“Panama eased the way for the Bush administration when it decided to lanunch a much larger military operation in reaction to Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait. Saddm Hussein was Noriega writ large. Over the years, the United States had aided the Iraqu dictor when it served its purposes. During the Iran-Iraq War, the Reagan and Bush administrations had sold arms and provided credit to Iraq and opposed sanctions of Hussein’s regime for its repression of the Kurds, seeking to bolster what it saw as a useful check on Iranian power. But when on August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded neghboring Kuwait, the Bush administration moved rapidly to force its withdrawal.” (Pg. 411)

After the Cold War had been over, George H.W. Bush became the 41^st U.S. president, but he took over huge deficit and a restriction on Congress domestic initiatives which Reagan left. Thus, Bush mainly focused on foreign policies rather than domestic affairs. The first chance of military activity came in Panama in 1989. The Panamanian dictator, Manuel Noriega, supported drug trade, invalidated a democratic election and disturbed the U.S. army activity in Latin America. Hence, Bush administration decided to send soldiers to thrust Noriega. The army quickly captured Panama, and arrested Noriega.

Moreover, on August 2, 1990, Iraq started invading Kuwait, and Bush quickly warned the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, to pull out of Kuwait. In the fall of 1990, the U.S.-led coalition started military action against Iraq that was called the Gulf War, and Iraq surrendered within few months. These victories gave Americans confidence to build “new world order” by the American initiative and Americans conquered “specter of Vietnam”, but the world seemed to be involved in wars more than the era of the Cold War.