Clinton’s World: Remaking American Foreign Policy

No modern US president interited a stronger international position than Bill Clinton. In 1992, the Cold War was over, and the nation was at peace and focused on domestic issues. Despite this, Clinton would soon be faced with a barrage of crises, including flare-ups of unrest in the Middle East, ethnic conflict in Yugoslavia, uneasy relations with Japan and China, persistent trouble in the Persian Gulf, the dissolution of the USSR, and disastrous situation in Somalia and Haiti. In this overview of Clinton’s foreign policy, the author shows the effects of combining the confusion of a busy overseas agenda with Clinton’s personality characteristics. By the second term, he reversed himself on some major aspects of policy, to the benefit of the country and the world at large.