Military and Diplomatic Success in the Persian Gulf War

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1 University Press Scholarship Online You are looking at 1-10 of 15 items for: keywords : Persian Gulf War Military and Diplomatic Success in the Persian Gulf War Spencer D. Bakich in Success and Failure in Limited War: Information and Strategy in the Korean, Vietnam, Persian Gulf, and Iraq Wars Published in print: 2014 Published Online: September 2014 ISBN: eisbn: Publisher: University of Chicago Press DOI: / chicago/ In the Persian Gulf War, America sought to carefully construct a favorable strategic environment so that the war to oust Iraq from Kuwait would not expand to include Israel and the Arab states. To achieve this, a broad coalition was constructed through the United Nations, political objectives were efficiently translated into military strategy, and pressures to expand American war aims were kept in check. This war is remarkable to the extent that American military objectives were achieved and escalation was avoided; the Persian Gulf War was a military and diplomatic success for the U.S. This chapter argues that America's strategic success resulted from the widespread sharing of information and intelligence among all actors and organizations within the American government, including George H. W. Bush, Brent Scowcroft, the National Security Council, the CIA, and generals Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf. Operation Desert Storm's success resulted from this robust American information institution. The United States and Iraq since 1979: Hegemony, Oil and War Steven Hurst Published in print: 2009 Published Online: September 2012 ISBN: eisbn: Item type: book Publisher: Edinburgh University Press DOI: / edinburgh/ This book examines American policy toward Iraq between 1979 and In that period American policy evolved through a series of stages: Initially, the Iranian Revolution and fear of an Iranian threat to America's regional allies and interests led to a tilt toward Saddam Hussein's Iraq that then became a full-blown effort to co-opt Iraq as an American Page 1 of 6

2 regional proxy. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 then precipitated a policy reversal and propelled Iraq to the status of regional enemy number one. The Bush administration sought to destroy the Iraqi threat in the 1991 Gulf War but left Saddam in power. The Clinton administration then sought to contain Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction programmes through the application of sanctions and weapons inspections. Finally, believing containment to have failed, and motivated and empowered by fears generated by the attacks of September 11th 2001, the administration of George W. Bush sought to eliminate the Iraqi threat in the Iraq War of 2003, only to find no weapons of mass destruction and to become mired in a failing effort to transform Iraq into a beacon of democracy in the Middle East. The book explains this policy trajectory in terms of the American effort to restore a regional hegemonic position lost in 1979 and uses a theoretical framework that emphasises the American role in managing the global economy, the centrality of Persian Gulf oil to that role and long-term change in the American political system. The Persian Gulf War, Steven Hurst in The United States and Iraq since 1979: Hegemony, Oil and War Published in print: 2009 Published Online: September 2012 ISBN: eisbn: Publisher: Edinburgh University Press DOI: / edinburgh/ saw American efforts to co-opt Iraq reach a peak during the administration of George H.W. Bush. That strategy was abandoned, however, after Saddam Hussein, in a desperate bid to solve economic problems resulting from his eight year war with Iran, invaded and attempted to annex Kuwait in August Perceiving a direct threat to American control over the flow of oil from the Gulf, the Bush administration soon decided that Iraqi forces must be expelled from Kuwait by whatever means necessary. Having built careful support for this position, Bush launched the Persian Gulf War of 1991, which saw Iraqi forces routed and Kuwaiti sovereignty restored. The Bush administration did not invade Iraq or seek to eliminate Saddam Hussein, however, out of fear that such actions would serve only to empower Iran. They therefore fell back on a policy of sanctions and weapons inspections designed to permanently neutralise the Iraqi threat and, hopefully, to cause Saddam's fall. Page 2 of 6

3 Short Wars of Optimism: Persian Gulf and Anglo-Iranian Alex Weisiger in Logics of War: Explanations for Limited and Unlimited Conflicts Published in print: 2013 Published Online: August 2016 ISBN: eisbn: Publisher: Cornell University Press DOI: /cornell/ This chapter examines a set of wars that were more limited in severity and duration. These include case studies of the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the Anglo-Persian War, both of which match the expectations of the informational mechanism. In both cases, war occurred because the participants disagreed about relative strength or resolve, and in both cases the recognition of its errors forced the loser to make rapid political concessions that allowed for a quick negotiated settlement. The chapter argues that either the informational or the principal-agent mechanism turns out to have been most significant in bringing about the war, while significant commitment problem concerns were absent. The Gulf: The Bush Presidencies and the Middle East Michael F. Cairo Published in print: 2012 Published Online: January 2013 ISBN: eisbn: Item type: book Publisher: University Press of Kentucky DOI: / kentucky/ Despite the appearance of familiar faces in both Bush administrations, significant differences existed between the foreign policies of George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. The Gulf refers to these differences and argues that they can be explained by the personal beliefs and styles of each George Bush. Describing George H.W. Bush as an enlightened realist and George W. Bush as a cowboy liberal, the book begins by exploring the life experiences that contributed to each president s belief system. Comparing and contrasting each president throughout, it focuses on each administration s policy in the Middle East, with specific attention given to the Persian Gulf War, Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Madrid Peace Conference, and the Road Map for peace. The book suggests that presidents rarely fit into a realist or liberal model and combines the two approaches to explain presidential worldviews. George H.W. Bush s emphasis on defensive rather than offensive strategies, and international organizations rather than the power of democracy to foster peace and stability, combine to create an enlightened realist worldview. George W. Bush s emphasis on offensive strategies and the Page 3 of 6

4 power of democracy to foster peace and stability combine to create the cowboy liberal worldview. The book concludes by offering general and specific lessons illuminated by the cases. Suggesting that the study is more than an isolated comparison of the Bushes, the book offers examples of the importance of understanding presidential leadership styles and worldviews. George H. W. Bush and the End of the Cold War: Beyond Containment in the Middle East Douglas Little in Us versus Them: "The United States, Radical Islam, and the Rise of the Green Threat" Published in print: 2016 Published Online: September 2016 ISBN: eisbn: Publisher: University of North Carolina Press DOI: / northcarolina/ Like his predecessors, George H. W. Bush regarded communism as a grave existential danger and worried that Gorbachev s reforms would not endure. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in late 1989 confirmed the demise of the red threat, however, the Bush administration moved beyond containment and sought to establish a New World Order. Although the triumph of containment did not alter U.S. assumptions about the Middle East, where oil and Israel remained top priorities, Bush #41 hoped to broker peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Prospects for a new Middle East took a grim turn in August 1990, when Saddam Hussein seized Kuwait, prompting Bush #41 to send half a million U.S. troops to reverse the Iraqi invasion. While Bush savored his victory in the Persian Gulf, critics warned that he had paid too little attention to a rising tide of Muslim extremism from Afghanistan to Algieria. Welcome to the Suck: Narrating the American Soldier's Experience in Iraq Stacey Peebles Published in print: 2011 Published Online: August 2016 ISBN: eisbn: Item type: book Publisher: Cornell University Press DOI: /cornell/ Our collective memories of World War II and Vietnam have been shaped as much by memoirs, novels, and films as they have been by history books. This book examines the growing body of contemporary war stories in prose, poetry, and film that speak to the American soldier s experience in the Persian Gulf War and the Iraq War. Stories about war Page 4 of 6

5 always encompass ideas about initiation, masculinity, cross-cultural encounters, and trauma. The book shows us how these timeless themes find new expression among a generation of soldiers who have grown up in a time when it has been more acceptable than ever before to challenge cultural and societal norms, and who now have unprecedented and immediate access to the world away from the battlefield through new media and technology. Two Gulf War memoirs provide a portrait of soldiers living and fighting on the cusp of the major political and technological changes that would begin in earnest just a few years later. The Iraq War, a much longer conflict, has given rise to more and various representations. Books and other media emerging from the conflicts in the Gulf have yet to receive the kind of serious attention that Vietnam War texts received during the 1980s and 1990s. The book provokes much discussion among those who wish to understand today s war literature and films and their place in the tradition of war representation more generally. Hollywood's Post-Cold War History: The Righteousness of American Interventionism Trevor B. McCrisken and Andrew Pepper in American History and Contemporary Hollywood Film Published in print: 2005 Published Online: September 2012 ISBN: eisbn: Publisher: Edinburgh University Press DOI: / edinburgh/ In the giddy optimism that accompanied the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the attendant disintegration of the Cold War, commentators, particularly from the American right, looked to a rose-tinted future in which the United States bestrode the world as its only superpower. In recent years, Hollywood has produced a steady stream of films that focused upon the role of America in various unilateral and multilateral military interventions. The question is how these films work to produce or unsettle particular established or consensual views about the inherent righteousness of U.S. military actions and, as a result, how they undermine or reinforce traditional understandings of the benign metanarrative of American history. This chapter focuses on two films: Three Kings (1999), which immediately disturbs the conventional view of the Persian Gulf War, and Black Hawk Down (2001), which shows the devastating impact that modern weaponry and warfare can have on the human body. Page 5 of 6

6 The Disarmament of Iraq Philip Towle in Enforced Disarmament: From the Napoleonic Campaigns to the Gulf War Published in print: 1997 Published Online: October 2011 ISBN: eisbn: Publisher: Oxford University Press DOI: / acprof:oso/ The attempt to disarm Iraq after it was defeated by United Nations forces in the 1991 Persian Gulf War was the first major example of enforced disarmament since the destruction of the Axis armies in This was a typical case of the sort of forced disarmament which follows a limited war. It was tactically offensive but strategically defensive because it was part of a general struggle by the United States and its allies to maintain the status quo and prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Nevertheless, Iraq resisted with all the means at its disposal. As with Germany after the First World War, Iraq was defeated but not overrun. Thus, the anti-iraqi coalition led by the United States tried to persuade the government in Baghdad to co-operate by means of threats, economic sanctions, and military incursions. This chapter looks at the genesis of the forced disarmament programme for Iraq from 1991 to 1995 and its political implications for the allies. Public Opinion and War: A Historical Perspective in In Time of War: Understanding American Public Opinion from World War II to Iraq Published in print: 2009 Published Online: March 2013 ISBN: eisbn: Publisher: University of Chicago Press DOI: / chicago/ The era of public opinion polling began in the 1930s and has spanned wars great and small. Focusing on the period from 1950 to the present, this chapter provides an overview of the different wars the United States has fought since the beginning of the Cold War and a picture of the broad outlines of public support for those wars. In particular, it examines public opinion regarding the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf War, and the wars waged in Afghanistan and Iraq in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, By expanding our historical reach to include the most important war of the twentieth century, it is possible to draw broad conclusions about the roots of public attitudes toward foreign policy more generally. Page 6 of 6