The Presidency And The Persian Gulf War

The book focuses on policy-making at the highest levels of the United States government. Chapter contributors examine political, military, and foreign policy processes from micro and macro perspectives in documenting how President Bush personally dominated U.S. national security policy and was the driving force behind the United Nations-backed coalition of nations against Saddam Hussein. The authors place the president's actions into political and historical perspective and examine the consequences of the Gulf War in both military and diplomatic terms. Among the subjects discussed by experts are the president's political and constitutional roles in war-making; the foreign policy implications and military issues in the war; the domestic implications; and the postwar environment and planning for peace.

The Persian Gulf crisis may well have been the most extensively polled episode in U.S. history as President Bush, his opponents, and even Saddam Hussein appealed to, and tried to influence, public opinion. As well documented as this phenomenon was, it remains largely unexplained. John Mueller provides an account of the complex relationship between American policy and public opinion during the Gulf crisis. Mueller analyzes key issues: the actual shallowness of public support for war; the effect of public opinion on the media (rather than the other way around); the use and misuse of polls by policy makers; the American popular focus on Hussein's ouster as a central purpose of the War; and the War's short-lived impact on voting. Of particular interest is Mueller's conclusion that Bush succeeded in leading the country to war by increasingly convincing the public that it was inevitable, rather than right or wise. Throughout, Mueller, author of War, Presidents, and Public Opinion, an analysis of public opinion during the Korean and Vietnam wars, places this analysis of the Gulf crisis in a broad political and military context, making comparisons to wars in Panama, Vietnam, Korea, and the Falklands, as well as to World War II and even the War of 1812. The book also collects nearly 300 tables charting public opinion through the Gulf crisis, making Policy and Opinion in the Gulf War an essential reference for anyone interested in recent American politics, foreign policy, public opinion, and survey research.

and the elder Bush, George W. Bush's White House actively sought to change the international order through preemptive war and aggressive democracy building." --Book Jacket.

The Persian Gulf War was the first war that the United States officially involved itself in as a combatant after Vietnam. It was a war in which many new technological, strategic, political, and economic elements came together for the first time, making th

American politics and political economy series.

Examines events surrounding the 1991 war between Iraq and a worldwide coalition of forces, plus biographical notes on important figures and a look at the effects of this war.

Ideal for student research, this book provides a reference guide to the war as well as seven essays analyzing a variety of aspects of the war and its consequences. The essays address questions such as: How did Saddam Hussein become such a major threat and how has he survived the war? How critical was George Bush in driving U.S. and global foreign policy during the crisis? How were key decisions made? Did the war fail or succeed in retrospect? What were its long-run political, economic, strategic and cultural effects? Can collective security work? Is the United Nations likely to be effective in future crises? What lessons can be learned from the crisis? Yetiv draws on primary documents and extensive interviews with many key players such as Colin Powell, James Baker, and Brent Scowcroft, and Arab and European leaders which cast new light on the event. Following a list of key players and a complete chronology of events, seven essays offer a contemporary perspective on the war: Drama in the Desert; War Erupts in a Storm: The Continuation of Diplomacy by Air and on the Ground; From Truman to Desert Storm: The Rising Eagle in the Persian Gulf; President Bush and Saddam Hussein: A Classic Case of Individuals Driving History; The West Arms a Brutal Dictator: Can Proliferation Be Controlled in the Post-Cold War World?; The United Nations and Collective Security: Was the Gulf War a Model for the Future?; The Impact of the Persian Gulf War. Reference components include a narrative historical overview of the war and biographical profiles of each of the major players in the war. Twelve primary documents include speeches and UN resolutions. A glossary of terms particular to the war and an annotated bibliography complete the work. A selection of photos complements the text. This readable guide is a one-stop source for reference material and in-depth analysis of the key foreign policy event of the 1990s, and should appeal to a broad readership.

An eye-opening look at the effect of the media on public perception of The Persian Gulf War

President George H. W. Bush assumed office at a critical juncture, as the Cold War came to an end and the world shifted to a new era of international relations. In The Gulf War, Spencer Bakich argues that Bush fashioned a grand strategy to bring about a New World Order designed to transform international politics by focusing on great power cooperation through the United Nations. The Persian Gulf War became the chance for Bush to put his strategy into action. This latest volume in the Landmark Presidential Decision series offers a fresh and concise look at President Bush’s strategic decision making and his choice to wage war against Iraq. Bakich, an expert in wartime strategy, traces the ideas and actions of Bush’s new world order strategy between 1989 and 1991, which had a profound impact on the diplomacy of Desert Shield and the warfighting of Desert Storm. Bush’s strategic beliefs contained core elements of Wilsonian internationalism—specifically its goals of promoting democracy, conducting multilateral diplomacy through international institutions, and transforming the United Nations into the collective security institution that its founders envisioned. His “New World Order” was not mere political sloganeering intended to bolster support for the Persian Gulf War among a skeptical American public. Rather, Bush intended the Gulf War to exercise and firmly establish the UN’s collective security function in the post–Cold War era. In this bold new interpretation of George H. W. Bush’s foreign policy, Bakich challenges conventional wisdom, arguing that Bush’s New World Order was carefully defined and had a comprehensive logic. He shows how Bush’s strategic beliefs oriented American statecraft in peace and war. Bush’s grand strategy was remarkably coherent, powerfully affecting how his administration decided to go to war to evict Iraq from Kuwait, how it waged war in the Persian Gulf, and ultimately the reasons why the fighting was terminated before the coalition’s war aims were completely achieved. In the end, the Gulf War’s outcome exposed faulty assumptions about the international system that underpinned the strategy, weakening the president’s fidelity to his own approach. Ultimately, the Gulf War did usher in a New World Order, but not the one Bush had envisioned.