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military authority and leverage. Moreover, it appeared

uninterested in reports that the Bosnian Serbs had committed

genocide as part of their ethnic cleansing program.

Flush from victory in the Gulf War, the Bush administration

feared that military intervention in Yugoslavia could rapidly

become another Vietnam quagmire as U.S. forces

bogged down in the same difficult terrain that the Germans

had encountered during World War II. Moreover, it did not

believe that vital national interests were at stake and so could

not count on sustained domestic support. Thus, in contrast to

his adept handling of German reunification and Iraqi aggression,

President Bush stumbled in Yugoslavia and bequeathed

the Balkan imbroglio to his successor, Bill Clinton.

Humanitarian Intervention in SomaliaAnother humanitarian crisis, in the Muslim East African

nation of Somalia, unfolded almost simultaneously, and the

Bush administration came under significant domestic pressure

to alleviate the suffering caused by a severe famine.

Television pictures of starving Somali infants and children

began to appear during the summer of 1992 with Bush inthe midst of his reelection campaign.Members of Congress

such as the Black Caucus, but also Senator Nancy

Kassebaum (R-KS), argued that the United States had a

moral responsibility to intervene. The Reagan administration

had given military aid to the anti-communist government

of Siad Barre but had lost interest in Somalia with the

termination of the Cold War. Barre had been overthrown in

1991 with several regional warlords attempting to gain

effective political control of a chaotic situation. Indeed,

these warlords had decided to manipulate the distribution

of food as a means to achieve power. On August 14,

President Bush decided to begin an emergency food airlift

and to offer to transport 500 Pakistani troops under UN

command to the capital of Mogadishu. But most of the food

fell into the hands of the warring militias who used it for

political purposes. In September, 2,500 U.S.Marines arrived

off the coast to try and protect the UN soldiers, but this

action provoked the ire of Mohamed Farrah Aidid, perhaps

the strongest of the warlords and a long-time enemy of UN

Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

The situation continued to deteriorate throughout the

autumn, but Bush did not reassess American policy until

after his electoral defeat. Then on November 25, 1992, he

decided to mount a large-scale military intervention, dubbed

Operation Restore Hope, that would involve about 30,000

ground troops. Its announced purpose was to ensure that

starving Somalis received the food that the warlords had beenintercepting and manipulating. According to Acting

Secretary of State Eagleburger, the administration decided to

act in Somalia rather than in the Balkans because the risks

were lower, not because American interests were more substantial.

President Bush evidently believed that U.S. forces

would begin to withdraw before Clintons inauguration on

January 20, 1993, but this timetable proved to be extremely

unrealistic. First, the administration had difficulty deciding


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whether American forces should disarm the militias or simply

attempt to deliver food. Disarmament would involve

taking sides and thus placing these forces at risk, but the

mere delivery of food to areas controlled by the warlords

meant that the supplies could be manipulated, and the

famine would return as soon as the troops left. Second,

the administration never fully debated whether the famine

was primarily a natural or a man-made disaster. If the latter,

then it would be very difficult to avoid becoming entangled

in the intricacies of Somali politicsa prospect that

Bush abhorred. As it turned out, no troop withdrawals

could be made before Bush left office, and President

Clinton inherited, as in Bosnia, an exceedingly volatile and

complex situation.

Foreign Policy and the 1992 ElectionWith the disappearance of the Soviet Union and with the

United States apparently in the midst of its unipolar

moment, many Americans lost interest in international

affairs. George Bush, the quintessential foreign policy president,

faced an electorate that worried about a naggingrecession, relatively high unemployment, and fears that

countries like Mexico were stealing good jobs from hardworking

Americans. As Bush began his reelection bid in

early 1992, his considerable foreign policy accomplishments

seemed to be liabilities, and he tried to convince the public

that he genuinely cared about domestic issues.

Bush, moreover, had alienated many conservative

Republicans who accused him of abandoning Reagans

social and economic agendas. Most galling to them was

Bushs decision in November1990 to renege on his 1988

campaign promise not to raise taxes despite enormous federal

budget deficits. Patrick Buchanan, a former Nixon

speechwriter, conservative columnist, and television pundit,

posed Bushs chief challenge in the Republican primaries,blasting NAFTA and Operation Desert Storm. Essentially an

anti-immigration isolationist, Buchanan failed to win any

primary elections but also refused to drop out of the race,

forcing Bush to expend valuable resources and distracting

his attention from his main challengers, Bill Clinton and

Ross Perot.

Perot, a billionaire Texas businessman, announced his

independent candidacy on CNNsLarry King Live on

February 20, 1992. His rather quixotic campaign focused on

the federal deficitwhich Perot promised to eliminateand

his opposition to NAFTAwhich he likened to a great sucking

sound of jobs leaving the United States for Mexico. After

showing well in the early polls, he quit the race in late summerin the face of a strong Clinton run but reentered on October

1 in time to participate in the three presidential debates.

362 George Herbert Walker BushArkansas Governor Bill Clinton positioned himself as a

centrist Democrat determined to reinvigorate the economy

through a combination of federal investments, tax cuts, and

improved public education. Although he devoted little

attention to foreign policy during the campaign, Clinton


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did castigate Bush for coddling the butchers of Beijing

and pledged to oppose granting China permanent most

favored nation trading status, called on the president to lift

the arms embargo against Bosnia and to order air strikes of

Serb positions, contended that more should be done to help

starving Somalis, criticized Bush for his policy of forcibly

returning fleeing Haitian refugees to their island homeland,

and suggested that the United Nations be given additional

peacekeeping and peacemaking responsibilities. Eventually,

he lent his support to NAFTA but warned that workers

rights and environmental concerns needed to be addressed.

Notwithstanding this rhetoric, however, foreign policy

played the smallest role in the 1992 election of any since the

Great Depression. Bush failed to overcome perceptions that

he simply did not care much about domestic issues and won

only 38 percent of the vote. Perot garnered 19 percent, an

exceedingly strong showing for a third party candidate,

while Clinton received 43 percent as well as an Electoral

College landslide.

LegacyGeorge H.W. Bush, by background, training, and temperamentvery comfortable with the verities of the Cold War,

probably would have preferred to pursue a strategy of

Soviet containment. Indeed, he spent much of 1989

attempting to slow down the momentum of the Reagan-

Gorbachev express. But at the Malta meeting in December

of that year, Bush concluded that he could do business with

Gorbachev and decided to initiate a set of strategic objectives

designed to ease the transition to a postCold War

world. Among these goals was German reunification, and

the administration orchestrated that process with adroitness,

patience, imagination, and aplomb.

After continuing to pursue Ronald Reagans policy of

dtente with Iraq in an effort to balance the power of Iran,Bush appeared startled by Saddam Husseins invasion of

Kuwait in August 1990. Yet by creating and leading an

unlikely international coalition and then by carefully cultivating

domestic support for military action in the Persian

Gulf, Bush performed masterfully, and a grateful American

public made him the most popular president since the

advent of approval ratings.

But from this pinnacle of February 1991, Bush stumbled

badly. Instead of engaging in a national debate over

Americas role in his new world order, he retreated into

merely celebrating and re-celebrating the victory in

Operation Desert Storm. Furthermore, the administration

ceded leadership in the Yugoslav cauldron to the EuropeanUnion, shrank from doing much to assist the new postcommunist

governments in Eastern Europe, and appeared

reluctant to genuinely assist Boris Yeltsin.

In large part, this timidity was driven by Bushs perceptions

of the 1992 presidential campaign. Dogged by the widespread

view that he cared little for domestic issues and plagued by a

recession that lingered longer than expected, President Bush

came to regard his foreign policy accomplishments and aspirations


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as impediments to his reelection chances.

Nevertheless, this transitional president bequeathed to

his immediate successors a set of global priorities for theworlds sole superpower. That agenda featured efforts to

retard the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the

further expansion of free trade areas with the United States

serving as the fulcrum, primary reliance on American military

power to provide regional stability in East Asia and

the Middle East, perhaps a greater inclination to involve

international organizations in U.S. initiatives, and the assertion

that the new democratic peace depended on

American global leadership.

Richard Melanson

Chronology1989February 6: Polish government agrees to talks with

opposition.

March 26: Multiparty elections in the Soviet Union end

over seven decades of Communist Party monopoly.

April 15: In China student pro-democracy demonstrations

begin.

April 25: Soviet Union begins withdrawal of troops from

Eastern Europe.

May 4: Hungary opens its border with Austria, thousands

of East Germans flee to the West.

May 25: Soviet Congress of Peoples Deputies elects

Gorbachev president of the Supreme Soviet.

June 34: Chinese army attacks student demonstrators in

Tiananmen Square, hundreds are killed.

June 5: President Bush protests repression in China,

imposes sanctions.

July 1319: G-7 summit leaders offer financial aid to

Poland and Hungary.

August 17: Gorbachev proposes autonomy for Sovietrepublics.

October 6: Gorbachev advises East Germany to reform its

government.

October 18: Hungarian National Assembly ends

Communist Party monopoly.

November 9: East German border with West Germany

opens, destruction of Berlin Wall begins.

George Herbert Walker Bush 363November 28: Mass demonstrations in Prague; Communist

Party agrees to share power with oppostition Civic Forum.

December 13: Bush and Gorbachev discuss trade and

arms control in Malta.

December 19: East and West Germany agree to plan forreunification.

December 20: United States invades Panama toppling

Noriega regime.

December 20: Gorbachev opposes Lithuanian independence.

December 2225: Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu is

overthrown and summarily shot.

December 28: Elections in Czechoslovakia end Communist

rule.

1990


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January 23: Yugoslavia dissolves League of Communists.

February 2: South African government legalizes the African

National Congress (ANC).

February 12: 2+4 Plan for German reunification is

established.

February 25: Violeta Chamorro wins Nicaraguan elections,

ousting Sandinista regime.

February 2527: United States urges European Community

to cope with Yugoslav crisis.

March 18: East German elections endorse speedy reunification.

May 29: Boris Yeltsin is elected president of the Russian

Federation.

June 9: Reformers win Czechoslovakian parliamentary

elections.

July 5: In Yugoslavia the Serb Republic assumes direct control

over the province of Kosovo.

August 2: Iraq invades Kuwait; United States and Soviet

Union condemn Iraqs aggression.

August 6: Bush deploys U.S. forces to Saudi Arabia in

Operation Desert Shield.

August 25: UN Security Council authorizes naval and airblockades of Iraq.

September 12: 2+4 talks adopt a treaty, Settlement with

Respect to Germany, for German reunification.

September 20: East and West Germany are officially reunified.

November 29: UN Security Council authorizes all necessarymeans to end Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.

December 2: Germany hold first elections since reunification;

Chancellor Kohls Christian Democrats win.

1991January 12: Congress authorizes military force against

Iraq.

January 16: Operation Desert Storm begins; twenty-eightnation

coalition begins the liberation of Kuwait.February 2328: One hundred-hour ground offensive

against Iraqi forces in Kuwait ends in Iraqi defeat.

March 3: Iraqi military signs UN cease-fire terms.

March 6: In a speech to Congress Bush heralds new world

order.

March 6: Uprisings by Shiites and Kurds in Iraq are

crushed.

April 18: Iraq accepts cease-fire terms of UNSC Resolution

687.

May 29: Bush vows to ban all weapons of mass destruction

(WMD) from the Middle East.

July 31: Bush and Gorbachev sign START I Treaty.

August 16: Baghdad rejects UN oil-for-food program.August 19: Attempted coup against Soviet President

Gorbachev is defeated.

August 20: Three Soviet Baltic republics declare independence.

September 7: Croatia and Slovenia declare independence

from Yugoslavia.

September 25: UN Security Council embargoes arms sales

to Yugoslavia.

November 8: NATO approves postCold War strategic

concepts.


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December 8: Three former Soviet republics form the

Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

December 23: Germany recognizes independence of

Croatia and Slovenia.

1992January 31: UN Security Council plans higher profile in

preventive diplomacy and peacekeeping.

February 5: UN Security Council reinstates economic

sanctions against Iraq.

March 17: UN fails to stop fighting between Armenia and

Azerbaijan.

March 26: Germany suspends all arms deliveries to Turkey.

April 6: United States and European Community recognize

Bosnia-Herzogovina.

April 24: UN sends observers to Somalia to monitor

cease-fire.

May: France and Germany agree to 35,000 member joint

military force under NATO.

May 23: United States agrees with Russia, Belarus,

Kazakhstan, and Ukraine to abide by START I.

June 2: UN sends peacekeeping force to Sarajevo.July 3: Croats in Bosnia proclaim an independent state.

July 16: Germanys central bank raises interest rates.

364 George Herbert Walker BushAugust 6: United States seeks humanitarian aid for

Sarajevo, rejects military action.

August 27: EC-UN conference fails to end fighting in

Bosnia.

September: Britain withdraws from EMS due to Sterlings

crash against the Deutschmark.

October 3: United States airlifts food and medicine to

Sarajevo.

November 3:William Clinton is elected president; Albert

Gore Jr. is vice president.November 25: Czechoslovakian assembly votes for separate

Czech and Slovak republics.

December 3: UN approves U.S.-led humanitarian mission

to Somalia.

December 17: United States, Canada, and Mexico sign

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

December 17: Germany provides Russia with debt-relief

and housing finance.

1993January 3: United States and Russia sign START II Treaty.

References and Further ReadingBaker, James A., III, with Thomas M. DeFrank. The Politics

of Diplomacy: Revolution,War, and Peace. New York:Putnam, 1995.

Beschloss,Michael, and Strobe Talbott.At the Highest

Levels: The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War.

Boston: Little, Brown, 1993.

Bush, George, and Brent Scowcroft.A World Transformed.

New York: Random House, 1998.

Gow, James. Triumph of the Lack ofWill: International

Diplomacy and the Yugoslav War. New York: Columbia

University Press, 1997.


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Greene, John Robert. The Presidency of George Bush.

Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2000.

Hirsch, John L., and Robert B. Oakley. Somalia and

Operation Restore Hope: Reflections on Peacemaking and

Peacekeeping.Washington, DC: United States Institute of

Peace, 1995.

Hurst, Steven. The Foreign Policy of the Bush

Administration: In Search of a New World Order. London

and New York: Cassell, 1999.

Quandt,William B. Peace Process.Washington, DC:

Brookings Institution, 2001.

Tucker, Robert W., and David C. Hendrickson. The

Imperial Temptation: The New World Order and

Americas Purpose. New York: Council on Foreign

Relations, 1992.

Woodward, Bob. The Commanders. New York: Simon and

Schuster, 1991.

Zelikow, Philip, and Condoleezza Rice. Germany Unified

and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.

BOX 9.1: Case study: US intervention in Somalia, 1992-3The US intervention (Operation Restore Hope) during

the crisis in Somalia 1991-2 was a seminal event bothin terms of intervention during a humanitarian crisis andthe role of media in US foreign policy formulation. Thecrisis in Somalia had developed due to civil war, the collapseof central government, and ensuing mass starvation.

By 1992, the crisis was attracting a significant degreeof international attention and the USAstarted to become

increasingly involved. By December 1992, 28,000 UStroops were deployed in Somalia in order to support theprovision of aid. As well as apparently cementing a newnorm of humanitarian intervention, the intervention was

a major news event remembered perhaps most for thegraphic images of starvation and conflict in Somalia andthe images of US marines being greeted on the beechesof Mogadishu, not by hostile gunmen, but by the world'spress. By the end of the operation, with the worldwidebroadcast of a dead US marine being dragged throughthe streets of Mogadishu, the intervention was indeliblyetched on US memory. As a case study in media,public opinion, and US foreign policy, the interventionhighlights the various roles media and public opinionmight play. In terms of the initial intervention, manyhave argued that the decision to intervene was caused bythe CNN effect whereby graphic and emotive images ofstarving people created a cry to 'do something' from the

American public, ti iereby compelling US policy makersto ti1k~ action (e.g. Kennan: 99,3). Others have claimedthatthe attention of US media to the suffering in Somaliahelped to build a domestic constituency for the interventionwhich policy makers were then able to draw upon

to support the intervention (Robinson 2002: 59-62).As such, the media and public opinion had an enablingeffect with respect to the decision to intervene. Once theintervention was under way, US media coverage helpedto mobilize support amongst the US public for the operationby portraying US actions in a positive light, emphasizing


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the role US soldiers and aid workers were playing in

saving Somali lives (Robinson 2002: 59-62). By mid-tolate

1993, however, the operation had evolved beyondsupporting aid delivery to include military action againstspecific factions within Somalia. The now infamous'Black Hawk Down' incident, which involved the deaths

of 18 US soldiers and up to 1,000 Somalis, was a pivotal

moment vis-a-vis the perceived failure of the interventionand US withdrawal from the country. In particular,images of a dead US combatant being dragged throughthe streets of the Somali capital Mogadishu were broadcaston US media and generated, according to some (e.g.

Kennan 1993), a political imperative to withdraw fromthe country. As such, at this stage of the intervention,media may have come to have an impediment effecton policy makers whereby images of dead US soldiersturned public opinion against involvement in Somalia.Beyond the specifics of the intervention and withdrawal,and any role public opinion and '\'edia played in these,the Somalia intervention and its ignominious end havebecome embedded in US foreign policy thinking as anexample of US military failure in the context of humanitarianintervention.

the democratic process, to public opinion. The direct

route refers to the process by which policy makers

are directly affected by what they see and read in themedia. So, for example, when images of civilian deaths

during the Bosnian conflict were broadcast by CNN,

some senior policy makers would react to such images

on a personal level and be moved to 'do something' to

prevent further loss oflife.

With respect to types of effect, four distinct categories

ofeffect can be identified; a CNN effect, an accelerant

effect, an enabling effect, and an impediment effect

(Livingston 1997; Robinson 2002). The CNN effectoccurs when media coverage plays a direct role in causing

policy makers to adopt a particular policy.This does

not.r.iean that media were the only reason that policy

makers chose a particular policy option, but it does

mean that without media pressure, the policy would

not have been adopted. Generally, when academics

talk of media influence, it is the CNN effect they have

in mind. For example, George Kennan (1993) argued

that it was emotive images of starvation that caused US

policy makers to intervene in Somalia (see Box 9.1).

In the absence of those images, no intervention would

have occurred. In fact, evidence for the CNN effect hasbeen hard to find. For example, a decade of researchinto this phenomenon has failed to provide consistent

evidence of strategic foreign policy initiatives (for

example humanitarian intervention) being caused

by media pressure (Gilboa 2005). More commonly,

research has found evidence of an accelerant effect,whereby the decision-making process is speeded up by

media attention. However, whilst often cited by both


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policy makers and academics, the accelerant effect does

not entail media causing a particular policy outcome;

rather this type of effect suggests that policy makers

respond more quickly to a particular issue, but do so in

precisely the same ways they would have done without

media attention. For example, in relation to the crisis

in northern Iraq 1991, media attention to the Kurdishcrisis might have speeded up the US decision to intervene,

but that decision would have, in any case, been

made at some later point. Another effect is that media

can enable policy makers to pursue a policy by building

public support for that policy (Wheeler 2000: 165).

For example, it could be argued that the 9/11 attacks

on the USA, and the fact they were communicated to

the US public in horrific real-time reporting, were crucial

in helping to mobilize public support in favour of

the Bush administration's war on terror and military

action in Afghanistan and Iraq. The attacks, and their

mass-mediated nature, therefore helped to build aconstituency amongst US citizens for a more interventionist

foreign policy. Finally, the impediment effect is

linked to the Vietnam Syndrome. Here, it is a fear over

negative media coverage of US casualties and its impacton public opinion that constrains policy makers and

prevents them pursuing a policy. For example, during

the air war against Serbia in 1999, the Clinton administration

limited military options to air strikes in order

to avoid US casualties. A factor in this decision was the

desire to avoid negative publicity of US casualties during

an already politically controversial operation.

Procedural criticism versussubstantive criticismIn concluding our discussion of pluralist accounts,

it is important to note that whilst claims about theChapter 9 Media and US foreign policy 171

influence of public opinion and media abound, academic

research suggests actual influence wielded is

more subtle and nuanced than is commonly assumed.

As discussed, the influence of public opinion uponforeign policy, whilst receiving empirical support,

needs to be moderated by the acknowledgement of

the multitude of factors influencing policy making.At the same time, notions ofa CNN effect need to

be moderated through acknowledgement that a more

subtle range of effects (e.g. the enabling effect) are

occurring most of the time. Whilst it would be churlish

to argue that media and public carry no influence,

the question of whether that influence is sufficient

from a liberal-democratic perspective is debatable.

More significantly, much research on media influence


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suggests that media influence occurs most often

at the procedural level, rather than at a substantive

level (Althaus 2003). The termprocedurd(Ciescribes

criticism and influence that relates to debate over the

implementation of foreign policy. The term substantive

is used to describe criticism and influence that

relates to the underlying justification and rationalefor particular foreign policies. For example, the Vietnam

War was criticized by US media and public more

often at a procedural level whereby the central question

revolved arouJd whether the USA was winning

or losing the war. Criticism, however, rarely raised

the more substantive question of the justification for

US involvement in Vietnam. Again, returning to the

example of the 1999 air war against Serbia, most of

the controversy within US media related to whether

or not air power was enough to win the war. At the

same time, debate over whether intervention could

be justified at all remained marginal (Robinson 2002:93-110). As we shall see in the next section, when we

discuss elite/critical accounts of the public opinion/

media/foreign policy nexus, the primary focus of

concern is precisely this lack of substantive debateover US foreign policy.

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