Transforming Our World: President George H.W. Bush and American Foreign Policy

In this laudatory and highly technical essay anthology, Natsios (Sudan, South Sudan, and Darfur: What Everyone Needs to Know) and other alumni of the George H.W. Bush administration detail their former boss’s foreign policy achievements. Presidential assistants Richard Haass and Chase Untermeyer contend that Bush’s extensive foreign policy background and ability to “make friends” made him uniquely suited to navigating the end of the Cold War—an opinion enthusiastically shared by former German national security adviser Horst Teltschik, the only contributor who didn’t serve under Bush. Other pieces document how the coalition against Iraq in the First Gulf War came together, detail reforms to the National Security Council in the wake of the Iran-Contra scandal, and draw a contrast between Ronald Reagan’s sentimental connection to Israel and Bush’s more “evenhanded” approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Though outsiders’ criticisms of the Bush administration, including calls for a stronger U.S. response to the Tiananmen Square massacre and questions about the limited scope of the Gulf War (which left Saddam Hussein in power), are treated lightly, Natsios and his cohorts succeed in burnishing Bush’s legacy and advocating for a gradualist, multilateral approach to foreign policy. Students of international affairs will find this collection of insider perspectives illuminating. (Nov.)