Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy since 1938

The final three chapters in Rise to Globalism discuss President Bill Clinton’s second term in office and the first term of President George W. Bush. The two leaders displayed different foreign policy styles but tackled related issues. Bill Clinton sought NATO enlargement, pursued the peace process in the Middle East, and involved the United States in another conflict in the Balkans. Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al Qaeda terrorists, carried out attacks abroad in the late 1990s on Bill Clinton’s watch. The authors suggest that the danger that bin Laden represented did not receive sufficient attention from the Clinton administration, in part, resulting, in unprecedented terrorist attacks on American soil on September 11, 2011. It was these attacks that President Bush used to justify the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000s. With his global war on terror hunting down non-state terrorist actors underway, it seemed that the United States found its new role in the post-Cold War world order after all.

The authors discuss how the US both cooperated and challenged post-Soviet Russia. For example, Clinton promoted Russian entry into the G8 and the World Trade Organization. On the other hand, the US sought to expand toward Russia’s borders by accepting new members.