New York: Random House, 1995), pp. 148–9, 576– 7. The doctrine buttressed rather than contradicted restraint because it was an all-or-nothing approach placing such demanding conditions on intervention that the United States often preferred not to act.
For the point that the Gulf War victory was more profoundly felt than the Cold War victory, see David Hendrickson and Robert Tucker, Imperial Temptation: The New World Order and America’s Purpose (New York: Council of Foreign Relations Press, 1992), pp. 1–2.
George H. W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Knopf, 1998), p. 400;
Christian Alfonsi, Circle in the Sand: Why We Went Back to Iraq (New York: Doubleday, 2006), pp. 109–10.
Lawrence Freedman and Ephraim Karsh, The Gulf Conflict, 1990–1991: Diplomacy and War in the New World Order (London: Faber and Faber, 1993), pp. 285–6, 408–9. The exact figure of Iraqi casualties varies, probably standing at around 35,000 killed and 60,000 wounded.
James Addison Baker, III, Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War, and Peace (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995), pp. 414–5.
For critiques of the new world order, see Lawrence Freedman, “Order and Disorder in the New World,” Foreign Affairs 71 (Winter 1991): 20–37; Robin Wright, “World View: Old Ways Falling but ‘New World Order’ Is Still Murky,” Los Angeles Times, June 25, 1991.
Zalmay Khalilzad, From Containment to Global Leadership? America and the World after the Cold War (Santa Monica: Rand, 1995), pp. 17–21, 41.
See “Excerpts from the Pentagon’s Plan: ‘Prevent the Reemergence of a New Rival,’” New York Times, March 8, 1992; Patrick Tyler, “US Strategy Plan Calls for Insuring No Rivals Develop,” New York Times, March 8, 1992; Chollet and Goldgeier, America between the Wars, pp. 43–7; Eric Edelman, “The Strange Career of the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance,” in In Uncertain Times: American Foreign Policy after the Berlin Wall and 9/11, ed. Melvyn Leffler and Jeffrey Legro (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011), pp. 63–77.
Michael Mandelbaum, “Foreign Policy as Social Work,” Foreign Affairs 75 (January/February 1996): 16–32. The recommendation was made by Thomas McLarty, the White House Chief of Staff, to Lake. Tom Matthews and Eleanor Clift, “Clinton’s Growing Pains,” Newsweek, May 3, 1993.
Barry Posen and Andrew Ross, “Competing Visions for US Grand Strategy,” International Security 21 (Winter 1996/1997): 5–53; Brands, From Berlin to Baghdad; for the bumper sticker obsession, see Chollet and Goldgeier, America between the Wars, pp. 65–71;
Douglas Brinkley, “Democratic Enlargement: The Clinton Doctrine,” Foreign Policy 106 (Spring 1997): 110–27.
Mandelbaum, “Foreign Policy”; Schlessinger, “Quest for a post-Cold War Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs 72 (Winter 1993): 17–28;
Paul Wolfowitz, “The Clinton Administration’s First Year,” Foreign Affairs 73 (January/February 1994): 1–25.
Quoted in William Hyland, Clinton’s World: Remaking American Foreign Policy (Westport: Praeger, 1999), pp. 84–7;
James Goldgeier and Michael McFaul, Power and Purpose: US Policy toward Russia after the Cold War (Washington: Brookings Institution, 2003), pp. 120–44;
Strobe Talbott, The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Decision-Making (New York: Random House, 2002).
Robert Suettinger, Beyond Tiananmen: The Politics of US-China Relations, 1989–2000 (Washington: Brookings Institution, 2003), pp. 79–83, 93–103, 107–22, 129–34.
James Mann, About Face: A History of America’s Curious Relationship with China from Nixon to Clinton (New York: Knopf, 1999), pp. 276–81.
Steven Burg and Paul Shoup, The War in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Ethnic Conflict and International Intervention (Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1999), pp. 79–80, 100–1.
David Halberstam, War in Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals (New York: Touchstone, 2002), pp. 132–41; Burg and Shoup, War in Bosnia, pp. 201–2, 204, 210.
Ivo Daalder, Getting to Dayton: The Making of America’s Bosnia Policy (Washington: Brookings Institution, 2000), pp. 8–11; Burg and Shoup, War in Bosnia, pp. 232–53.
Daalder, Getting to Dayton, chap. 1; Elizabeth Drew, On the Edge: The Clinton Presidency (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), pp. 148–58.
Daalder, Getting to Dayton, p. 18; Warren Christopher, In the Stream of History: Shaping Foreign Policy for a New Era (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), pp. 346–7. Hyland writes: “Obviously, Washington was determined not to act alone. Consistent with the administration’s basic philosophy, it would act only within the safety and comfort of allied or international support.” Hyland, Clinton’s World, p. 38.
Bob Woodward, The Choice: How Clinton Won (New York: Touchstone Books, 1996), p. 253.
Quoted in Samantha Power, ‘A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 2002), p. 293; also see Don Oberdorfer, “The Path to Intervention: A Massive Tragedy We Could Do Something About,” Washington Post, December 6, 1992.
Ken Menkhaus and Louis Ortmayer, Key Decisions in the Somalia Intervention (Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg, 1995), pp. 5–6.
On the UN’s considerably extended role in the post-Cold War, see Boutros Boutros-Ghali, “Empowering the United Nations,” Foreign Affairs 71 (Winter 1992): 89–102;
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace: Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking, and Peacekeeping (New York: United Nations, 1992). On PRD 13, see Jeffrey Smith and Julia Preston, “United States Plans Wider Role in UN Peace Keeping,” Washington Post, June 18, 1993; Barton Gellman, “Wider UN Police Role Supported,” Washington Post, August 5, 1993.
William Durch, “Introduction to Anarchy: Humanitarian Intervention and ‘State-Building’ in Somalia,” in UN Peacekeeping, American Policy, and the Uncivil Wars of the 1990s, ed. William Durch (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), pp. 311–65, 335–9; Drew, On the Edge, pp. 319, 327–8.
John Hirsch and Robert Oakley, Somalia and Operation Restore Hope: Peacemaking and Peacekeeping (Washington: United States Institute of Peace, 1995), pp. 103–11; Halberstam, War in Time of Peace, pp. 260–1.
George Stephanopoulos, All Too Human: A Political Education (Boston: Little, Brown, 1999), p. 214; Halberstam, War in Time of Peace, pp. 262–3; Hirsh and Oakley, Somalia, p. 129.
Robert Pastor, “The Delicate Balance between Coercion and Diplomacy,” in The United States and Coercive Diplomacy, ed. Robert Art and Patrick Cronin (Washington: United States Institute of Peace, 2005), pp. 119–95.
The deal resulted in an amnesty for the junta leaders, which also allowed them to depart Haiti with all their assets. Philippe Girard, Clinton in Haiti: The 1994 US Invasion of Haiti (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), chaps. 5–7, p. 120.
Power, Problem from Hell, pp. 358–64; Gerard Prunier, Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).
Bill Clinton, My Life (New York: Knopf, 2004), p. 594.
Ashton Carter and William Perry, Preventive Defense: A New Security Strategy for America (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1999), pp. 123–4.
Robert Gallucci, Joel Wit, and Daniel Poneman, Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis (Washington: Brookings Institution, 2004), chaps. 10–11;
Don Oberdorfer, The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History (New York: Basic Books, 2001), chaps. 12–13;
Leon Sigal, Disarming Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998);
Victor Cha, The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future (New York: Ecco, 2012), pp. 251–5.
Graham Sarah Brown, Sanctioning Saddam: The Politics of Intervention in Iraq (London: I. B. Tauris, 1999);
Andrew Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn, Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein (New York: Harper, 2000).
Burg and Shoup, War in Bosnia, pp. 323–7; Richard Holbrooke, To End a War (New York: Random House, 1998), pp. 65–8; Woodward, Choice, pp. 253–7; Daalder, Getting to Dayton, pp. 40–61, 64–73, 163–6.
James Goldgeier, Not Whether, but When: The US Decision to Enlarge NATO (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1999); Suettinger, Beyond Tiananmen.
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Onea, T.A. (2013). The US Failed Experiment with Restraint. In: US Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War Era. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137359353_3
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