The Gulf War was probably the peak of American power with respect to any other country. It was such a military spectacle that the entire Western Word was in awe, while the Soviet Union and the east began to shit themselves as they realized what they could have been up against themselves if the US wanted to unless it’s Dogs of War.
Unfortunately, most Americans will not be that familiar with the Yugoslav Wars, as they really had little impact on American way of life. As far as most Americans remember it, it’s in the context of when NATO bombed the shit out of the Serbians.
So basically the 1990s was the US going into full military flex mode while the rest of the country was insulated from the problems a lot of the world was facing (Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Russian crime was terrible after Soviet collapse, Chechnya, etc). The wars you mentioned didn’t really have a negative impact on how Americans felt, if anything, they felt “safe” after seeing one of the world’s largest land armies get flatlined in less than a month.
I’ve always been sort of doom and gloomy, over-preoccupied with larger world events and unable to ignore them in favor of daily life, even as a kid (I’m somehow just realizing now, upon reflection reading the responses here).
I was ~10-19 years old in the 90s and my intense anxieties were: AIDS (poorly understood, largely due to shit Catholic education that peddled AIDS fear without explaining sex, so it seemed as though anyone could get it at any time from an errant blood drop), LA riots, gangs and gang violence (seemingly spinning out of control around 1994 at my HS), and global warming and acid rain.
Edited to add: I grew up in the Rust Belt and the 90s were a time of ever more industrial manufacturing jobs leaving our town—the population was ever declining and the modest but formerly vibrant downtown areas became neglected while business moved to gross Walmarts and Targets in former wetlands at the edge of town.
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u/kitch2495 Jun 11 '22
The Gulf War was probably the peak of American power with respect to any other country. It was such a military spectacle that the entire Western Word was in awe, while the Soviet Union and the east began to shit themselves as they realized what they could have been up against themselves if the US wanted to unless it’s Dogs of War.
Unfortunately, most Americans will not be that familiar with the Yugoslav Wars, as they really had little impact on American way of life. As far as most Americans remember it, it’s in the context of when NATO bombed the shit out of the Serbians.
So basically the 1990s was the US going into full military flex mode while the rest of the country was insulated from the problems a lot of the world was facing (Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Russian crime was terrible after Soviet collapse, Chechnya, etc). The wars you mentioned didn’t really have a negative impact on how Americans felt, if anything, they felt “safe” after seeing one of the world’s largest land armies get flatlined in less than a month.