uestionable routes, American support went to anti-Sandinista contras in Nicaragua and anti-Soviet rebels in Afghanistan.
The danger of direct military intervention was dramatically brought home in 1983 by the deaths at the hands of a terrorist bomber of 241 U.S. marines who had been dispatched to Lebanon to protect an airfield in the midst of renewed Arab-Israeli fighting. The U.S. invasion of the Caribbean island of Grenada a few days later was an easy military victory, but it had little foreign policy significance. Perceived threats by anti-American regimes such as the one in Grenada might be dealt with effectively by decisive and "surgical," or specifically targeted, military intervention. But terrorist violence frustrated attempts at retaliation at an elusive, often unknown enemy.
By the 1990s Americans had discovered that in some ways the resort to force was achieving less and less. The Cold War, which had cost trillions in military spending on both sides, ended not by military victory but as a result of the Soviet Union's political and economic collapse. The breakup of the Soviet empire appeared to have left the United States the victor by default. But the world's only remaining superpower still found that its power did not necessarily guarantee hegemony or control over world politics.
In the Gulf War of 1991, the single most massive application of U.S. military force in the post–Cold War era, the United States, in partnership with Arab and European allies, successfully expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait. But that tactical military success did not translate into significant changes in the geopolitical power relationships in the region. At the time, President George H. W. Bush pointed to the stunning military victory and the successful coalition diplomacy as evidence that America had "kicked the Vietnam syndrome." Yet that same victorious commander in chief was voted out of the presidency the following year. Short-term military success—the effective use of force—did not necessarily mean political success either abroad or at home.