World Police?
- After a fluffy intro talking about American leadership in the world, Clinton thanks veterans of World War II for their service, including his future campaign opponent, Bob Dole.
- The cold war with the Soviet Union is over, and the president argues that the new threats to America are nationless. He names terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and drugs as examples.
- "We must not be the world's policeman. But we can and should be the world's very best peacemaker" (67.5-6).
- Clinton trumpets the end of the Cold War, declaring "for the first time since the dawn of the nuclear age…there is not a single Russian missile pointed at America's children" (68.2)
- Clinton enumerates the major foreign policy developments during his first term: North Korea has stopped its nuclear weapons program, a revolution in Haiti has brought democracy to the former dictatorship, and peace has taken root in Ireland and Palestine. The civil war in Bosnia has ended.
- Whew—quite a dossier, there.
- Clinton tells the Senate to ratify a treaty with Russia to reduce nuclear stockpiles left over from the cold war.
- Clinton asks Congress to help him "intensify the fight against terrorists…at home and abroad" (75.2). The 1995 Oklahoma City bombing had put terrorism on the minds of the U.S. government, where it would stay until the present.