Kulissen der Macht

This PBS documentary chronicles the new world order that landed on the lap of the United States after the end of the cold war. The Soviet Union retreated back to within its own borders and left the former Warsaw Pact members to shape their own destinies, this all, without a shot being fired. The brain death of communism occurred with "glasnost and perestroika" in the late 1980's and after a failed military coup in the USSR in August of 1991 the carcass of what was left died, as the Soviet Union came to an end. The United States became the lone superpower in the world which in international relations was labeled the "unipolar moment". Francis Fukuyama's 1992 book the "the end of history" very optimistically argued that this was all a culmination of human evolution that liberal democracy was here to stay which signaled the beginning of many countries in the world wanting to be democracies within the international community.

The end of the cold war certainly put the USA into ascendancy and although this offered opportunities, it also posed some challenges that the USA wasn't ready for. It would also expose the dilemma within Washington on how to exercise power in the early days of the new world order with the USA being the loan superpower. That's because there was no unifying political principle in Washington DC regarding when and where to use US power.

In 1972 the Democratic party abandoned the Truman doctrine, the basic philosophy that unified Washington from the late 1940's onwards in confronting global communism. With the exception of 1976 the Democrats never won the Presidency until 1992 after the cold war ended.

In many respects the end of the cold war created an imbalance in the post WW2 order, which only unleashed some freelancing from countries that had previously been restrained by either the USSR or the USA. The ending of the cold war did encourage belligerents in, say South Africa and Northern Ireland look for peaceful ways of ending their decades long conflicts. The Israeli/Palestinian peace initiatives from the Oslo accords in 1991 which resulted with a hand shake between Israel and Palestine on the south lawn of the White House in 1994, held out the possibility of a permanent peace between the two, which only seemed to reinforce Fukuyama's prediction of the expansion of liberal democracy. Yet in other cases, it only encouraged others who had been constrained by cold war politics used it as an opportunity to settle old scores, as ethnic, religious, historical tensions and mistrust surfaced, say in Rwanda and the Balkans. A good example of a country going it alone, was Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait in 1990. Saddam Hussain of course miscalculated that nobody would respond to this act, but the United States rallied the international community to support the effort to liberate Kuwait.

There was considerable opposition within the USA to a war with Iraq over Kuwait, particularly within Democratic party, but even some in the Republican party were uneasy about getting in a war in that part of the world, and how it was all going to end. Memories of the marines killed in Lebanon in 1983 were still very strong and many traditional Republican isolationists didn't relish the idea of having to occupy part of Iraq for an indefinite period. The Bush administration countered that "the new world" order couldn't allow Iraq to get away with blatant aggression and that the international community led by the USA had to expel Iraq from Kuwait. America still haunted by the 10-year slog in Vietnam that resulted in 56,000 US deaths, weren't encouraged by the estimate that the US and coalition could lose thousands of troops and be fighting in that region for months.

That wasn't the case, they were able to expel the Iraqis from Kuwait in three days with a total loss of 147 US military personnel, which was almost too good to be true. However, the decision not to go all the way to Baghdad allowed Saddam to take out his Kuwait defeat on the Kurds in the north and the Muslims in the south who were encouraged to rebel against the regime. Both uprisings were brutally crushed which resulted in thousands of civilians being killed. Despite global criticism, the US refused to get involved, although it did help create a no fly-zone and provide humanitarian aid. Saddam survived the loss over Kuwait and there was a feeling that he and his criminal regime had tip-toed away from accountability for the atrocities, not just with the invasion but in the aftermath. So policy makers in the United States and the UN imposed, no-fly zones, economic sanctions and Iraq were forced to agree to UN inspectors monitoring their weapons programs. This was backed up with occasional cruise missile attacks if Saddam Hussain tried to obstruct or back track from the ceasefire agreement. The commitment to this was hung around the Clinton administration's neck and was a constant distraction through the 1990's. This was the first heavy handed approach sanctioned by the UN since the end of the cold war where the US played point and was heavily committed to enforcing this with the hope of destabilizing and collapsing his regime.

President Clinton inherited the war in the Balkans and saw the war in Rwanda break out in 1993-94. Because of the success of the US in its war in Iraq with very few casualties, there were calls for the US to intervene militarily in Bosnia and do something in Rwanda. Republican officials argued it wasn't in the US national interest, but opponents of this view made the case that it was in their interest, that the US can't stand by and watch a slaughter and ethnic cleansing take place. The Clinton administration badly burned by the fiasco in Somalia in 1993 were equally reluctant. Slogans such as "quagmire" "getting involved in a three-way civil war " gave officials in the administration the jitters.

Although this documentary interviews heavy hitters like James Baker, Colin Powell, Hillary Clinton, Madeline Albright and Jake Sullivan all talking about their experience while in Washington, it focused on the thoughts of the articulate Samantha Power. Born in Ireland she worked her way up in Washington DC to get the ear of President Barak Obama and Power herself a former correspondent and author, rose to the position of US ambassador to the UN in the Obama administration. She was motivated by the plight of civilians and genocide which she felt that the USA with its wealth and military resources should at all times use it to stop ethnic cleansing. This thinking has been prevalent for a while that military force can and should be used, to stop dictators and illiberal regimes from embarking on mass murder.

After the Dayton peace agreement in 1996 between the warring factions in the Balkans there was a think tank and pressure group "The Project for the New American Century" led by a group of neo-conservatives that wanted to use US power to change regimes and go overseas and sleigh foreign foes that the US didn't like. In the aftermath of 9/11, the neo-cons as they became known, put a target on Saddam Hussain who had been a thorn in the side of the USA since the end of desert storm. Although Afghanistan initially became the main theatre of military attacks with "the war on terror", within 18 months the main goal was regime change in Iraq. There was considerable opposition to this in the US and Europe, nevertheless operation "Iraqi freedom" went ahead where under the onslaught the regime disintegrated but it only resulted in a failed state and a civil war. There was considerable unrest for years which resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths. Fixing the politics of Iraq and Afghanistan where the real fun began, as political stability appeared illusive.

President Barak Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace prize days after being inaugurated; however, his track record during his eight years sanctioned more drone attacks than President Bush and expanded military conflicts in Yemen, Afghanistan, Libya and of course Syria. It made the pre-election slogan of his election campaign "change you can believe in" laughable. This only destabilized the middle east even further and after initial enthusiasm for an Arab-Spring, it all resulted in uprisings and sectarian conflicts and eventually a military government in Egypt. Using US airpower with the support of rebel forces in Libya and Syria to get regime change without US and European occupation was too tempting to pass up. Libya collapsed quickly but Syria took about 15 years So over the course of the last 30 years after some reluctance there has been a conflation between neo-conservatives and international-liberals in Washington who agree that the US, which has the ability but more importantly an obligation and a duty to use military force for humanitarian reasons and also destabilize and overthrow regimes and governments that don't conform to the rules based international order. Washington along with many European capitals have in effect all decided that refugees, failed states and two- and three-way civil wars is a price worth paying rather than living with governments that don't conform to Washingtons will.

It's only the old hard-left doves, the isolationists and super hawks from the days of realpolitik that question the legitimacy and effectiveness of continued intervention. Whatever the outcome in the future, at this current time the media is very much a cheerleader for this proactive approach which this PBS documentary has only reinforced. In conclusion Fukuyama's hope that liberal democracy would end conflicts and wars proved to be overly optimistic, as all over the world there is political instability, wars and a laundry list of failed states in the aftermath of western intervention - not a lot to cheer about.

Reveals in depth details about how the US deals with war and when to become involved with world crises. In the movie they interviewed several government officials to learn more about what was happening in the white house to learn more about their decision making process. And the determining factors that went into a decision. It also talks about world events from a neutral angle and sheads light on these tense situations. All in all I loved the film and found it very powerful from the meaning and message all the way to its cinematography and editing. I would recommend my friend and family to go watch this film.

This is a very watchable documentary series with a good range of interviews and some balance in showing the difficulties of taking a moral approach vrs realpolitik.

As someone who has deep knowledge of the Bosnian and Kosovo conflicts, I should caution people that the documentary vastly oversimplifies these conflicts. In particular there is a general categorisation of the participants as being either good (eg Bosnian Muslims) or bad (Serbs) when the reality was much much more complex (there were many factions in the conflict and external forces eg the forerunners of Al-Quaeda were also fighting with some of the Bosnian Muslims).

The role of other countries is also largely ignored. Little is said about the contact group of US, UK, France, Germany, Italy and Russia. The role of NATO and the importance of multilateralism is not mentioned at all. Instead we are left with the view that only the U. S. can police the world.

On the Kosovo conflict the role of Blair in persuading Clinton to get involved is completely ignored aside from a vague reference to a conversation where Clinton talks about Yeltsin's vulnerability. Little is made of the fact that the Kosovo bombing campaign was started without a plan B in case that failed (google the B minus option). This was much an omen for the future. The incident at Pristina airport where Wes Clark tried to order the British NATO troops to retake the airport from the Russians is also missed out (this led to Wes Clark's removal as being a madman ready to risk WWIII).

I'm less versed on the other conflicts but would imagine a similar simplification is involved.

I also observed that nothing is said of the many other conflicts where the U. S. chose not to get involved is missed out. The challenge for any foreign policy is that there are many bad people in countries across the world and it's not possible to intervene in all.

In sum, well worth a watch but do some reading of other sources outside the documentary or you will end up with a partial view where the message seems to be that intervention to stop genocide is a must and can be done.

A final comment is that the title sequence seems to be a rip off of the one for "The Crown".

This PBS documentary chronicles the new world order that landed on the lap of the United States after the end of the cold war. The Soviet Union retreated back to within it's own borders and left the former Warsaw Pact members to shape their own destinies - this all without a shot being fired. The brain death of communism occurred with "Glasnost and Perestroika" in the late 1980's and after a failed military coup in the USSR in August of 1991 the carcass of what was left died, as the Soviet Union came to an end. The United States became the lone superpower in the world which in international relations was labeled the "Unipolar moment". Francis Fukuyama's 1992 book the "the end of history" very optimistically argued that this was all a culmination of human evolution that Liberal democracy was here to stay which signaled the beginning of many countries in the world wanting to be democracies within the international community.

The end of the cold war certainly put the USA into ascendancy and although this offered opportunities, it also posed some challenges that the USA wasn't ready for. It would only expose the dilemma within Washington on how to exorcise power in the early days of the new world order with the USA being the loan superpower . That's because there was no unifying political principle in Washington DC regarding when and where to use US power.

In 1972 the Democratic party abandoned the Truman doctrine - the basic principle that unified Washington from the late 1940's onwards in confronting global communism. When Jimmy Carter won the White House in 1976 campaigned for a more restrained approach to the cold war and a greater emphasis to human rights. Carter lost reelection in 1980 and it wasn't until 1992 that the Democrats eventually won the Presidency.

In many respects the end of the cold war created an imbalance in the post WW2 order which only unleashed some freelancing from countries that had previously been restrained by either the USSR or the USA. The ending of the cold war did encourage belligerents in say South Africa and Northern Ireland look for peaceful ways of ending their decades long conflicts. The Israeli/Palestinian peace initiatives from the Oslo accords in 1991 which resulted with a hand shake between Israel and Palestine on the south lawn of the White House in 1994 with the possibility of a permanent peace only seemed to reinforce Fukuyama's prediction of the expansion of Liberal democracy. Yet in other cases it only encouraged others who had been constrained by cold war politics used it as an opportunity for the darker side of human nature to settle old scores as ethnic, religious tensions and mistrust surfaced ie in Rwanda and the Balkans. A good example of a country going it alone was Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait in 1990. Saddam Hussain of course miscalculated that nobody would respond to this act but in fact the United states rallied the international community to support the effort to retake Kuwait.

There was considerable opposition within the USA to a war with Iraq over Kuwait particularly with the Democratic party, but even some in the Republican party were uneasy about getting in a war in that part of the world and how it was all going to end. Memories of the marines killed in Lebanon were still very strong and many traditional Republican isolationists didn't relish the idea of having to occupy part of Iraq for an indefinite period. The Bush administration countered that "the new world" order couldn't allow Iraq to get away with blatant aggression and that the international community led by the USA had to expel Iraq from Kuwait. America as still haunted by the quagmire and 10 year slog in Vietnam which resulted in 56,000 US deaths weren't encouraged by the estimate that the US and coalition could lose thousands of troops and be fighting in that region for months.

That wasn't the case, they were able to expel the Iraqis from Kuwait in three days with a total loss of 147 US military personnel was almost too good to be true. However, the decision not to go all the way to Baghdad and leave Iraq caused problems in the region whereby Iraq embarked on a revenge campaign against the Kurds in the north and Iraqis in the south. Despite global criticism, the US refused to get involved although it did create a no fly-zone and humanitarian aid. Eventually both uprisings were brutally crushed with Saddam Hussain taking out his defeat in Kuwait on these ethnic groups which resulted in thousands of deaths . His regime survived the loss in Kuwait but there was a bad taste in certain quarters that he and his criminal regime had tip-toed away from accountability for the atrocities. So the aftermath of that war the United States and the UN imposed no-fly zones, sanctions and weapons inspectors and cruise missile attacks that all dogged the Clinton administration through the 1990's. This was the first international approach by the US since the end of the cold war that made some happy in Washington with the USA policing Iraq.

The new generation of Democratic leaders like Bill Clinton were not as comfortable with the military and were reluctant to use force which was a hangover from the Vietnam war. Clinton inherited the war in the Balkans and saw the war in Rwanda break out in 1993-94 - and because of the success of the US in its war in Iraq there were calls for the US to intervene militarily in Bosnia. Republicans officials that argued it wasn't in the US national interest, but opponents of this view made the case that it was in their interest that the US can't stand by and watch a slaughter take place. Clinton administration badly burned by the fiasco in Somalia in 1993 were equally reluctant. Slogans such as "quagmire" "getting involved in a three-way civil war " gave officials in the Clinton administration the jitters. In Bosnia there was a policy of baby-steps, no-fly zones but the military foot print was very light until 1995. After the massacre in the UN safe haven of Srebrenica it all proved to be too much for many in Washington and other capitals to stomach. This blatant genocide was difficult for many government officials to take and this was the first time that the Democrats felt comfortable using smart bombs, precision guided cruise missiles and US troops for peace keeping.

Although this documentary interviews heavy hitters like James Baker, Colin Powell, Hillary Clinton, Madeline Albright and Jake Sullivan all talking about their experience while in Washington, it focused on the thoughts of the articulate Samantha Power. Born in Ireland she worked her way up in Washington DC to get the ear of President Barak Obama and Power herself a former correspondent and author rose to the position of US ambassador to the UN in the Obama administration. She was motivated by the plight of civilians and genocide which she felt that the USA with its wealth and military resources should at all times use it to stop ethnic cleansing and genocide. This thinking has been prevalent for a while that military force can and should be used to stop dictators and illiberal regimes from mass murder and motivates a lot of officials in many capitals around the free world.

Within this time there was a think tank and pressure group "The project for the new American Century" led by a group of neo-conservatives that wanted to use US power to change regimes and go over seas and sleigh foreign foes that the US didn't like. In the aftermath of 9/11 the neo-cons as they became known put a target on Saddam Hussain who had been a thorn in the side of the USA since the end of desert storm. Although Afghanistan initially became the main theatre of military attacks with "the war on terror", within 18 months the main goal was regime change in Iraq. There was considerable opposition to this in the US and Europe, never the less "Iraqi freedom" went ahead where Saddam Hussain fled Baghdad but only resulted in a failed state and a civil war. There was considerable unrest for years which resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths. Although smart bombs and precision guided cruise missiles had made war more attractive it was fixing the politics of Iraq and Afghanistan where the real fun began as political stability appeared as illusive as peace.

President Barak Obama who was awarded the Nobel Peace prize days after being inaugurated, however his track record during his eight years sanctioned more drone attacks than Bush and expanded military conflicts in Yemen, Afghanistan Libya and of course Syria. It made the pre-election slogan of his campaign "change you can believe in" laughable. The enthusiasm for using US airpower with the support of rebel forces in Libya and Syria to get regime change without US and European occupation was again all too tempting to pass up. Syria took about 15 years to get regime change. The war started in 2011 and It's a reasonable question to ask if the destruction, the deaths and human displacement let alone the financial cost was just too high a price to pay - and was it all worth it.

So over the course of the last 30 years after some reluctance there has been a conflation between neo-conservatives and international-liberals in Washington that the US which has the ability but more importantly an obligation and a duty to use military force for humanitarian reasons and also destabilize and overthrow regimes and governments that don't conform to the rules based international order led by the USA.

It's only the old hard left doves and the isolationists and super hawks from the days of realpolitik that question the legitimacy and effectiveness of continued intervention. Whatever the outcome in the future, at this current time the media is very much a cheerleader for this proactive approach which this PBS documentary has reinforced and not questioned.