Why did George Bush lose the presidency in 1992, given that he was vastly experienced in foreign policy-making and had already "won" the Cold War and the Gulf War?

In another state, Nicaragua, problems were forming. With Bush’s support of the Contras, election was coming up soon. Although something astonishing happened, and the power changed hands peacefully in Latin America, “the American contribution to these unanticipated developments had been to keep the Contras supplied in Honduras, which had almost wrecked the peace process and endangered the elections.” America did not seem to realize that something like that does not happen often enough and jeopardizing that country was damaging.

Throughout 1989, Eastern Europe went through a transformation that no one could believe. People did not think that this would happen in their lifetime and surely President Bush did not imagine that it would happen during his presidency, which would cause him to react somehow. Eastern and Central Europe were tired of the Communism regime. They were tired of the Cold War and desired a change or, more likely, freedom. It all started with the Soviets, when Gorbachev reduced the military budget and withdrew 200,000 troops from Asia. Estonia refused to keep Russian as its official language.  When the Iron Curtain came down in May, thousands of East Germans fled to Hungary and then Austria to cross over to West Germany. This led President Bush to call for a reunification of Germany. All George Bush did was talk, when Gorbachev was actually taking matters into his own hands and saying that Europe’s future was “their affair.” And when almost every country in Eastern Europe began to either protest the communist regime or actually acquire new governments, they all started asking America for financial support. However, Bush was quite passive and stingy with America’s money. Everyone demanded democratic changes, which should have made the United States very happy, since it promotes democracy as one of the tools to success.

The end of the Brezhnev Doctrine, demonstrations in Moscow, Budapest, and Prague all led to an unbelievable event when thousands of people were ‘allowed’ to climb over the Berlin Wall. While the world was literally changing in front of everyone’s eyes on their television screens or in their backyard in Europe, the United States just stood there and waited. “President Bush’s response to the world revolution of 1989 and the end of the Cold War was passive and prudent, depending on the point of view.” The Soviet foreign minister asked for a more energetic foreign policy to keep up with the quick changes at the time, when he came to Washington D.C. He said that the Soviet economy needed to be rebuilt with the help of U.S. Instead of helping financially, U.S. puts their troops on ready in case the Red Army comes out, but it did not do so. Instead it went into Lithuania and Latvia to settle the unrest. Although the Soviets were still not receiving help, after the Malta summit in the Mediterranean, both sides claimed that there was a change in the relationship. Bush criticized the Red Army’s action, while still hoping that there would be happiness and unity in the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was trying his hardest not to get overthrown by the rebellious activists. But he did in 1991, all while Bush was keeping his mouth shut, because he did not know which way it was going to go. Some might say that this was a smart move, but the idea that it dragged on for so long, for these events to finally happen, seems to be America’s fault. “Former President Nixon strongly criticized Bush for failing to respond to the crisis in the republics with a massive aid program.”

Within a year after these events, two crises occurred, Iraqi hostility in Kuwait and Serbian invasion in Yugoslavia. Bush’s chance to show off his foreign policy skills was blown when his responses were a massive intervention in Kuwait and a “studied indifference” in Yugoslavia. Although Bush’s success in Iraqi exile from Kuwait earned him a lot of credit, the success grew fainter and was actually seen as one of Bush’s biggest failures. Before the war started, Saddam Hussein’s record with the Kurds was completely ignored by the American government, while it “persisted in bolstering Iraq with sensitive intelligence, high-tech equipment with military uses, and credits.” Bush was only active when the massacres of the Kurds reached the media. While Bush was waiting, Hussein was reassembling his military. CIA intelligence knew of the build-up, but the information just did not get through somehow. This was one of Bush’s biggest mistakes in his ‘successful’ ending of the Gulf War.

On August 11, 1990, Bush made a famous speech where he called Hussein ‘evil’, claiming that the United States is not just going to sit back and watch. However brave that sounded, America was afraid to begin a war because of the Iraqi developed military machinery. President Bush was afraid to talk to the Congress and had his Secretary of State do most of the negotiating towards a war. Bush showed to American public that the United States is not a pushover and neither is he a hesitant president. However, after a conducted survey of a couple of states, people have said that “not one argued that the war had improved Bush’s prospects.” The issue that stuck around after the war with the voters in the 1992 election was that Saddam Hussein was still in power which, in theory, does not really mean a ‘win.’

Bush’s New World Order was never really understood. What did it really mean? After the Cold War ended, at the beginning of the presidency, and in 1991, after the situation in the gulf, foreign policy approaches differed, yet they were similar. They were still made through hesitant choices, but at least they were made. Unlike standing on the sideline, George H. W. Bush actually developed some kind of objectives, although very carefully. Still, the election occurred at the worst four year stretch that crucified George Bush. Bush proved to be “uneasy with searching out a new foreign policy paradigm.” Because he spent most of his career as a “Cold Warrior,” it was difficult to come up with something new as he clung to the familiar. “The end of the Cold War reduced the prominence of foreign policy in presidential elections, most clearly in 1992.”

“Although the importance of foreign policy has declined relative to other issues, and partisan differences on policy positions have narrowed, voters still judge candidates by their foreign policy values, competence, and leadership skills, particularly their ability to manage crises.” But the public opinion shows that most of the American citizens have been paying less and less attention to the foreign policy of the United States, since the end of the Cold War. However, the public becomes informed and exercises good judgment when a crisis arises. This is what happened in 1992 election.

When Moscow was losing its power and the republics of the Soviet Union were becoming independent, Bush was afraid of such extreme changes, while being fixated with stability. On the Chinese grotesque massacre, Bush put a somewhat personal relationship with China first. After the invasion of Panama, the administration did little to avoid another drug trafficking and money laundering leader. These were some of the courses of action that took criticism during the election time.

On the other hand, there were some exceptions. “The administration sized up the need to proceed with the reunification of Germany once the Berlin Wall fell, and it did so, overcoming the objections of European allies.” Bush led Israel and Arab states to the negotiating table, beginning a long course of settlement. And when Soviets began cutting their nuclear arms, Bush kept on pushing for more with the Start 1 program of July 31, 1991.

However, the good things could not help President Bush to stay in the White House for four more years. The polls showed what the public thought and predicted the elections. Bush’s approval ratings dropped dramatically, to 30%, in the last couple of months of his presidency in 1992. Because “waking up after the Cold War victory to find a recession blighting the land, they (the voters) were resentful, pessimistic, mystified.” This was a disappointment for the administration and the presidential team. They were hoping to have the foreign policy as their main aim. However, it was not important anymore after the major global transformations took place in the last four years. The past victories have faded and the aftermath consisted of doubt of the President’s judgment and credibility. Losing to Bill Clinton, 37.7% to 43.2%, George Bush had nothing else to do but get back to Houston, Texas, and “be welcomed by neighbors”.