tiously when Russia’s first elected president, Boris
Yeltsin, led a popular uprising against hard-line So-
viet communists who had pushed Gorbachev aside
in August, 1991. Only after Yeltsin consolidated
power with the backing of key elements in the
Soviet Red Army during the fall of 1991 did the
United States recognize Russia and the fourteen
other Soviet republics as separate and independent
states.
The Yeltsin administration (1991-1999) con-
cluded agreements with the United States to dis-
mantle many formerly Soviet missiles, nuclear war-
heads, and chemical weapons, projects partially
underwritten by the United States that ran parallel
to similar U.S. agreements with Ukraine and
Kazakhstan. After January, 1992, when the Yeltsin
government ended communist-era wage, price, and
ownership controls, the United States encouraged
private investors to seek partnerships in developing
a new, capitalistic Russia. State-to-state foreign in-
vestment and aid flowed far more freely from newly
unified Germany than from the United States to de-
mocratizing Russia, but private consultants close to
the highly successful Clinton campaign operation
did play an important role in the successful 1996 re-
election campaign of Yeltsin.
U.S.-Russian relations soured, however, in 1998-
1999, when Clinton sought without success to secure
U.N. authority to intervene to stop a new round of
ethnic cleansing in the Serbian region of Kosovo.
Prodded to act in March, 1999, by British prime min-
ister Tony Blair, Clinton approved U.S. involvement
when NATO launched a seventy-eight-day air war
against Serbia. Ultimately, Serbia capitulated on
June 10, 1999, and a U.N. force including U.S.
armed forces occupied the province.
Impact The 1990’s often were thought of during
that era as the United States’ “unipolar moment”: a
time of unrivaled power and influence, a decade of
U.S. global leadership, and a period of growing af-
fluence in a closer, globalized community. These im-
pressions persisted far longer inside the United
States than outside it. Though rarely challenged di-
rectly, the frequent use of U.S. armed forces in the
1990’s carried indirect costs not readily visible. Re-
luctance to take on risky missions, as in Bosnia and
Herzegovina, annoyed allies. Hasty withdrawals, as
in Somalia, conveyed weakness to adversaries. Force-
ful actions, especially to questionable effect, eroded
the claim that the United States spoke for the global
community. Some such incidents also won few
friends, as was the case with the August, 1998,
launching of a series of Tomahawk missiles at Sudan
and Afghanistan in retaliation against Islamic radi-
cal Osama Bin Laden’s attack on U.S. embassies in
Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. In
time, the legacy of U.S. foreign policy in the 1990’s
would be measured much like the meteoric rise of
stock markets during the decade: an era almost too
good to last.Further Reading
Albright, Madeleine.The Mighty and the Almighty: Re-
flections on America, God, and World Affairs. New
York: HarperCollins, 2006. The secretary of state
under Clinton reflects on a decade of opportuni-
ties, both seized and lost.
Layne, Christopher.The Peace of Illusions: American
Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present.Ithaca, N.Y.:
Cornell University Press, 2006. A realist casts a
skeptical eye on U.S. policy, its costs, and its conse-
quences.
Mandelbaum, Michael.The Ideas That Conquered the
World.New York: PublicAffairs, 2002. Evaluates
critically half measures undertaken to stem chaos
in underdeveloped regions of little strategic im-
portance to the United States. Views peace, de-
mocracy, and free markets as touchstones of a
larger sense of U.S. interests.
Smith, Tony.A Pact with the Devil: Washington’s Bid for
World Supremacy and the Betrayal of the American
Promise. New York: Routledge, 2007. Finds inter-
vention abroad in the 1990’s and beyond to have
deep roots: Liberal internationalist ideals came
to be paired with a belief in the ease of implanting
democracy abroad. Effectively demonstrates con-
nections between liberal and conservative justifi-
cations for foreign intervention.
Gordon L. BowenSee also Africa and the United States; Albright,
Madeleine; Baker, James; Bosnia conflict; Bush,
George H. W.; Cheney, Dick; China and the United
States; Christopher, Warren; Clinton, Bill; Cold War,
end of; Dayton Accords; Europe and North Amer-
ica; Foreign policy of Canada; Gulf War; Haiti inter-
vention; Israel and the United States; Khobar
Towers bombing; Kosovo conflict; Middle East and
North America; Russia and North America; Schwarz-348 Foreign policy of the United States The Nineties in America