ABSTRACT
The final chapter has a much wider focus and takes a broader perspective to examine how the Army’s thinking influenced the nation’s adaptation to the new strategic environment. It examines the new roles undertaken by the Clinton administration before considering the subsequent interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, following the attacks of 11 September 2001. During this period the strategic understanding generated by the military was of prime importance to the US because the foreign policy after the Cold War was a highly militarised one. As Bacevich notes, one of the key premises of post-Cold War policy was to maximise the utility of US military ‘by pursuing an ambitious, activist agenda’.1 In basicterms the US under President Clinton was a pragmatic promoter of democracy (rather than a Wilsonian idealist) and used force to improve the world.2 The later Bush administration used military force more directly, in a realist’s sense, against states to make the US more secure. There were two different perspectives of ‘security’ operating in the period between 1993 and 2005 but both relied heavily on military force; the 1990s saw 108 foreign operations in 53 countries, compared to 19 in 14 in the 1980s.3 The recourse to ‘coercive diplomacy’ was used with varying success.4
