The Nation; The 'New Order' Is a Tall Order for the U.S.
FOR all of the jubilant comparisons of the triumph in the Persian Gulf to the victory in World War II, Americans have begun to realize that this is not the same world an all-powerful United States faced half a century ago after the defeat of Germany and Japan. Today, threats of civil wars and regional wars survive not only in Iraq and throughout the Middle East, but in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and elsewhere; and the United States, less dominant than it was, confronts severe economic, financial and social problems of its own. The United States is still in a recession which, Government and many private economists say, was triggered by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Unemployment, just 5.2 percent last June, has risen to 6.5 percent. Business failures were higher last year than in any year since 1983. The nation's total output, adjusted for inflation, fell 2 percent in the final quarter of 1990 and is likely to fall further in this quarter. But President Bush's economic advisers tell him that the economy will soon rebound, probably by the middle of this year.
