In the post Cold War era, the United States had faced a series of complex challenges relating to foreign affairs that it had not experienced before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The end of the Cold War was the subsequent emergence of a world order led by the United States as the world's sole superpower allowed for the US to conduct foreign policy without considering the consequences that another superpower might bring on. Furthermore, without the threat of war with a superpower, popular opinion at home became a bigger threat than war for countries who needed protection from their respective superpower, leading to those countries conducting a more independent and unpredictable foreign policy than before. All of this culminated at a time where the consequences of actions taken to end the Cold War were just beginning.