The imbalance of power in 1991: collapse of the Soviet Union and allied victory in the Persian Gulf War

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James W. Peterson
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Persian Gulf ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
World Order ◽  
Major Change ◽  
Gulf War ◽  
Persian Gulf War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Russian Constitution ◽  
The Persian Gulf

The two unrelated events of the break-up of the Soviet Union and the allied victory in the Persian Gulf War made the year 1991 a significant turning point for both Moscow and Washington. A full fifteen nations emerged from the shell of the former Soviet Union, while revolutions in the formerly communist managed states of East Europe led to the emergence of democratic forms in all of them. The resulting Russian state was much smaller and weaker than the Soviet state that it supplanted. In contrast, American power surged forth with the coordinated victory in the Persian Gulf War over Iraq, after its invasion of Kuwait, that restored U.S. military credibility after the quagmire of the War in Southeast Asia. New doctrinal formulations emerged on both sides with the new Russian Constitution of 1993 that paralled the rise of the Yeltsin government, and with the New World Order as articulated for a time by the George H.W. Bush administration. The resulting imbalance of power was a major change from the dynamics of the Cold War but also a prod to the ambitions of Russian leaders like Vladimir Putin. However, balance remained with the mutual negotiations that characterized START diplomacy.

“Beyond Containment”

2021 ◽  
pp. 108-151
Author(s):  
Rebecca Lissner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Persian Gulf ◽  
New World ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gulf War ◽  
Persian Gulf War ◽  
New World Order ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Persian Gulf

This chapter studies the Persian Gulf War. Prior to the Persian Gulf War, the United States was focused primarily on Europe, where rapid changes to the regional security order provided early signals of the nation’s dawning preeminence, but few indications of what a “new world order” would entail. Beyond the Soviet Union, there were no clear threats to U.S. global interests, and emergent American grand strategy envisioned a world where economic and diplomatic power would predominate, resulting in some measure of multipolarity. Yet the shock and awe of the war revealed that the United States stood alone as the world’s sole superpower, backed by international political support—including from a surprisingly deferential Russia—as well as unprecedented military preponderance. Washington therefore moved toward a more militarily assertive form of hegemony, characterized by the discretionary use of force to enforce the terms of the “new world order.” The war also inaugurated the preoccupation with Iraq and nonproliferation as central focuses of post–Cold War foreign policy.

Nuclear Weapons, The Persian Gulf War, and The New World Order

1992 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 19-23
Author(s):  
Mathew Kanjirathinkal ◽  
Joseph V. Hickey
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Persian Gulf ◽  
New World ◽  
World Order ◽  
Gulf War ◽  
Persian Gulf War ◽  
New World Order ◽  
The Persian Gulf

The Persian Gulf War

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Spencer D. Bakich
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Persian Gulf ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gulf War ◽  
Persian Gulf War ◽  
American Perspective ◽  
Strategic Success ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Persian Gulf

The Persian Gulf War of 1990–1991 was something of a paradox. From the American perspective, the war had the hallmarks of a resounding victory. Responding to a flagrant case of interstate aggression by Iraq against Kuwait, the George H. W. Bush administration assembled a substantial international coalition to deter further Iraqi attacks against its neighbors in the Gulf and to compel Saddam Hussein into quitting Kuwait, to avoid war. When the latter proved infeasible, the United States led that coalition in forcibly ousting Iraq’s military from Kuwait, substantially degrading Iraqi combat power in the process. The war’s outcome resulted from an auspiciously altered geopolitical landscape at the end of the Cold War, the overwhelming superiority of American power vis-à-vis Iraq, and a US decision-making process that tightly knitted military and diplomatic objectives into a coherent—and coherently executed—wartime strategy. However, America’s historically lopsided victory in the Persian Gulf War proved fleeting. Iraq’s surviving military forces retained the capacity to crush domestic challenges to the Ba’athist regime and to threaten its Gulf neighbors. President Bush’s vision of a post-war new world order notwithstanding, Gulf security depended heavily on continuing military missions years after the Persian Gulf War ended. Despite wartime tactical and strategic successes, grand strategic success eluded the United States in the years after the war.

The Sport/War Metaphor: Hegemonic Masculinity, the Persian Gulf War, and the New World Order

1994 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sue Curry Jansen ◽  
Don Sabo
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Persian Gulf ◽  
World Order ◽  
Gulf War ◽  
Persian Gulf War ◽  
Multiple Systems ◽  
Sport Media ◽  
Sport Industry ◽  
The Persian Gulf ◽  
War Metaphor

Sport/war metaphors during the Persian Gulf War were crucial rhetorical resources for mobilizing the patriarchal values that construct, mediate, and maintain hegemonic forms of masculinity. Theory is grounded in an analysis of the language used during coverage of the war in electronic and print news media, as well as discourse in the sport industry and sport media. Various usages of the sport/war metaphor are discussed. It is argued that sport/war metaphors reflected and reinforced the multiple systems of domination that rationalized the war and strengthened the ideological hegemony of white Western male elites.

Particulate Exposure During the Persian Gulf War

2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Thomas ◽  
Torgny Vigerstad ◽  
John Meagher ◽  
Chad McMullin
Keyword(s):  
Persian Gulf ◽  
Gulf War ◽  
Persian Gulf War ◽  
Particulate Exposure ◽  
The Persian Gulf
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