Today is the 35th anniversary of George HW Bush’s September 11, 1990, address to Congress—the speech that introduced Americans to his vision of a “New World Order.” It’s worth examining how dramatically that utopian promise has diverged from the messy realities of international politics.
Standing before Congress as Iraqi forces occupied Kuwait, Bush painted a picture of unprecedented global cooperation. “We stand today at a unique and extraordinary moment,” he declared, envisioning a world where the United Nations would finally fulfill its founding promise, where aggression would be met with a unified international response, and where American leadership would guide humanity toward a more peaceful and prosperous future.
Bush’s New World Order represented the apex of what we might call “hegemonic idealism”— the belief that American power, properly deployed, could remake the international system in democracy’s image. The collapse of the Soviet Union had seemingly vindicated decades of containment strategy, leaving the United States as history’s first truly global superpower. What could be more natural than using this “unipolar moment” to establish lasting peace?
The Gulf War itself appeared to validate this vision. A broad international coalition, operating under UN auspices, swiftly expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait with minimal American casualties. Here was multilateralism with teeth, backed by overwhelming American military superiority. The ghosts of Vietnam seemed finally exorcised.
But this triumph, like many others, contained the seeds of future disasters. The very ease of victory in the Gulf encouraged a dangerous hubris about American capabilities and the malleability of international politics. If Saddam Hussein could be rolled back so effortlessly, why not apply the same formula elsewhere? Why not expand NATO eastward, intervene in the Balkans, democratize the Middle East, and contain rising powers like China?
Thirty-five years later, the New World Order looks less like a triumph of American leadership than a cautionary tale about imperial overstretch. The United States has fought wars in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, with most producing outcomes far messier than the surgical precision of Operation Desert Storm. Each intervention generated new commitments, new enemies, and new complications that required further interventions to manage.
Consider the trajectory from Bush’s restrained 1991 victory to his son’s disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq. The elder Bush’s New World Order at least retained some connection to traditional great power politics—assembling genuine coalitions, securing UN authorization, and maintaining limited objectives. Bush the Younger’s “freedom agenda” dispensed with such niceties entirely, embracing a messianic vision of American power that would have made Woodrow Wilson blush.
The results speak for themselves: endless wars, trillions in debt, hundreds of thousands of casualties, and a Middle East far less stable than it was in 1990. Meanwhile, the predicted benefits—the spread of democracy, the strengthening of international law, the end of nuclear proliferation, the obsolescence of great power competition—have proven largely chimerical.
Perhaps most damaging to the New World Order’s credibility has been the return of traditional geopolitical rivalry. Russia under Putin has repeatedly demonstrated that reports of history’s death were greatly exaggerated, from Georgia to Crimea to Ukraine. China’s rise challenges not only American economic dominance but also the entire liberal international order that Washington spent decades constructing. Even middle powers like Iran and North Korea have successfully defied American pressure through asymmetric strategies and nuclear proliferation.
These developments reveal a fundamental flaw in the New World Order concept: its assumption that other nations would passively accept permanent American primacy. Bush’s vision required not just American strength but foreign acquiescence and cooperation—a willingness by other powers to abandon their own ambitions in favor of a Washington-led system. This was always an unlikely proposition, sustainable only during the brief window when potential rivals were too weak or distracted to mount effective challenges.
The New World Order’s failure also reflects domestic American realities that Bush either ignored or misunderstood. Sustaining global hegemony requires enormous resources and public commitment. The American people supported the Gulf War because it had clear objectives, broad international backing, and minimal costs. They have proven far less enthusiastic about open-ended nation-building projects or confronting every authoritarian regime on earth.
This disconnect between elite ambitions and popular preferences has contributed to the rise of populist movements questioning America’s global role. From Pat Buchanan’s 1990s isolationism to Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda, significant portions of the American electorate have rejected the premises of the New World Order. They ask, quite reasonably, why American blood and treasure should be spent policing the world when domestic problems go unaddressed.
As we commemorate the 35th anniversary of Bush’s speech, policymakers might consider what went wrong and how American foreign policy might be recalibrated for the twenty-first century. Several lessons emerge:
First, unipolarity was always temporary. Rather than attempting to preserve American primacy indefinitely, Washington should have utilized the 1990s to establish a more stable multipolar system—one that granted other powers legitimate roles while safeguarding core American interests.
Second, military force has limited utility in achieving political transformation. The Gulf War succeeded because it had modest objectives—expelling Iraq from Kuwait and deterring further aggression. Later interventions failed because they attempted far more ambitious goals that military power alone could not achieve.
Third, public support for foreign policy requires demonstrable benefits for ordinary Americans. An internationalism that enriches defense contractors and foreign policy elites while imposing costs on everyone else is politically unsustainable in a democracy.
Rather than mourning the New World Order’s passing, Americans might embrace a more modest and sustainable approach to international affairs. This would involve defending vital interests rather than trying to solve every global problem, working with allies as genuine partners rather than subordinates, and recognizing that other powers have legitimate security concerns that deserve respect.
Such an approach would not abandon American leadership but would exercise it more judiciously. It would focus on core objectives—protecting the homeland, maintaining alliance relationships, ensuring economic prosperity—while avoiding quixotic crusades.
George HW Bush’s September 1990 speech represented a particular and irretrievable moment in history when American power seemed limitless and global problems appeared manageable. Thirty-five years later, we know better. The challenge for contemporary leaders is crafting a foreign policy suited to a world where American influence is substantial but not unlimited, where other powers demand respect, and where the American people expect their government to prioritize their welfare over abstract international obligations.
The New World Order is dead. Long live a more realistic and sustainable American role in the world.
Dr. Leon Hadar is a contributing editor with The National Interest, a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) in Philadelphia, and a former research fellow in foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. He has taught at American University in Washington, DC, and the University of Maryland, College Park. A columnist and blogger for Haaretz (Israel) and a Washington correspondent for The Business Times of Singapore, he is a former United Nations bureau chief for The Jerusalem Post.
Image: Mark Reinstein / Shutterstock.com.