United States

In foreign affairs Bush continued the key policies of the Reagan administration, especially by retaining cordial relations with the Soviet Union and its successor states. In December 1989 Bush ordered U.S. troops to seize control of Panama and arrest its de facto ruler, Gen. Manuel Noriega, who faced drug-trafficking and racketeering charges in the United States.

U.S. Marines entering Kuwait during the Persian Gulf War, February 1991.© Christopher Morris—Black Star/PNI

Bush’s leadership and diplomatic skills were severely tested by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which began on August 2, 1990. At risk was not only the sovereignty of this small sheikhdom but also U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf, including access to the region’s vast oil supplies. Fearing that Iraqi aggression would spill over into Saudi Arabia, Bush swiftly organized a multinational coalition composed mostly of NATO and Arab countries. Under the auspices of the United Nations, some 500,000 U.S. troops (the largest mobilization of U.S. military personnel since the Vietnam War) were brought together with other coalition forces in Saudi Arabia. Lasting from January 16 to February 28, the war was easily won by the coalition at only slight material and human cost, but its sophisticated weapons caused heavy damage to Iraq’s military and civilian infrastructure and left many Iraqi soldiers dead. With the declining power (and subsequent collapse in 1991) of the Soviet Union, the war also emphasized the role of the United States as the world’s single military superpower.

This short and relatively inexpensive war, paid for largely by U.S. allies, was popular while it lasted but stimulated a recession that ruined Bush’s approval rating. The immense national debt ruled out large federal expenditures, the usual cure for recessions. The modest bills Bush supported failed in Congress, which was controlled by the Democrats. Apart from a budget agreement with Congress in 1990, which broke Bush’s promise not to raise taxes, little was done to control the annual deficits, made worse by the recession.

In the 1992 presidential election, Democrat Bill Clinton, the governor of Arkansas, defeated Bush in a race in which independent candidate Ross Perot won 19 percent of the popular vote—more than any third candidate had received since Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. William L. O'Neill The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

The Bill Clinton administration

The beginning of the 1990s was a difficult time for the United States. The country was plagued not only by a sluggish economy but by violent crime (much of it drug-related), poverty, welfare dependency, problematic race relations, and spiraling health costs. Although Clinton promised to boost both the economy and the quality of life, his administration got off to a shaky start, the victim of what some critics have called ineptitude and bad judgment. One of Clinton’s first acts was to attempt to fulfill a campaign promise to end discrimination against gay men and lesbians in the military. After encountering strong criticism from conservatives and some military leaders—including Colin Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—Clinton was eventually forced to support a compromise policy—summed up by the phrase “Don’t ask, don’t tell”—that was viewed as being at once ambiguous, unsatisfactory to either side of the issue, and possibly unconstitutional. (The practical effect of the policy was actually to increase the number of men and women discharged from the military for homosexuality.) His first two nominees for attorney general withdrew over ethics questions, and two major pieces of legislation—an economic stimulus package and a campaign finance reform bill—were blocked by a Republican filibuster in the Senate. In the hope that he could avoid a major confrontation with Congress, he set aside any further attempts at campaign finance reform. During the presidential campaign, Clinton promised to institute a system of universal health insurance. His appointment of his wife, Hillary Clinton, to chair a task force on health care reform drew stark criticism from Republicans, who objected both to the propriety of the arrangement and to what they considered her outspoken feminism. They campaigned fiercely against the task force’s eventual proposal, and none of the numerous recommendations were formally submitted to Congress.

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton speaking on health care reform in the United States, 1993.© Wally McNamee/Corbis