This American Century Pt IV: Picking Up the Pieces

This American Century...


In the early 1990s, the world found itself in a situation that had never before existed. Many times in history, there had been a dominant power, but that was only locally, and those powers were not able to make their presence and power felt outside their sphere of influence. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union in the waning months of 1991, there was only one remaining global Super-power, that of the United States.

The U.S. had proved its military dominance over any regional power in contesting the Iraqi invasion and annexation of Kuwait in early 1991. Even though the U.S. led a multi-national coalition to eject the Iraqi occupation, the U.S. proved its military and technological superiority to any other nation in the world. Even the other members of the NATO alliance were unable to match U.S. capabilities.

The overwhelming defeat of the Iraqi army, including its much-vaunted Republican Guard divisions, followed within months by the collapse of the Soviet Union left the U.S. teetering at the tip of the world. For so long seen as a counterbalance to the forces and ideology of the Soviet Union, the U.S. now had to chart its own path. As had happened so often in the past, the U.S. sought to focus its efforts within its own borders.

The collapse of the Soviet Union, and its influence on Eastern Europe soon bore bitter fruit. Ethnic tensions in the former Yugoslavia soon erupted. Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs resumed their centuries old factional fighting with the predominantly Muslim Bosnians caught in the crossfire. When negotiated settlements failed, the U.S. followed by NATO sent thousands of peacekeeping forces to Bosnia. At this time, the U.S. also sent military forces to provide humanitarian aid to the starvation wracked East African nation of Somalia.

In 1992, 12 years of Republican control of the presidency ended with the election of William Jefferson (Bill) Clinton. Clinton wanted to refocus U.S. efforts inward. He tried to honor America’s foreign commitments, but seemingly without a clear strategy. He had promised to remove American forces from Bosnia (as of 2005, we are still there). In Somalia, he shifted the efforts of the U.S. mission from humanitarian aid, to the suppression of the Somali warlords that had destroyed the last semblances of local government. After the ambush of a group of Ranger and special operations troops, in which 18 Americans died, Clinton hastily withdrew American forces from Somalia, leaving the world with the impression that local militia forces had defeated the vaunted U.S. army.

In fact, any objective recounting of that battle in Mogadishu shows that fewer than 100 Americans held off nearly 10,000 local forces for nearly 18 hours, killing over 1,000 and wounding many times that. The capture of an American helicopter pilot, the video of American bodies being dragged through the streets and Clinton’s hasty withdrawal gave a tremendous propaganda victory to the Somali warlords and severely affected the view of the U.S. as a force for peace and stability.

This, coupled with the lack of U.S. action to stem the genocide in Rwanda, further reinforced a growing global opinion that the U.S. lacked the political will to hold firm in the face of casualties.

More and more, the U.S. turned over global leadership to the United Nations.