tributor to the debate on foreign affairs through a
variety of activities. In 1996, Wolfowitz served as the
chief foreign policy adviser to U.S. senator Bob
Dole, a Republican from Kansas who campaigned
for the presidency that year. In early 1997, Wolfowitz
was involved in the Project for the New American
Century (PNAC), which called for U.S. global lead-
ership in shaping the world, and signed its State-
ment of Principles in June, 1997.
In January, 1998, Wolfowitz signed an open letter
to President Bill Clinton urging him to oust Iraqi
president Saddam Hussein from office through di-
plomacy, politics, and force if necessary. From early
1998 through September, 1998, Wolfowitz held
membership on several commissions and advisory
boards, including the Commission to Assess the Bal-
listic Missile Threat to the United States and the De-
fense Policy Board, an advisory board to the U.S. sec-
retary of defense. In the fall of 1998, Wolfowitz, with
an eye toward returning to government service, be-
came one of the major foreign policy advisers to Re-
publican Texas governor George W. Bush, who was
flirting with the idea of announcing his candidacy
for the 2000 presidential election. Wolfowitz contin-
ued assisting Governor Bush as one of his chief for-
eign policy advisers through the 2000 presidential
election. In late 1999, Wolfowitz signed a document
calling for specific language on U.S. policy about
China and the role the United States would play if
China resorted to possible military actions “to re-
solve the Taiwan issue.”
Impact Wolfowitz, a neoconservative, spent most
of the 1990’s as a university professor and dean, a se-
nior U.S. government official, and a foreign affairs
adviser to government and presidential candidates.
He advocated that the United States should play a
leading role in world affairs. He played a prominent
political role in the following decade, serving as dep-
uty secretary of defense under Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld from 2001 to 2005.
Further Reading
Solomon, Lewis D.Paul D. Wolfowitz: Visionar y Intel-
lectual, Policymaker, and Strategist. Westport, Conn.:
Praeger Security International, 2007.
Tyler, Patrick E. “U.S. Strategy Plan Calls for In-
suring No Rivals Develop.”The New York Times,
March 8, 1992, p. A1.
Joseph C. Santora
See also Bush, George H. W.; Cheney, Dick; China
and the United States; Clinton, Bill; Cold War, end
of; Conservatism in U.S. politics; Gulf War; Jewish
Americans; Middle East and North America. Women in the military
Definition Women serving in the U.S. armed
forcesThe armed forces contained 229,000 women at the begin-
ning of the 1990’s, 10.8 percent of the total number of
troops, the majority of whom were in a racial minority.The 1980’s saw a number of firsts for women in the
military, including the first female Air Force test pi-
lots, the first female company commanders in Army
combat operations, and the first female captain of
the West Point Corps of Cadets. Women’s involve-
ment in missions to Grenada (1983) and Panama
(1989-1990) was highly publicized. The 1990’s saw
an increasing number of U.S. female military per-
sonnel playing key roles in operations throughout
the decade, beginning with the Gulf War.The Early 1990’s: Changing Roles In the early part
of the decade, the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) sent the first U.S. female
soldier into space, the first women landed fighter
jets on Navy ships, and President George H. W. Bush
signed the National Defense Authorization Act over-
turning a forty-three-year-old law denying women
the opportunity to serve in combat missions. This
act established the Presidential Commission on the
Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces, whose
function is to monitor the impact of military gender
integration. The Marines responded by changing
their motto from “We’re looking for a few good
men” to “The Few. The Proud. The Marines.” In Sep-
tember, 1991, during what came to be known as the
Tailhook scandal, over eighty women accused some
four thousand attendees of the Thirty-fifth Annual
Tailhook Symposium of sexual misconduct. The
scandal’s news coverage increased worldwide aware-
ness of gender inequality and sexual harassment in
the military.
In 1992, Commander Linda V. Hutton became
the first woman to control a naval Atlantic fleet air-
craft squadron. In November, the Presidential Com-
mission on the Assignment of Women in the ArmedThe Nineties in America Women in the military 923