George H. W. Bush: Address to the Nation on the Commonwealth of Independent States

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

Bush begins by calling attention to the dramatic events of recent months and years, events that led to the dissolution of a totalitarian empire. He notes that for four decades the United States led opposition to Communism at the price of fear of nuclear war. He then states that “the confrontation is now over.” The threat of nuclear war is greatly diminished, he says, and freedom has spread across Eastern Europe and throughout the Soviet republics. Out of the “wreckage” of the Soviet Union has emerged the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Bush goes on to express his appreciation for the efforts of Mikhail Gorbachev, perceived in the West as a far more benign political figure than his predecessors. In his address Bush recognizes that the freedom people in the Soviet world had achieved was the result largely of Gorbachev's efforts to reform the Soviet Union. Bush congratulates the citizens of the Soviet republics for taking the path of independence and then makes a pair of announcements. The first is to support membership of Russia, under the leadership of its president, Boris Yeltsin, on the United Nations Security Council. The second is to recognize the former Soviet states as independent nations. One group—Ukraine, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Kyrgyzstan—consisted of states that at the time had already made “specific commitments” to the United States, though Bush does not specify those commitments. He also recognizes a second group—Moldova, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Georgia, and Uzbekistan—but notes that these states still need to make “commitments to responsible security policies and democratic principles.” A major concern at the time was the disposition of Soviet nuclear weapons in the various republics.

Bush closes by acknowledging that the United States has economic problems; the nation at the time was mired in a recession that most likely cost Bush reelection in 1992. He promises to address those problems but states that the United States cannot “retreat into isolationism,” likely a response to Americans who believed that the end of the cold war could mark the end of American commitments abroad. Only through a prosperous global economy could the United States provide jobs and economic growth for Americans.