War in the 1990s

'Friendly fire' became an issue in the Gulf War not because it had become a bigger problem, but because of press perception of it, made worse by the military willingness to make bold claims about the precision of its technology. For the American and British navies, the war marked the major change that followed the end of the Cold War. American intervention ensures that Somalia in the 1990s generally rates a mention in global military history, but this intervention was in fact tangential to a bitter and lengthy period of conflict in that country. In 1994, the American and Russian leaders agreed not to target each other's states with their strategic nuclear weapons. The renewed Russian attack on Chechnya in 1999–2000 was provoked by Chechen moves into neighbouring Daghestan, and by explosions blamed on Chechen terrorists that may have been the work of the Russian secret police.