ABSTRACT
The end of the Cold War provided the new administration with an opportunity to construct a foreign policy for a new age. Thus, the United States response to Rwanda served to strengthen the expectation that the pairing of concepts such as genocide with national interests affords certain kinds of action while ruling out the possibility of standing by while genocide unfolds. The collapse of the Soviet Union provided great opportunities for advancing democracy and economic prosperity. Accordingly, economic prosperity became a centerpiece of the Clinton administration's foreign policy. The genocide in Rwanda created an unprecedented opportunity for the United States to provide political and moral leadership in the development of a blueprint for post-Cold War collective security responses to mass atrocities. The Arusha Accords, signed on 4 August 1993, established a system of power sharing and political reform, promoting multiethnic democracy, and the fundamental freedom and rights of individuals in Rwanda.
