transition from Cold War to a more cooperative international political context. But how
should that be attempted?
The decade opened with three triumphs for the United States, ranging from the minor,
through the substantial, to the monumental. First, from 20 to 25 December 1989, General
Manuel Noriega was forcibly removed from presidential office. America thereby solved
its problem with Noriega’s drug smuggling in Panama swiftly and efficiently.
Second, the United States unquestionably was the victor in the Cold War. It is true
that the Soviet rival imploded, much as the diplomat George Kennan had predicted it
would in his 1946 ‘Long Telegram’ from the US Embassy Moscow (Etzold and Gaddis,
1978: 50–63). But the steadiness of the US performance as a strategic competitor was an
important element leading to the Soviet demise. American willingness and ability peri-
odically to compete more energetically in grand-strategic ways, and not only militarily,
made a significant contribution to the impoverishment of the Soviet civilian economy.
For the Soviet Union, the United States was the rival from hell. It could not be eliminated
militarily because of the nuclear fact. Because of Moscow’s Marxist ideology, it could
not be transformed from an enemy into a friend, except as a matter of temporary tactical
expediency. And the extraordinary effort to compete well enough with the United States
in the military sphere ensured, grand-strategically, that the Soviet Union must lose the
competition in living standards. It is true that Moscow’s dysfunctional ideology and
system of government were the prime causes of Soviet failure, but it is also plausible to
claim that US policy was a significant reason why those systemic Soviet weaknesses
proved fatal. The Soviet Union unquestionably lost the Cold War. It would be churlish to
deny the United States some credit for that result.
The final American triumph of the period was the ejection of Iraqi forces from Kuwait
in a 100-hour ground war launched on 24 February 1991. A precursor air campaign
had opened on 17 January. So now, in less than two years, the United States had wielded
its sword and disposed of its Panamanian problem; it had outlasted the ‘evil empire’ of
the Soviet Union and encouraged it to self-destruct; and it had taught the murderous
dictator in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein – a recent American friend, one must add, during
the eight-year Iraq–Iran War – a painful and, hopefully, embarrassing lesson in acceptable
international behaviour. The sun was shining on the United States in 1989–91. At least,
that was how it seemed at the time.
The Soviet Union in 1989–91, like Britain in 1945–7 or France in the 1920s, proved
to be far weaker than had been assumed. Although still viewed with some suspicion,
and treated with much caution, by the administration of George Bush Snr, it slowly
became unmistakably apparent that the Soviet decline truly was a terminal collapse.
In 1991 all fourteen of the non-Russian republics of the USSR chose to secede; while on
25 December the Union itself was formally dissolved. The USSR was replaced by fifteen
new states.
Good news in strategic history has a way of being a source of bad news, too. The
sudden end of the Soviet Union, with its extensive foreign ties and influence, was by
no means wholly a blessing, especially in the Balkans and Transcaucasia. The good
news for Washington could hardly have been better. Now it stood alone as the only
superpower, while its former rival descended through decline to actual fall. But what
did this momentous event mean for America’s role in the world? How should the
sole superpower behave? President Bush spoke briefly of a ‘new world order’, ironically
222 War, peace and international relations