The 1990s were supposed to usher in a new world order and more peaceful modes of transformation in international politics. Freed from the constraints of Cold War confrontation, many strategists predicted retrenchment in US global strategic commitments. However, these hopes ran headlong into the so-called ‘new wars’ of the 1990s, such as those in parts of Africa and the Balkans. This was not part of the script. To analysts who had for decades focused their attention on nuclear deterrence or the prospect of major war against the Soviet Union, these conflicts seemed to appear out of nowhere. That they were often continuations of Cold War proxy wars or sparked precisely due to the collapse of longstanding structures was largely irrelevant to a public increasingly exposed to images of human suffering in faraway places. Calls for policymakers to ‘do something’ gathered momentum.

Leaders at the Pentagon were generally opposed to involvement in lowintensity conflicts. After all, in 1991 the military had just demonstrated its prowess in high-end conventional war, thinking that all wars would have that particular shape. Meanwhile, the George H.W. Bush administration, lacking the guiding star of combating communism, steered a cautious path through this new and unfamiliar post-Cold War landscape. Colin Powell, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was in the process of doubling-down on Weinberger's earlier restrictive doctrine, now adding the criteria of overwhelming force and clear exit strategies to the list of fundamental principles that would guide the use of military force. In 1991 and 1992, Powell and the Joint Chiefs were actively advising against military involvement in peripheral conflicts such as Somalia or Bosnia.

Yet political elites did not necessarily see things this way. The sense of moral mission that had motivated America's confrontation with the Soviet Union was now, in victory, strengthened by a renewed confidence that its liberal republican system represented the world's future, if in fact the end of history had not already arrived. This was joined by the kind of self-assurance that came with its status as the world's sole superpower, firmly underpinned by its conventional military dominance, as recently displayed during the Gulf War. Some commentators urged policymakers to take advantage of this ‘unipolar moment’ given that the US could now more safely intervene where it wished with little serious risk of sparking a major inter-state war.