Toward a New Grand Strategy for U.S. Foreign Policy by Tom Barry

In the lead-up to the Persian Gulf War, President George HW Bush attempted to address the absence of a post-Cold War vision by observing that the Gulf War coalition was the foundation of a “new world order.” However, this vision never took hold, partly because the bases for this new world order were not well defined. The concept of a new world order in which the U.S. would lead multilateral coalitions also faced opposition at home from both Republicans and Democrats, including concern among conservatives that the U.S. government was linking its interests and security too closely to multilateralism and the United Nations in particular, and concern among liberals and progressives that the concept of a new world order was too closely linked to military action and traditional concepts of national security.