ABSTRACT
The 1990s were largely a decade of frustration for American strategic policy makers. In the decade following the end of the cold war, the United States struggled to formulate a coherent grand strategy1 for global engagement. Modestly restoring the status quo ante in the Persian Gulf in 1991, after having committed over half a million troops to eject Iraq from Kuwait, the United States engaged in several ‘brush fire’ humanitarian conflicts in Africa and the Balkans; successfully froze North Korea’s declared nuclear weapons programme; initiated a vigorous campaign of covert operations against alQaeda; reinvigorated efforts to forge a new global trading regime; and fashioned the contours of a containment policy aimed at trimming the sails of China’s geo-strategic ambitions. With some notable exceptions, Washington’s pursuit of each of these objectives met with success. This success occurred against an unusual historical backdrop: significant geopolitical realignment in the international system in the absence of major power confrontation or major armed conflict.
