The period 1980-99 has witnessed a complete transformation in the political landscape of international relations. The collapse of eastern European communism and the subsequent disintegration of the soviet empire combined with the rapid federalizing of Western Europe have forced considerable changes in both the focus and practice of American foreign policy. This new-world order is one in which the United States has interests rather than vital interests. The U.S now faces security challenges that do not directly threaten its survival but nevertheless represent a threat to U.S global interests. As a result, much of U.S foreign policy since 1992 is reactive to pressures abroad. The trend towards reactionary foreign policy is against the interests of the American people and their British counterparts who can only benefit from allied foreign policy relations.

The Reagan formula for foreign policy was representative of his states craft generally: take a simple position founded on principle, adhere to it stubbornly, and let others such as colleagues, foreign diplomats and members of congress make the concessions and fill in the detail. The Reagan presidencies were anything but isolationist. Policy was formulated to bring about a resurgence of U.S strength, pride and global standing. Reagan was an ideologue and a strident advocate of change. Vice President Bush, however, was troubled by the speed of change on foreign issues and was convinced that the interests of the United States would be best served by cautious conservative policies built on excellent international diplomacy. Thus, the Bush administration was composed of moderates and pragmatists. Both the Reagan and Bush administrations can be described as clearly focused and interventionist. In contrast however, the Clinton administration takes a different approach, one that whilst interventionist, is reactionary, sporadic and a departure from his initial inclinations. This has tapped into isolationist sentiment and a general apathy on behalf of the American public on foreign policy issues.

The strategic Defence Initiative, Central America and the contra war against Sandinista regime, as well as securing the release of U.S citizens held hostage in Lebanon; were the primary objectives of Reagan's foreign policy. Reagan pursued these with single- mindedness of purpose and simplicity of means. Reagan's rhetoric was extreme, but in comparison the actions were moderate. Reagan's use of presidential autonomy was important on supporting the contras and dealing with Iran, he employed the staff agencies responsive particularly to him such as the NSC and the CIA- On the diplomatic level America became unilateralist in its attitude toward structures of international accord. Meeting with Soviet representatives were delayed and inconstant, a policy the administration made very clear by depriving Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin of his customary private entry to the State Department.

In 1981 the Reagan administration won enactment of major income tax cuts, and defence spending increases of 1.2 trillion dollars. The existing arms balances and control arrangements between the two Superpowers were built on fear, or what was labeled "mutual assured destruction". However Reagan made the arms control picture more exciting by endorsing the development of a sweeping new system of defence from nuclear attack. On 23 March 1983, at the conclusion of a television address scheduled to shore up support for his defence budget, the President evoked a vision of developments in defensive military technology that would render nuclear weapons "impotent and obsolete". The Strategic Defensive Initiative (SDI) or "star wars", became a centrepiece of the President's nuclear policies and the arms control debate. SDI became the one answer to all of America's foreign policy concerns. U. S. build-up was followed by Soviet readiness to dismantle weapons. When the treaty was ratified, the Russians were committed to destroy, within three years, 1752 missiles, compared to 867 missiles destroyed by the United States. It must be concluded that Reagan's fixity of aim and determined rhetoric was responsible for a major break through in cold war arms reduction.

To find a Reagan as fierce in deed as in words one must look to covert action. After a period of constraint on the CIA, William Casey was unleashed to act against Qaddafl in Libya, the Soviets of Afghanistan, Nicaragua, and the insurgents in El Salvador. It could be argued that Reagan was following the course of Eisenhower who pursued a peaceful course in public while overthrowing the governments of Iran and Guatemala in secret. Political controversy also had a more durable effect in increasing the appeal of covert operations. Through these, the administration could hope to avoid the requirement of obtaining domestic backing. So the same President who was downplaying the Central American conflict, signed in December 1981 an intelligence finding authorizing convert U.S. aid to forces seeking to overthrow the Sandinista government. Relations with China were continued although Reagan had attacked Carter for doing exactly that, and American dislike of the U.N became more apparent during Reagan's time in office. But the administration did act directly in successful use of the U.S forces in October 1983 to overturn the divided, embattled Marxist regime in Grenada. The rationale and pretext for the action was to protect American lives. Its popularity soared when U.S medical students rescued by the mission kissed the ground on their return to the United States. It stayed high when the Grenadians themselves welcomed the action, and Reagan therefore was able to bring the troops back home before Christmas.

Reagan's foreign policy ratings ran lower than his overall job ratings, except after the bombing of Libya in 1986, but Reagan was enabled in his foreign policy aims because of his domestic support and popularity. It was Reagan who kept contra aid going, it was Reagan who pushed dealings with Iran in order to get the hostages freed and it was Reagan who made SDI central to the strategic debate.

The transition in foreign policy from Reagan to Bush was smooth and effortless. There was continuity in policy, if not in personnel and since Bush as VP was fully aware with Reagan's policies and diplomatic friends abroad, he could carry on the major programs underway between the U. S. and the USSR- However to show his independence of Reagan and to stress the non-ideological nature of his administration, he replaced confrontation with compromise over Nicaragua and South Africa. Within two months he had negotiated a compromise on Contra aid with congress and effectively removed the issue from his foreign policy agenda. Part of the reason for this rejection of ideological programs and grand schemes may have been the recognition by Bush that many of Reagan's problems and weaknesses had come from an overly doctrinaire approach to policy issues.

Few presidents had been better prepared by experience in foreign relations than George Bush. While he was the inheritor of the Reagan legacy, it was more the legacy of Reagan's second term when he struck a series of agreements with Gorbachev rather than the bellicosity of the first term In managing foreign policy Bush made much use of private diplomacy under the guidance of prudence and caution. There was to be no Bush doctrine to place alongside the Truman or Reagan doctrine. The key words distinguishing Bush's approach to foreign policy where prudence, pragmatism and moderation. However Bush was faulted by some for failing to articulate a memorable response to the destruction of the Berlin Wall and for not spelling out a convincing rational to the American people for a massive intervention in the Persian Gulf .

By the end of the 1980s the Soviet Union was fast disappearing as a threat to the U.S. President Gorbachev was presiding over the conversion of his country to a market economy and democratization of the political system Therefore while it is not exactly accurate to credit Bush for the 1989 upheaval in the USSR and Eastern Europe, he nonetheless gave support to Gorbachev as he tried to modernize the Soviet Union.

In the summer of 1990 the invasion of Kuwait provoked a major diplomatic and military campaign in which the Bush administration succeeded in creating and maintaining a large multinational coalition and fought a very successful air and ground war which succeeded in liberating Kuwait. Bush's willingness to use force not only reflected calculations of American self interest but also his desire to counter criticisms of personal weakness.

Therefore, during the crisis both in Panama and the Gulf the issues were reduced partly to personalities. Bush wanted Noriega out of power in Panama, while in the Gulf the confrontation became a very personal test of will and strength between himself and Saddam Hussein. However Bush was criticized for restoring the Royal family to power in Kuwait without the promise of democratic reforms. He was also criticized for failing to give early and quick support to the democratic forces in Eastern Europe and those in Russia under Yeltsin. Even former president Richard Nixon chastised Bush and his advisors for their failure to seize a historic opportunity to shape the future of Russia and the newly independent countries.

Nevertheless President Bush presided over a period of historic change in international politics but did so in a way that created a degree of stability in a world of enormous upheaval and potential crisis. Later in his term Bush negotiated a new strategic arms reduction treaty known as Start H with Boris Yeltsin and the Russians. The treaty would eliminate three quarters of the 20 000 nuclear warheads by 2003 including total elimination of multi-warhead land-based missiles. It was the most extensive disarmament treaty yet signed and was completed in six months. The last Cold War president, Bush gained little credit for the end of the Cold War.

President Clinton believes in the virtues of multilateralism He came to office calling for strengthening the United Nations and the regional security groups and was initially willing to subordinate U.S. decision making to multinational organizations. On 3 May 1994, Clinton tried to articulate such a policy by stating that while the United States "cannot turn our backs on the rest of the world," it "cannot solve every problem and must not become the world's policeman." Candidate Clinton said the human rights as an instrument of foreign policy would be fundamental to his presidency. In May 1994 Clinton renewed Most favoured nation status with China in sharp departure from earlier policy. Clinton assured his supporters that he would not hesitate to use U. S. clout to force social change in Nations where the United States conducted business. However Warren Christopher began to soften the administration's policy of restricting trade on purely human grounds, stating that while the relationship with China depended significantly on how the Chinese government treats its people, the United States should integrate rather than isolate China.

Clinton's foreign policy decisions have not flowed from a strategic outlook but have been ad hoc responses to developments at home and abroad and attempt to satisfy domestic constituencies. Some have referred to it as foreign policy by CNN. The greatest risk to the nation is seen to be economic rather than military in nature, in the view of the Clinton administration. As a result resources have been shifted away from defence. President Clinton's personal presidential style in foreign policy has been characterized by a high degree of energy and rhetoric. However Clinton's rhetoric is soft, non-ideological and inconsistent. Clinton has never exercised pragmatic diplomacy with any real success as Reagan and Bush did. The new "special relationship" between Clinton and Blair is a media motivated farce lacking in depth and consensus. Its seriousness was well illustrated by the ill-concealed differences over the issue of using land forces during the recent Kosovo conflict.

However the New World order is one in which the U.S. has interest rather than vital interests. It now faces security challenges that do not directly threaten U.S. survival but are never the less vital to U.S. global interests. Because a domestic national purpose provides weak guideposts for setting all but economic strategic priorities abroad, it increases the likelihood that much of U.S. foreign policy will be reactive to pressures abroad. The changes that occur as a consequence of the end of the cold war are illustrated in decreased defence spending and gradual foreign policy political apathy on behalf on the public.

Therefore to conclude, the end of the Cold war has had the effect of creating a foreign policy vacuum With the absence of a well-defined threat to focus U.S. foreign policy, uncertainty faces the U.S as it attempts to anticipate the future foreign policy environment, establish and develop Reagan style principles to focus the use of diplomatic, economic, and military resources abroad. For American politics, the post Cold War world is characterized first and utmost by the threat of uncertainty and the disappearance of a known and familiar enemy. Certainty about the enemy has been replaced with questions about the future of adversaries, their capabilities, and the time frame within which future challenges are likely to arise. Post Cold War U.S. leaders face a set of unfamiliar foreign policy problems such as; small peripheral states, North Korea, Iraq, Serbia and Libya, potentially armed with weapons of mass destruction threatening regional and global security, and unconventional challenges posed by terrorists, religious fundamentalist movements such as Bin Laden and his cronies, and ethnic and national violence of former Yugoslavia fashion. Of these, however, none ranks in significance, even in the foreseeable future, to replace the strategic nightmare that disappeared along with the end of the cold war. Nevertheless the techniques developed during the cold war period such as bellicose rhetoric, pragmatic diplomacy and the threat of force, utilized and managed so effectively by the Reagan and Bush administrations, should not be forgotten. The British-American special relationship is an essential component that must be maintained and developed in the interest of both nations. The development of sporadic reactionary foreign policy and its consequences is a direct attack on stable international relations especially when it encourages isolationist sentiment or apathy amongst elements of the American public.