The Gulf War - (Landmark Presidential Decisions) by Spencer D Bakich

About the Book

"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"--

Book Synopsis

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 Bush's strategic decision making and his choice to wage war against Iraq.

Bakich, an expert in wartime strategy, traces the ideas and actions of Bush's 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. Bush's strategic beliefs contained core elements of Wilsonian internationalism--specifically 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 UN's collective security function in the post-Cold War era.

In this bold new interpretation of George H. W. Bush's foreign policy, Bakich challenges conventional wisdom, arguing that Bush's New World Order was carefully defined and had a comprehensive logic. He shows how Bush's strategic beliefs oriented American statecraft in peace and war. Bush's 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 coalition's war aims were completely achieved. In the end, the Gulf War's outcome exposed faulty assumptions about the international system that underpinned the strategy, weakening the president's fidelity to his own approach. Ultimately, the Gulf War did usher in a New World Order, but not the one Bush had envisioned.

Review Quotes

"This volume is an ideal introduction to core concepts of grand strategy and the Bush presidency."--Journal of Military History

"Spencer Bakich brightly illuminates two central realities of one of America's most important foreign engagements of the twentieth century. First, he shows that President Bush not only put together an all-star team of national security experts--Baker, Cheney, Scowcroft, Powell, and Gates--the president personally provided the bold strategic leadership and political backbone indispensable to their success. Second, Bakich elaborately demonstrates how the liberation of Kuwait was central to Bush's conception of a New World Order. Little was done against Baghdad without considering the consequences for Berlin and Moscow--and what Bush hoped would be a prototype of action for the United Nations. An eminently readable and convincing account."--Russell L. Riley, author of Inside the Clinton White House: An Oral History and coeditor of 43: Inside the George W. Bush Presidency

"George H. W. Bush was president at a pivot point in international politics. Most observers say that his extensive experience and prudential disposition made him an effective manager--not a maker--of the post-Cold War world. Spencer Bakich disagrees. He retells the story of Bush era foreign policy with brevity, clarity, and balance. But he does much more. Bakich argues that the elder President Bush actually had a grand strategy for US leadership in the new world that was emerging. This is a controversial claim that challenges conventional wisdom and will generate a healthy reconsideration of the Bush 41 foreign policy legacy."--Robert A. Strong, author of Character and Consequence: Foreign Policy Decisions of George H. W. Bush

"The Gulf War: George H. W. Bush and American Grand Strategy in the Post-Cold War Era offers readers a valuable synthesis of the George H. W. Bush administration's grand strategy. Spencer Bakich reviews how President Bush, National Security Adviser Scowcroft, the NSC staff, and others in the administration conceived and implemented their grand strategy over the months of Desert Shield and weeks of Desert Storm. The book is particularly strong on the diplomatic, military, and political steps taken by the Bush administration to create an international coalition able to evict Iraqi military forces from Kuwait. For a moment, the United States had forged a New World Order, one based on the promotion of stable international relations, the rule of law, respect for human dignity, and the expansion of free markets and democratic government. But as the author shows, this grand strategy foundered on the shoals of Saddam Hussein's truculence in Iraq, events in Yugoslavia and elsewhere around the world, and differences in Washington and among Republicans on the future of US national security policy."--Bartholomew Sparrow, author of The Strategist: Brent Scowcroft and the Call of National Security

"The Gulf War is a well-researched book, and a must-read for all strategists and foreign-policy experts. Bush's ambitions to create a New World Order, which Spencer Bakich lays out in detail, seems out of place today in an environment where democracies are on the ropes, an America First foreign policy is on the rise, and the UN is helpless to end Russia's unprovoked war against Ukraine. Still, this book represents a valuable addition to the literature on grand strategy, international relations, and decision-making at the highest levels."--Joel R. Hillison, lead editor and author of Sustaining America's Strategic Advantage

"When scholars and policy experts discuss America's post-Cold War grand strategy of primacy that plunged the United States into regime change wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places, they typically focus attention on the rise of neoconservatives. Spencer Bakich offers timely analysis that contextualizes this conventional explanation in critical ways. Bakich does so by tracing the roots of primacy back to President George H. W. Bush and his modest grand strategy of the New World Order. In lucid detail, the author shows how the continued existence and brutality of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War along with other major events at the time undermined the more realpolitik elements of the New World Order grand strategy. Coupled with a breakdown in decision-making processes inside the administration, the New World Order gave way to its more idealistic elements, generating critical space for primacy to emerge. Bakich's highly accessible and succinct account is a must-read for grand strategists, scholars, and general audiences with an interest in the history of U.S. foreign policy."--C. William Walldorf, Jr., author of To Shape Our World for Good: Master Narratives and Regime Change in U.S. Foreign Policy, 1900-2011