Jonathan Paul Loomis

February 22, 1999

World Politics

Dr. Greeg

The following are some of the terms discussed in the text which clearly apply to the pre-war events portrayed in the video "The Road to War."

• Intergovernmental Organization. The United States chose to base its authority to act in the Persian Gulf on mandates and votes of the United Nations (an IGO) because the American leadership felt that it would give them a stronger moral base from which to act and also that it would aid in building an international coalition.
• North-South Gap. Some Arab leaders and many Arab states felt that the war was not about ejecting Iraq from Kuwait, but rather a war by the North to keep the south from becoming too powerful.
• Rational Actor. I only note this because there were a number of cases (in the later videos) in which members of the American team mentioned that they felt Saddam Hussein was not acting as a rational actor and that war would likely be unavoidable because he would not respond rationally to other forms of coercion.
• Sovereignty. This is what the world coalition though the war was about, protecting the sovereignty of Kuwait and further the sovereignty rule of world politics in general.
• Alliance Cohesion. This was terribly important during the Gulf Crisis because the coalition was made up of so many different states with different attitudes toward Iraq. The United States had particular trouble with the Soviet Union, Saudi Arabia, and Israel (altough in this last case the problem was keeping Israel out of the coalition).
• Burden Sharing. This seemed rather unimportant in the video, but in reality I felt that it was terribly important. Many states joined the coalition but did not send troops. The most important case was Japan, which significantly bankrolled the war but could not send forces to the region.
• Groupthink. This was important during the crisis because the United States made significant efforts to separate the various Arab states so that they would not unite behind Iraq as a result of anti-American groupthink.
• Rally 'round the flag syndrome. This happened to different degrees in both the United States and in Iraq. The result was that it was nearly impossible for Hussein to back down, and by the time the war had begun it was very difficult for the United States to stop short of Baghdad.