The Gulf War

"As the latest volume in the Landmark Presidential Decisions series, The Gulf War provides a fresh and concise look at George H. W. Bush's strategic decision making. Spencer Bakich, an expert in wartime strategy, makes three principal arguments about George H. W. Bush's choice for war to reverse Iraq's August 1990 invasion of Kuwait. First, from 1989-1991 Bush articulated and implemented a coherent "New World Order" grand strategy that sought to promote democracy and free trade through extensive multilateral diplomacy and enhanced American leadership. Second, Bush's New World Order grand strategy powerfully affected the international coalition's coercive diplomacy campaign (Desert Shield) and warfighting strategy (Desert Storm). Third, the Gulf War's outcome exposed faulty assumptions about the international system that underpinned Bush's grand strategy, weakening the president's fidelity to his own approach. In the absence of strong presidential advocacy for the New World Order grand strategy, alternative visions of American statecraft emerged from the national security bureaucracy. Against the argument that the New World Order concept was ill-defined or mere political sloganeering, Bakich highlights its comprehensive grand strategic logic and show how Bush's strategic beliefs oriented American statecraft in peace and war. Ultimately, the Gulf War did usher in a new world order, but it was not the one Bush anticipated"--