[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George H. W. Bush (1991, Book I)]
[April 13, 1991]
[Pages 364-369]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at Maxwell Air Force Base War College in Montgomery, Alabama
April 13, 1991

    Thank you all very, very much for that warm welcome. General Boyd 
and General McPeak, the distinguished Members of the Congress with us--
Senators Heflin, Shelby,

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and Bill Dickinson. Mayor Folmar--a nonpartisan event, but I'm glad to 
see some friends of long standing over here--[laughter]--who were 
enormously helpful to me in getting to be President of the United 
States.
    It is my great pleasure to look out across what essentially is a sea 
of blue, to meet this morning with the men and women of the Air 
University--the Air War College, the Air Command and Staff School, the 
Squadron Officers School, and of course, the NCO Academy. And I'm glad 
to see democracy in action--I see a Navy guy here or there, or maybe a 
coastguardsman--[laughter]--maybe the Marines, maybe the Army over here. 
And I think I recognize some friends from overseas, members of our 
coalition who helped us so much in achieving our objectives halfway 
around the world. They're more than welcome.
    The history of aviation has been shaped here since the Wright 
brothers brought their strange new mechanical bird to Montgomery and 
housed it in a hangar not far from where we stand. This institution, 
from its early days as the Air Corps Tactical School, has defined the 
Nation's air strategy and tactics that have guided our operations over 
the fields of Europe and the seas of the Pacific, from the First World 
War to the 1,000 hours of Desert Storm.
    It falls to all of you to derive the lessons learned from this war. 
Desert Storm demonstrated the true strength of joint operations: not the 
notion that each service must participate in equal parts in every 
operation in every war but that we use the proper tools at the proper 
time. In Desert Storm, a critical tool was certainly air power. And 
every one of you can take pride in that fact. Our technology and 
training ensured minimal losses, and our precision--your precision--
spared the lives of innocent civilians.
    But our victory also showed that technology alone is insufficient. A 
warrior's heart must burn with the will to fight. And if he fights but 
does not believe, no technology in the world can save him. We and our 
allies had more than superior weapons; we had the will to win.
    I might say parenthetically, this will is personified by the man who 
leads you. I know that General Boyd often speaks about what he calls the 
unlimited liability of the military profession. He knows because he's 
put it all on the line. As a veteran of Vietnam, he flew 105 combat 
missions before being shot down over Hanoi. And he spent almost 7 
years--2,500 cruel days--in captivity. And yet he emerged brave, 
unbroken. He kept the faith to himself and to his nation.
    And let me just say a word about this man over here on my left, 
General McPeak. I remember early on a meeting up at Camp David with Tony 
McPeak. Secretary Cheney was there; General Powell was there; Brent 
Scowcroft; other chiefs--the other chiefs, I believe, were with us, 
Tony. And in a very laid-back way--typical of him with his modesty--but 
with total confidence, he told me exactly what he felt air power could 
do. And after he left--I don't mean to show my native skepticism--but I 
turned to my trusted national security adviser who's standing over here, 
General Brent Scowcroft, and I said, ``Brent, does this guy really know 
what he's talking about?'' [Laughter] And Lieutenant General Scowcroft--
Air Force Lieutenant General--said, ``Yes.'' And General McPeak did.
    And to be doubly sure then--and he'll remember this--just before the 
war started, I invited General McPeak and Secretary Cheney to join me 
and General Scowcroft upstairs at the Residence in the White House--
quiet lunch there. And I asked Tony--I think he'd just come back then 
from the theater, the other theater--[laughter]. And I put the question 
to him--I think this is exactly what I said: ``Are you as certain now as 
you were up at Camp David?'' And he said, ``Even more so.'' And the war 
started just a few days later, and history will record that General 
McPeak was 100 percent right, right on target.
    Here at Air University it's your business to read the lessons of the 
past with an eye on the far horizon. And that's why I wanted to speak to 
you today about the new world taking shape around us, about the 
prospects for a new world order now within our reach.
    For more than four decades we've lived in a world divided East from 
West, a world

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locked in a conflict of arms and ideas called the cold war. Two systems, 
two superpowers separated by mistrust and unremitting hostility. For 
more than four decades, America's energies were focused on containing 
the threat to the free world from the forces of communism. That war is 
over. East Germany has vanished from the map as a separate entity. Today 
in Berlin, the wall that once divided a continent, divided a world in 
two, has been pulverized, turned into souvenirs. And the sections that 
remain standing are but museum pieces. The Warsaw Pact passed into the 
pages of history last week, not with a bang but with a whimper--its 
demise reported in a story reported on page A16 of the Washington Post.
    In the coming weeks I'll be talking in some detail about the 
possibility of a new world order emerging after the cold war. And in 
recent weeks I've been focusing not only on the Gulf but on free trade: 
on the North American free trade agreement, the Uruguay round trade 
negotiations, and the essentiality of obtaining from the United States 
Congress a renewal of Fast Track authority to achieve our goals. But 
today I want to discuss another aspect of that order: our relations with 
Europe and the Soviet Union.
    Twice this century, a dream born on the battlefields of Europe died 
after the shooting stopped--the dream of a world in which major powers 
worked together to ensure peace, to settle their disputes through 
cooperation, not confrontation. Today a transformed Europe stands closer 
than ever before to its free and democratic destiny. At long last, 
Europe is moving forward, moving toward a new world of hope.
    At the same time, we and our European allies have moved beyond 
containment to a policy of active engagement in a world no longer driven 
by cold war tensions and animosities. You see, as the cold war drew to 
an end we saw the possibilities of a new order in which nations worked 
together to promote peace and prosperity.
    I'm not talking here of a blueprint that will govern the conduct of 
nations or some supernatural structure or institution. The new world 
order does not mean surrendering our national sovereignty or forfeiting 
our interests. It really describes a responsibility imposed by our 
successes. It refers to new ways of working with other nations to deter 
aggression and to achieve stability, to achieve prosperity and, above 
all, to achieve peace.
    It springs from hopes for a world based on a shared commitment among 
nations large and small to a set of principles that undergird our 
relations: peaceful settlements of disputes, solidarity against 
aggression, reduced and controlled arsenals, and just treatment of all 
peoples.
    This order, this ability to work together, got its first real test 
in the Gulf war. For the first time, a regional conflict--the aggression 
against Kuwait--did not serve as a proxy for superpower confrontation. 
For the first time, the United Nations Security Council, free from the 
clash of cold war ideologies, functioned as its designers intended--a 
force for conflict resolution in collective security.
    In the Gulf, nations from Europe and North America, Asia and Africa 
and the Arab world joined together to stop aggression, and sent a signal 
to would-be tyrants everywhere in the world. By joining forces to defend 
one small nation, we showed that we can work together against aggressors 
in defense of principle.
    We also recognized that the cold war's end didn't deliver us into an 
era of perpetual peace. As old threats recede, new threats emerge. The 
quest for the new world order is, in part, a challenge to keep the 
dangers of disorder at bay.
    Today, thank God, Kuwait is free. But turmoil in that tormented 
region of the world continues. Saddam's continued savagery has placed 
his regime outside the international order. We will not interfere in 
Iraq's civil war. Iraqi people must decide their own political future.
    Looking out here at you and thinking of your families, let me 
comment a little further. We set our objectives. These objectives, 
sanctioned by international law, have been achieved. I made very clear 
that when our objectives were obtained that our troops would be coming 
home. And yes, we want the suffering of those refugees to stop, and in 
keeping with our nation's compas-

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sion and concern, we are massively helping. But yes, I want our troops 
out of Iraq and back home as soon as possible.
    Internal conflicts have been raging in Iraq for many years. And 
we're helping out, and we're going to continue to help these refugees. 
But I do not want one single soldier or airman shoved into a civil war 
in Iraq that's been going on for ages. And I'm not going to have that.
    I know the coalition's historic effort destroyed Saddam's ability to 
undertake aggression against any neighbor. You did that job. But now the 
international community will further guarantee that Saddam's ability to 
threaten his neighbors is completely eliminated by destroying Iraq's 
weapons of mass destruction.
    And as I just mentioned, we will continue to help the Iraqi 
refugees, the hundreds and thousands of victims of this man's--Saddam 
Hussein's--brutality. See food and shelter and safety and the 
opportunity to return unharmed to their homes. We will not tolerate any 
interference in this massive international relief effort. Iraq can 
return to the community of nations only when its leaders abandon the 
brutality and repression that is destroying their country. With Saddam 
in power, Iraq will remain a pariah nation, its people denied moral 
contacts with most of the outside world.
    We must build on the successes of Desert Storm to give new shape and 
momentum to this new world order, to use force wisely and extend the 
hand of compassion wherever we can. Today we welcome Europe's 
willingness to shoulder a large share of this responsibility. This new 
sense of responsibility on the part of our European allies is most 
evident and most critical in Europe's eastern half.
    The nations of Eastern Europe, for so long the other Europe, must 
take their place now alongside their neighbors to the west. Just as 
we've overcome Europe's political division, we must help to ease 
crossover from poverty into prosperity.
    The United States will do its part--we always have--as we have 
already in reducing Poland's official debt burden to the United States 
by 70 percent, increasing our assistance this year to Eastern Europe by 
50 percent. But the key to helping these new democracies develop is 
trade and investment.
    The new entrepreneurs of Czechoslovakia and Poland and Hungary 
aren't looking to government, their own or others, to shower them with 
riches. They're looking for new opportunities, a new freedom for the 
productive genius strangled by 40 years of state control.
    Yesterday, my esteemed friend, a man we all honor and salute, 
President Vaclav Havel of Czechoslovakia called me up. He wanted to 
request advice and help from the West. He faces enormous problems. You 
see, Czechoslovakia wants to be democratic. This man is leading them 
towards perfecting their fledgling democracy. Its economy is moving from 
a failed socialist model to a market economy. We all must help. It's not 
easy to convert state owned and operated weapons plants into market-
driven plants to produce consumer goods. But these new democracies can 
do just exactly that with the proper advice and help from the West. It 
is in our interest, it is in the interest of the United States of 
America, that Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary strengthen those 
fledgling democracies and strengthen their fledgling market economies.
    We recognize that new roles and even new institutions are natural 
outgrowths of the new Europe. Whether it's the European Community or a 
broadened mandate for the CSCE, the U.S. supports all efforts to forge a 
European approach to common challenges on the Continent and in the world 
beyond, with the understanding that Europe's long-term security is 
intertwined with America's and that NATO--NATO remains the best means to 
assure it.
    And we look to Europe to act as a force for stability outside its 
own borders. In a world as interdependent as ours, no industrialized 
nation can maintain membership in good standing in the global community 
without assuming its fair share of responsibility for peace and 
security.
    But even in the face of such welcome change, Americans 
will remain in Europe in support of history's most successful alliance, 
NATO. America's commitment is the best guarantee of a secure Europe, and 
a secure Europe is vital to American interests and

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vital to world peace. This is the essential logic of the Atlantic 
alliance which anchors America in Europe.
    This century's history shows that America's destiny and interests 
cannot be separate from Europe's. Through the long years of cold war and 
conflict, the United States stood fast for freedom in Europe. And now, 
as Eastern Europe is opening up to democratic ideals, true progress 
becomes possible.
    The Soviet Union is engaged in its own dramatic transformation. The 
policies of confrontation abroad, like the discredited dogma of 
communism from which those policies sprang, lies dormant, if not 
mortally wounded. Much has changed. The path of international 
cooperation fostered by President Gorbachev and manifested most clearly 
in the Persian Gulf marks a radical change in Soviet behavior. And yet, 
the course of change within the Soviet Union is far less clear.
    Economic and political reform there is under severe challenge. 
Soviet citizens, facing the collapse of the old order while the new 
still struggles to be born, confront desperate economic conditions--
their hard-won freedoms in peril. Ancient ethnic enmities, conflict 
between Republics and between Republics and the central Government add 
to these monumental challenges that they face.
    America's policy toward the Soviet Union in these troubled times is, 
first and foremost, to continue our efforts to build the cooperative 
relationship that has allowed our nations and so many others to 
strengthen international peace and stability. At the same time, we will 
continue to support a reform process within the Soviet Union aimed at 
political and economic freedom--a process we believe must be built on 
peaceful dialog and negotiation. This is a policy that we will advocate 
steadfastly, both in our discussions with the central Soviet Government 
and with all elements active in Soviet political life.
    Let there be no misunderstanding, the path ahead for the Soviet 
Union will be difficult and, at times, extraordinarily painful. History 
weighs heavily on all the peoples of the U.S.S.R.--liberation from 70 
years of communism, from 1,000 years of autocracy. It's going to be 
slow. There will be setbacks. But this process of reform, this 
transformation from within, must proceed. If external cooperation and 
our progress toward true international peace is to endure, it must 
succeed. Only when this transformation is complete will we be able to 
take full measure of the opportunities presented by this new and 
evolving world order.
    The new world order really is a tool for addressing a new world of 
possibilities. This order gains its mission and shape not just from 
shared interests but from shared ideals. And the ideals that have 
spawned new freedoms throughout the world have received their boldest 
and clearest expression in our great country, the United States. Never 
before has the world looked more to the American example. Never before 
have so many millions drawn hope from the American idea. And the reason 
is simple: Unlike any other nation in the world, as Americans we enjoy 
profound and mysterious bonds of affection and idealism. We feel our 
deep connections to community, to families, to our faiths.
    But what defines this nation? What makes us America is not our ties 
to a piece of territory or bonds of blood; what makes us American is our 
allegiance to an idea that all people everywhere must be free. This idea 
is as old and enduring as this nation itself--as deeply rooted, and what 
we are as a promise implicit to all the world in the words of our own 
Declaration of Independence.
    The new world facing us--and I wish I were your age--it's a 
wonderful world of discovery, a world devoted to unlocking the promise 
of freedom. It's no more structured than a dream, no more regimented 
than an innovator's burst of inspiration. If we trust ourselves and our 
values, if we retain the pioneer's enthusiasm for exploring the world 
beyond our shores, if we strive to engage in the world that beckons us, 
then and only then will America be true to all that is best in us.
    May God bless our great nation, the United States 
of America. And thank you all for what you have done for freedom and for 
our fundamental values. Thank you very

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much.

                    Note: The President spoke at 9:16 a.m. in the Fuel 
                        Cell Hangar at the base. In his remarks, he 
                        referred to Gen. Charles G. Boyd, Air University 
                        Commander at Maxwell Air Force Base; Gen. 
                        Merrill A. McPeak, Air Force Chief of Staff; 
                        Senators Howell Heflin and Richard C. Shelby; 
                        Representative Bill Dickinson; Emory M. Folmar, 
                        mayor of Montgomery; Secretary of Defense Dick 
                        Cheney; Gen. Colin L. Powell, Chairman of the 
                        Joint Chiefs of Staff; Brent Scowcroft, 
                        Assistant to the President for National Security 
                        Affairs; President Saddam Hussein of Iraq; 
                        President Vaclav Havel of Czechoslovakia; and 
                        President Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union.