A gentle giant

George H W Bush stands out in the history books for what didn’t happen during his time in office. The Berlin Wall crumbled and Communism expired in Russia and Eastern Europe without turbulence or bloodshed. Even more deftly, Bush defused the explosive situation in the Middle East, in the wake of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. The catchy name Operation Desert Storm went down in history and Bush startled the world by pulling out instantly the purpose of freeing Kuwait had been achieved. Even Russia’s Mikhail Gorbachev acknowledged that Bush’s lack of triumphalism when the Berlin Wall fell, helped to ensure there was no counter-coup by hardline Communists at a time when emotions were running high. Bush’s Secretary of State, James Baker later recorded that the President, “went to great lengths not to poke Gorbachev in the eye.” Later, after Boris Yeltsin had faced down a coup attempt, Bush unilaterally junked a large number of US nuclear warheads.

Comparisons are always odious, but it’s impossible not to contrast the low-key Bush ways of getting things done with the brash, constantly raging and threatening style of diplomacy that US President Donald Trump is constantly indulging in. And, it’s impossible not to fear that Trump’s constant diplomatic dramatics will, sooner or later, lead us closer to a global confrontations that could easily be avoided. Bush, after making his millions in the oil industry, had devoted his life to public service first as a senator and then in a succession of jobs including being the CIA chief. Trump, as has now emerged, was still attempting to make deals in Moscow, when his election campaign was under way in June 2016. When asked about this, Trump countered that he had to look after his business interests in case he had lost the election.

The Bush Senior era was, in some ways, the interregnum before the explosive growth era of the 1990s that was about to be triggered. In 1989, the United States was economically still on the back-foot and through the 1980s had watched the rise of the unstoppable Japanese economic giant. That was soon to be reversed with the rise of Silicon Valley and Internet Age. India was on Bush Senior’s radar but not squarely in his sights. The country was stumbling through the era of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination and consecutive coalition governments. During the Bush Senior era, the United States was still indebted to Pakistan for the use of its territory to wage a campaign against the Russians in Afghanistan. But the Americans began to court India during the Bush Senior era with visits by the Defence Secretary Caspar Weinberger. That was the beginning of a process, and by the end 1990s India began to emerge as future economic giant that would present itself as a natural ally in South Asia that the United States should get closer to. Bush Senior’s era was one without theatrics but it was crucially important for the world as we know it today.

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