Excerpted from:
March 1990,
George Bush Presidential Library: WH: National Security Strategy of the United States (PDF)
bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/pdfs/national_security_strategy_90.pdf
WH: National Security Strategy of the United States: III. Regional Challenges and Responses
The Middle East and South Asia
The free world's reliance on energy supplies from this pivotal region and our strong ties with many of the region's countries continue to constitute important interests of the United States.
Soviet policies in the region show signs of moderating, but remain contradictory. The supply of advanced arms to Libya and Syria continues (as does the cultivation of Iran), though Soviet diplomacy has moved in other respects in more constructive directions.
The Middle East is a vivid example, however, of a region in which, even as East-West tensions diminish, American strategic concerns remain. Threats to our interests--including the security of Israel and moderate Arab states as well as the free flow of oil--come from a variety of sources. In the 1980s, our military engagements--in Lebanon in 1983-84, Libya in 1986, and the Persian Gulf in 1987-88--were in response to threats to U.S. interests that could not be laid at the Kremlin's door. The necessity to defend our interests will continue.
Therefore, we will maintain a naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Indian Ocean. We will conduct periodic exercises and pursue improved host-nation support and prepositioning of equipment throughout the region. In addition, we will discourage destabilizing arms sales to regional states, especially where there is the potential for upsetting local balances of power or accelerating wasteful arms races. We are especially committed to working to curb the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and other weapons of mass destruction, the means to produce them, and associated long-range delivery systems. We will confront and build international pressure against those states that sponsor terrorism and subversion. And we will continue to promote a peace process designed to satisfy legitimate Palestinian political rights in a manner consonant wit h our enduring commitment to Israel's security.
In South Asia, Pakistan and India are both friends of the United States. We applaud the return of democracy to Pakistan and the trends of economic liberalization in both countries. We will seek to maintain our special relationship with our traditional ally Pakistan, steadily improve our relations with India, and encourage Indo-Pakistani rapprochement and a halt to nuclear proliferation. While we welcome the withdrawal of Soviet military forces from Afghanistan, the massive and continuing Soviet arms supply to the illegitimate regime in Kabul reinforces the need for continued U.S. support to the Mujahiddin in their quest for self-determination for the Afghan people. We remain firmly committed to a comprehensive political settlement as the best means of achieving Afghan self-determination and regional security.