Defining the Enemy for the Post-Cold War World: Bill Clinton's Foreign Policy Discourse in Somalia and Haiti

Author:

• Jason A. Edwards (Bridgewater State College)

Abstract:

United States presidents use images of savagery--primitive and modern--to identify and construct America's adversaries, especially prior to and during some form of armed intervention. During the Cold War, presidents used images of modern savagery to craft a Soviet enemy and its proxies. In the post-Cold War world, Bill Clinton did not have the luxury of a monolithic enemy to organize American foreign policy. He faced a threat environment that was more complex, transnational, and diffuse. An analysis of Clinton's discourse reveals that used images of primitive and modern savagery to define America's adversaries. In doing so, he broadened how presidents construct America's enemies. Moreover, the use of both images of savagery provided a rhetorical flexibility that was needed for a different threat environment. Ultimately, this essay contributes to deeper understandings of presidential foreign policy rhetoric and different forms of conflict for the post-Cold War World.