Instability in the Post–Cold War World

The Contemporary World and Ongoing Challenges HIST 1301 | History Instability in the Post–Cold War World Most Westerners welcomed the conclusion of the Cold War and the impending birth of a new world that would universally embrace capitalism and liberal democracy when the Soviet Union disintegrated on December 31, 1991. In 1992, political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote a book titled The End of History and the Last Man that explored this concept. The book made the case that after decades of progress towards a Western liberal democratic future, the world had now achieved the natural conclusion of its "ideological evolution" with the fall of the Soviet Union. Many also believed that, because of American military, cultural, and economic supremacy, the bipolar world of the Cold War would soon give way to a mostly unipolar one. This was because the United States was the only superpower still standing. In order to update and broaden the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the alliance for mutual defence established by the US and other Western democracies during the Cold War, US President Bill Clinton wrote his foreign policy platform with this concept in mind. Clinton sought to resolve political and ethnic unrest in the Middle East, the Balkans, Northern Ireland, Latin America, and East Africa. She also sought to fortify ties with Asia and integrate post-Soviet Russia into the global community. Sometimes achieving these objectives necessitated the use of the nation's armed forces; in 1995, for example, Clinton dispatched 20,000 troops to the Balkans as part of a NATO operation to maintain a cease-fire and safeguard approaching elections. The necessity to protect the 35,000 nuclear weapons that were then dispersed over thousands of locations throughout Eurasia, however, was one of the most urgent issues facing both the US and the rest of the globe. Many of them were in countries like Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine that had broken away from the old Soviet Union. Many people feared that non-state actors, or terrorist organisations unaffiliated with any one nation, may obtain access to weapons or the materials needed to manufacture them and wreak havoc because these nations were going through a trying time of turmoil and transition. A portion of the work was started prior to the fall of the Soviet Union. Both the US and the USSR committed to cutting their military stockpiles by more than 80% when they signed the Strategic military Reduction Treaty (START) in the summer of 1991. However, it became increasingly urgent to protect these stockpiles following the collapse of the USSR. Denuclearization of governments that had broken away from the former Soviet Union but retained nuclear weapons was the option put forth by the US and backed by Russia. Even though it was successful, there were significant setbacks, especially for Ukraine, which believed that keeping its nuclear weapons would be the most effective method to prevent future Russian aggression. Ukraine only consented to the removal and dismantling of its nuclear weapons in Russia after receiving guarantees from the international community that its boundaries would be upheld. Another issue was the spread of nuclear weapons to other parts of the globe. For instance, India acquired nuclear power status in 1974. Although it stated at the time that it was not pursuing the capability of nuclear weapons, it has since accepted these weapons as a crucial component of its security platform. In the 1970s, foreign observers were concerned about the potential consequences of an India equipped with nuclear weapons, given the historical animosity between Pakistan and India. When Pakistan tested its first nuclear weapons in 1998, some of these worries came true. Pakistan had been preparing for this test even before India became a nuclear state. With regard to its nuclear weapons, India maintains a no-first-use policy; Pakistan has not done the same. Both nations now possess about 100 nuclear warheads apiece, along with long-range ballistic missile delivery systems. The illusion of an enduring post-Cold War peace was further dashed on September 11, 2001, when nineteen militant Islamic hijackers took control of four large passenger aeroplanes and crashed two of them into the World Trade Centre in New York City, one into the Pentagon, and the fourth—after its path was deflected by passengers—into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. This occurred just a few years after Pakistan conducted its first nuclear test. It was subsequently discovered that al-Qaeda, an Islamic terrorist group then located in Afghanistan and headed by a radical Saudi native called Osama bin Laden, had planned the terrorist assault, which claimed the lives of around 3,000 people from various countries. The attack was carried out, according to bin Laden, in retaliation for American backing for Israel and its continuous military presence in the Middle East. The United States declared its intention to find those guilty for the destruction and started an attack on Afghanistan after gathering international backing and assessed the situation. The Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime in Afghanistan was overthrown by this offensive, which also marked the start of the US war on terror. Many of the government's leaders fled to Pakistan's neighbouring nation or the southern regions of Afghanistan. But the majority of alQaeda's top brass, including Osama bin Laden, also managed to flee. The United States military worked to destroy al-Qaeda, restore Afghanistan's infrastructure and civil society, and support the country's democratically elected government throughout the course of the next years. However, President George W. Bush's 2003 decision to declare war on Iraq made these efforts more challenging. During the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988), the US supported Iraq; nevertheless, after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the US and Iraq clashed during the Gulf War. Following their bombardment of Iraqi targets, the United States, Great Britain, and thirtythree other countries invaded Kuwait on land. Iraqi forces withdrew from Kuwait within just 100 hours of the coalition's ground invasion commencing, and a cease-fire was established. Shortly afterward, there were protests in Iraq's Kurdish and Shiite provinces aimed at overthrowing President Saddam Hussein's regime. Hussein mercilessly put down the uprisings, yet he remained in power after the coalition forces left Iraq. U.S. foreign policy officials started to fear in 2001, following the terrorist events of September 11, that Hussein may obtain weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), perhaps including biological weapons. The Bush administration aimed to stop this and direct the sympathy that the world had bestowed upon the nation following the attacks of 2001 towards the removal of the Iraqi leader. In order to do this, the US formed a new alliance including nations from Asia, Europe, and Latin America. It dispatched Secretary of State Colin Powell to testify before the UN, arguing that Iraq was a threat to global security due to its WMDs and ties to al-Qaeda. Members of the Bush administration, including Vice President Dick Cheney, asserted the existence of WMDs, despite the fact that at the time several in the U.S. intelligence community believed the information Powell relied on was flimsy or defective and needed further investigation to justify a U.S. attack. Few weeks after Powell's speech, on March 19, 2003, the invasion started. By 2005, the world had come to understand that Iraq lacked WMDs and that there was no evidence to support the fictitious al-Qaeda connection. But the invasion aided in the violent disintegration of Iraqi society, which the coalition troops then battled for years to stabilise. Numerous people lost their lives; according to estimates from Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, the death toll ranges from 184,382 to 207,156. Even if the US could highlight a few victories, such the 2005 Iraqi elections and Saddam Hussein's 2006 conviction for crimes against humanity, the country's standing as a global power that could project influence and effect constructive change in the globe had substantially deteriorated. When communist North Korea conducted its first nuclear weapons test in October 2006—an event that the US administration had spent years trying to avert—the implications for the US became increasingly evident. The test marked the end of decades of labour conducted within the remote nation. Leaders in North Korea thought that having nuclear weapons would ensure their country's existence in the post-Cold War era. However, there was concern in the United States and among nearby nations like as South Korea and Japan that the weapons could be used against them by the unsteady leadership in North Korea. It was uncertain if North Korea could be prevented from conducting further tests, or whether the US could dissuade Iran from continuing a nuclear weapons programme, given the challenges in Iraq and the US's declining international stature.