The 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 Bushs strategic decision making and his choice to wage war against Iraq.Bakich, an expert in wartime strategy, traces the ideas and actions of Bushs 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. Bushs strategic beliefs contained core elements of Wilsonian internationalismspecifically 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 UNs collective security function in the postCold War era. In this bold new interpretation of George H. W. Bushs foreign policy, Bakich challenges conventional wisdom, arguing that Bushs New World Order was carefully defined and had a comprehensive logic. He shows how Bushs strategic beliefs oriented American statecraft in peace and war. Bushs 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 coalitions war aims were completely achieved. In the end, the Gulf Wars outcome exposed faulty assumptions about the international system that underpinned the strategy, weakening the presidents fidelity to his own approach. Ultimately, the Gulf War did usher in a New World Order, but not the one Bush had envisioned.