HNRS336

With the Cold War’s end in 1989 and the Soviet collapse in late 1991, President Clinton’s CIA nominee in 1993 warned against emerging security threats to the United States saying, “yes, we have slain a large dragon, but we now live in a jungle filled with a bewildering variety of poisonous snakes.” Indeed, President George H.W. Bush’s expectation of a new world order underpinned by cooperation among the major powers has proven to be chimerical. Military interventions during the Cold War occurred in contested areas all over the world as the United States and the Soviet Union jockeyed for power and influence. These interventions saw the interplay of both ideology and interests with complex geopolitical and strategic goals that often overlooked the national aspirations and needs of the target states, many of which were far more concerned with the process of decolonization than Cold War imperatives. Such interventions have continued during the post-Cold War period for humanitarian and economic reasons, to preserve geo-political dominance, and in order to combat what is increasingly viewed as the new menace—terrorism. This section satisfies 4 units of HIST. Prerequisites: 1HNS.