Making War to Keep Peace

Iraq Invades Kuwait
On August 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait shattered the peace and optimism of the summer. This was the first clear act of international aggression after the dramatic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe had ended the cold war. The United States, the Gulf States, and their allies were not ready for the invasion. To some Americans, it recalled Hitler's swift moves across Europe at the start of World War II and the consequences of appeasing an aggressor. To others, it recalled the Soviet Union's surprise invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the long, terrible war that followed.
The story of how President George H.W. Bush and the United States responded to this foreign policy challenge is a chronicle of the birth of the new world order. It raises the fundamental questions of how the United States decides what is in its national interest, when it should use military force, the nature of our relationship with the United Nations and the world, and how long our responsibilities to a nation or people persist after military intervention. The crisis also offers an object lesson on the danger of waiting for international consensus when time is of the essence.
President Bush's initial response resembled that of Harry Truman when North Korean forces attacked South Korea in 1950. "By God," Truman said, "I'm going to let them have it!" Later, more introspectively, Truman wrote: "If the Communists were permitted to force their way into the Republic of Korea without opposition from the free world, no small nation would have the courage to resist threats and aggression by stronger Communist neighbors. If this was allowed to go unchallenged, it would mean a third world war, just as similar incidents had brought on the Second World War."1
Saddam Hussein's invasion was not part of a global contest between two superpowers. But it was a clear-cut case of aggression, and Bush had to act.
In fact, Bush was an activist. He hated bullies and was prepared to use American power unilaterally to bring them to order. When Manuel Noriega stole the elections in Panama in 1989, the Organization of American States (OAS) did nothing.2 When Noriega "declared war" on the United States and murdered a U.S. serviceman in the Canal Zone, Bush moved quickly. He was not inhibited by the lack of an OAS resolution of approval and seemed little concerned when Democratic congressmen complained about the use of force without multinational sanctions.
Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was a clear act of aggression across an international border, but in this case its meaning for the United States was less clear. Panama was in our own neighborhood, and the two countries had special ties. The United States had played a role in the creation of Panama, and the canal was built in large measure by U.S. citizens and with American money. Iraq was on the other side of the globe--not part of an historic American sphere of interest.
The First Post-Cold War Conflict
Desert Storm was not the war the United States had planned for. Before 1989, strategic thinkers had assumed a continuing political-military competition with an expansionist Soviet Union that was ready to exploit any weakness and profit from any crisis. Containing Soviet expansion and regional violence had been the principal goal of U.S. policy for decades. The Soviet Union had been our main adversary in a global struggle, but Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was not caused by Soviet expansionism.