The Gulf War of 1991 is still one of the most fascinating military campaigns in modern memory. For seven brief months, an awesome array of American military muscle, supported by a coalition of allies, was built up in the Persian Gulf region and then unleashed in a lightning campaign that destroyed the opposition with consummate ease. This was a new type of warfare that captivated spectators by its unprecedented sophistication and firepower. New military terminology was injected into the global vocabulary, for example, ‘stealth planes’ and ‘smart bombs’, which provided a new perspective on warfare: ‘weapons vision’ or video imagery showing munitions hitting targets with absolute precision. It was also a media war that propelled a little-known news company, Cable Network News (CNN), into the pre-eminent position in global communications that it continues to hold today.
The impact of the Gulf War on the subject of international relations was profound. It marked the first major crisis of the new post-Cold-War period that did not stem from the old rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. Indeed, the Soviet Union was by then a shadow of its former self, and its reformist leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, was struggling to hold the unwieldy and disintegrating mass together. In Europe, the Iron Curtain had fallen and the oppressed states of eastern Europe stretched out their hands towards capitalism, democracy and, in the case of Germany, unification. For the victorious United States, under the direction of George Bush (Snr), the end of bipolarity offered the world a fresh start, which he idealistically labelled the ‘new world order’, in which international affairs could move away from the debilitating effects of nuclear rivalry, arms races and brinkmanship towards a more harmonious future. Academics like Francis Fukayama argued that the ‘end of history’ had arrived, with the world finally free of the destructive clash of competing ideologies that had dominated the 20th century with such adverse effects. Now, capitalism, supported by liberal democracy, was the only viable way forward, where political systems would rarely, if ever, be incompatible and the future would be a peaceful one...
Contents
Introduction / v Chronology / xi Background to war The origins of the Gulf War / 1 Warring sides Iraq and the coalition forces / 4 Outbreak Saddam invades Kuwait / 12 The fighting Operation Desert Storm / 17 Portrait of a soldier Lieutenant Alex Vernon, 24th Infantry Division (Mechanised) / 52 The world around war The global impact of the Gulf War / 55 Portrait of a civilian Dina’s story / 60 How the war ended Ending hostilities / 62 Conclusions and consequences Casualties / 66
Further reading / 72 Abbreviations / 73 Index / 75
Introduction
The Gulf War of 1991 is still one of the most fascinating military campaigns in modern memory. For seven brief months, an awesome array of American military muscle, supported by a coalition of allies, was built up in the Persian Gulf region and then unleashed in a lightning campaign that destroyed the opposition with consummate ease. This was a new type of warfare that captivated spectators by its unprecedented sophistication and firepower. New military terminology was injected into the global vocabulary, for example, ‘stealth planes’ and ‘smart bombs’, which provided a new perspective on warfare: ‘weapons vision’ or video imagery showing munitions hitting targets with absolute precision. It was also a media war that propelled a little-known news company, Cable Network News (CNN), into the pre-eminent position in global communications that it continues to hold today.
The impact of the Gulf War on the subject of international relations was profound. It marked the first major crisis of the new post-Cold-War period that did not stem from the old rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. Indeed, the Soviet Union was by then a shadow of its former self, and its reformist leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, was struggling to hold the unwieldy and disintegrating mass together. In Europe, the Iron Curtain had fallen and the oppressed states of eastern Europe stretched out their hands towards capitalism, democracy and, in the case of Germany, unification. For the victorious United States, under the direction of George Bush (Snr), the end of bipolarity offered the world a fresh start, which he idealistically labelled the ‘new world order’, in which international affairs could move away from the debilitating effects of nuclear rivalry, arms races and brinkmanship towards a more harmonious future. Academics like Francis Fukayama argued that the ‘end of history’ had arrived, with the world finally free of the destructive clash of competing ideologies that had dominated the 20th century with such adverse effects. Now, capitalism, supported by liberal democracy, was the only viable way forward, where political systems would rarely, if ever, be incompatible and the future would be a peaceful one.
The crisis in the Gulf region, sparked by Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in the late summer of 1990, muddied these hopeful visions of global affairs. A new bogeyman emerged in the international arena in the form of Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, who ordered his massive armed forces to seize Iraq’s rich, though weak in military terms, neighbour. Ironically, just a few years before the invasion, this subsequently demonised dictator had been a close partner of many western nations who had liberally supplied him with weapons to support his fight against the spread of Iranian fundamentalism (see Essential Histories: The Iran-Iraq War 1980–1988).
The critical issue that transformed the situation in the Gulf from a regional dispute into a full-blown international crisis was, above all, the substantial oil reserves in that area and the world’s dependence on this ‘black gold’. If left to his own devices, Saddam Hussein possessed the ability to have influence over, or outright control of, 40 per cent of the known oil supplies on the planet by combining his own reserves with Kuwait and, possibly, that of Saudi Arabia...
The Gulf War 1991 Alastair Finlan
Essential Histories
Routledge New York and London
This hardback edition is published by Routledge, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, by arrangement with Osprey Publishing Ltd., Oxford, England. For information, please address the publisher: Routledge (USA) 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 www.routledge-ny.com Routledge (UK) 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE www.routledge.co.uk First published 2003 under the title Essential Histories 55: The Gulf War 1991 by Osprey Publishing Ltd., Elms Court, Chapel Way, Botley, Oxford OX2 9LP This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
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