The Iraqi Aggression Against Kuwait

Strategic Lessons And Implications For Europe

Wolfgang F. Danspeckgruber, Charles Tripp

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9780367308711
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000302653
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The war for the liberation of Kuwait following the Iraqi invasion in 1990 rekindled the international community's geopolitical interest in the Gulf and helped define a new regional order. This book analyzes the political, strategic, and economic dimensions of the second Gulf War, with particular focus on military aspects. An international roster of experts treats issues of strategy, weapons technology, arms transfers, and the impact on the Arab state system. Of special interest is the exploration of the implications of the war for Japan, Germany, Russia, and Europe.

1
Introduction

Wolfgang F. Danspeckgruber and Charles R.H. Tripp

A crisis in international relations is a useful reminder of some of the problems that beset the international system at any given moment in history. It is also frequently a reminder that problems exist in understanding or explaining the workings of that system. In both respects, the crisis caused by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in the summer of 1990 was no exception. As a relatively recent occurrence, it has the capacity, in retrospect, to shed light on the condition of the principal actors at that particular moment, raising questions about the significance of that specific juncture of events in world history. At the same time, the crisis could be said to throw light forward into the near future, providing clues about the dominant patterns of international behavior. Clearly, an interpretative challenge of two different kinds exists. For those who remain key actors in the political realm touched by the forces that shaped and defined the Kuwait crisis of 1990-1991, the lessons learned remain central to their own political strategies. Equally, for those interested less in questions of immediate advantage and security in the conduct of international relations than in the analytical framework within which such questions might usefully be examined, the lessons provide a challenge of interpretation. As in most questions of international relations, or indeed of politics generally, one of the abiding interests of the Kuwait crisis is the light it sheds on the nature of power. Whether viewed on the level of the states, of the regional subsystem, or globally, an understanding how power was perceived, handled, and projected underlies the various possible interpretations of the crisis. Of particular interest is the complex relationship between power and authority in the international system. Understanding this relationship requires, first, examining the ways in which the nature of the authority of the ruling groups or institutions of the major protagonists gave rise to beliefs in the utility of particular projections of power. Second, one must look at the authority of the principal institutions and rules of the international system itself and the capacity of such norms, if consistently internalized, to regulate the behavior of international actors. Third, one must look at the utility of sanctions—direct, possibly coercive uses of power—for upholding a particular international order. Further more, surrounding all of these dimensions are clusters of more specific issues that also illuminate the often problematic nature of the relationship between power and authority at various levels.

In the two states most intimately involved in the crisis—Iraq and Kuwait—there were clearly different perceptions about the authority of the rules governing bilateral relations between states. These differences can be explained in large part by the differences in the relative power of the two states. Kuwait, a weak state in the international system despite its considerable financial resources, had always been somewhat circumspect with regard to its northern neighbor. During the 1980s, however, the effects of Iraq's war with Iran began to change the nature of the relationship between the two countries. First, the financing of the Iraqi war effort fell in part on Kuwait, so that by the end of the war in 1988, Kuwait was one of Iraq's main creditors. Second, Iraq's determination to enlist international and regional support for its war against Iran had led it to a markedly conciliatory stance with regard to both the international and the regional rules of the game. Baghdad's new position appears to have reassured the Kuwaiti government—and others. In assessing how far to pursue its economic interests, the Kuwaiti government seems to have believed that its weakness relative to Iraq in other fields was somehow neutralized by Iraq's acceptance of the authority of international norms.

As the events of August 2, 1990, demonstrated, Kuwait remained weak vis-à-vis Iraq. The government of Iraq viewed the question of authority relative to power in different terms than Kuwait did. The massive increase in Iraq's military power during the war with Iran had been accompanied by its financial enfeeblement. At the same time, the rules of the international game Iraq had so assiduously cultivated, as well as the Arab state order it had so enthusiastically endorsed, were now threatening to foreclose on it. In Iraq's relations with external powers and in its relations with its Arab creditors, the authority of the rules of the international and regional systems seemed to be working against the immediate interests of the Iraqi government. Consequently, to have accepted their authority would have undermined the authority of the Iraqi regime itself. In such a situation, Iraq's use of military power seemed to make sense, since its relative advantage in the bilateral relationship with Kuwait appeared to be overwhelming. Indeed, in the context of the region, whether defined as the Persian Gulf or the Arab world more generally, nothing was likely to match Iraqi military power.

In invading Kuwait, Iraq attempted in a number of ways to keep the conflict within a setting that would maintain its massive relative advantage. First, it challenged the authority of an international state system founded on the interests of departed European imperial powers. Thus, Iraq's the old claim resurfaced that Kuwait was really part of Iraq, unjustly severed from the Iraqi state by British imperial map making. Iraq therefore depicted the invasion as merely the reassertion of its "national rights," too long denied by an unjust world order. Viewed in this light, Iraq could represent the Kuwaiti occupation as nothing more than the reconquest of part of Iraq itself, and could render the whole affair an internal matter, wholly within the jurisdiction of the Iraqi state. In this sphere, of course, the power of the Baghdad regime was absolute and the authority by which it claimed to be acting was merely that of national sovereignty.

Whether any members of the Baghdad regime seriously expected other states to accept this reasoning is unclear, although the supine reaction of the world community in 1980 when Iraq invaded Iran on similarly spurious grounds may have provided encouragement. Moreover, accompanying Iraq's claim that the invasion of Kuwait was merely an internal affair was its equally vehement assertion that it was an affair internal to the Arab world alone. This claim found greate sympathy within the region and gave rise to the call for an "Arab solution" to this allegedly distinctively Arab problem. In making this claim, Iraq sought to confine the crisis to an arena in which it believed it had the relative advantage, since, if the claim were accepted, it would have negated the authority of any non-Arab power to act in the matter.

Essentially, therefore, Iraq asserted that the authority of the international system did not apply in this case. Instead it advanced an alternative principle of national self-determination, which could be understood as applying either to an Iraqi framework or to a pan-Arab framework. Although this notion achieved a certain currency in some of the Arab states, others perceived it as a way for Iraq to attempt to hold what it had already seized. Any illusions that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Syria had entertained about the capacity of a distinct set of norms to restrain the behavior of one Arab state toward another had been shattered in August 1990. Paradoxically, therefore, the Iraqi government had demonstrated by its actions against Kuwait that no distinct normative order governed the relationships between the Arab states. Its use of military power to invade—indeed, to annihilate—a fellow Arab state had demonstrated clearly that the situation was not distinctly an Arab problem that could be resolved by an "Arab solution." It had become, instead, a crisis of international proportions in which the authority of the international system was to be used to justify the means of power by the dominant states in a bid to reverse the effects of Iraq's use of coercive power against Kuwait.

Having created a crisis of global significance, Iraq was forced to suffer the consequences of a global response. In this enlarged sphere, Iraqi power counted for little. A diverse array of regional states had a strong interest in seeing Iraqi power checked, if not wholly broken. Most directly for Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, but also for Egypt, Syria, Iran, and Israel, the prospect of blocking Iraqi ambitions and curbing Iraqi power was eminently desirable. Iraq's military actions had demonstrated that the Iraqi government rejected the rules that might be said to underlie even a minimal regional order (although Iran scarcely needed any reminders). Iraqi actions had threatened simultaneously the authority of the international order and the economic and strategic interests of the dominant industrialized states that had constructed and maintained that order. However, Iraq's actions also appeared to threaten the rules of that international order, the maintenance of which is in the national interest of the states that enjoy a dominant position within that order. In other words, by flouting this authority, Iraq challenged the very rules of the international game.

For the United States and its allies Iraq's actions provided a potent incentive for response. The speed, thoroughness, and coordination of that response testified to their view of the gravity of the Iraqi government's action. The imposition of sanctions, the mobilization of global support, and the rapid transfer of military forces to the Gulf made it clear that the United States and its allies felt that Iraq had not simply challenged the power of particular states: It had challenged the principles upon which that power claimed to be founded. In their view, Iraq had flouted the authority of the global order and, indirectly, the authority of those governments that constituted the ruling hierarchy.

Iraq had few resources to deploy in response to this reaction. It no longer had recourse to the assistance of an international patron that was on a par with the Coalition rapidly forming against it. Iraq's invasion of Kuwait coincided with the twilight of the USSR and a time of disintegration of the logic of the Cold War. Iraq was alone against the dominant global powers and the world order associated with them. During the crisis the Iraqi government questioned the authority of that order in a number of ways. It argued that its invasion of Kuwait was aimed at redressing the imbalance in power between rich and poor, not simply in the region, but also in the world. Further, Iraq persistently attempted to link its occupation of Kuwait with the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and Golan in 1967. The Iraqi government promised to consider withdrawing from Kuwait only after significant steps had been taken by the international community to ensure the Israeli withdrawal from the territories occupied in 1967. Its challenge was intended to serve a twofold purpose. First, a positive response by the dominant world powers to the Iraqi suggestion would have prepared the way for an honorable withdrawal from Kuwait—a withdrawal that the Iraqi authorities came to realize was increasingly inevitable. In other words, Iraq's initial use of power would have been shown to have laid the foundation for the authority of the Iraqi government that had devised this strategy, both in Iraq and in the Middle East.

Second, if the international community did not agree to Iraq's suggestion, as was the case, then the Iraqi government would have grounds for leveling a charge of hypocrisy and double standard. Indeed, this theme was in evidence throughout the crisis. Iraq's intention was presumably to challenge once again the authority of the world order by demonstrating that, for all the talk of principles by the dominant powers, in the event of military occupation, when their own interests as world powers were concerned, they could ignore the authority of those principles. The Iraqi government was attempting to demonstrate that the crisis over Kuwait was not about the authority of the rules of international behavior, but about power politics. Iraq argued that the dominant states would not act against Israel because that country was useful to the projection of their own power. However, because Iraq had dared to challenge that power, it was to be subjected to the full force of Western military might, thinly veiled by the claims of protecting the authority of an international order. Again, one cannot ascertain whether the Iraqi government seriously thought that its accusations would divide the international Coalition and confuse some of its members, but Baghdad did reiterate the theme again and again. The charge of a "double standard" became the rallying cry of various groups in various places against the military action being planned by the American-led Coalition. It also induced some members of that Coalition to press for acknowledgment of the possibility of "linkage" between the Kuwait crisis and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Even those who most vehemently denied the possibility of "linkage," such as the United States itself, felt they had no choice but to signal a willingness to attend to the Arab-Israeli conflict once the Kuwait crisis was resolved. Although this response did not signify acknowledgment of the Iraqi idea of consequential linkage, it did link the two issues sequentially and thereby indicated some sensitivity to the charge.

Nevertheless, this sensitivity was largely pragmatic. The impression given by the Bush administration and others was less that a true contradiction existed in their attitudes toward the two issues than that the belief that such a contradiction might exist was in some way damaging to the effectiveness of the Coalition against Iraq. Thus, American gestures or references made toward the Arab-Israeli conflict in the course of the Kuwait crisis had more to do with reassuring less certain allies than with an attempt to cover up an alleged case of a double standard. Indeed, the whole issue of double standards seems to have been the result of a misunderstanding about the nature of power and authority in the international system.

For the governments of the dominant world powers, as for those of all states, the national interest is the single standard by which to judge the worth of any given arrangement. In the final analysis, the national interest is the authority by which all states act. They may cede a degree of authority to other, nonnational bodies but only because they believe that such a concession is in their long-term interest, however defined. Thus, the world order is inevitably based on the values and proclivities of the dominant states. That many other states subscribe to those principles clearly enhances their authority. However, this authority is not some form of an ethical absolute. On the contrary, it has been constructed in the image of the great powers within a system designed to serve their purposes. That there may be a large degree of agreement about those purposes and, therefore, the value of the system of rules in which they may legitimately be pursued is testimony as much to the real power of the dominant states as to the abstract authority of the system as a whole.

In some respects, this highlights one of the problems facing the Iraqi government in 1990-1991. Having flouted the rules of one system and the authority by which those rules were invoked, the Iraqi government could not escape the logical consequences of its actions. For one thing, its charge that the dominant powers adhered to a double standard could have little effective purchase. These powers were acting according to the single standard of national interest. To this end, they invoked the rules of the world order that they themselves dominated, since Iraq had so obviously and unequivocally broken the rules of that order. At the same time, because Iraq's action had materially affected the specific regional interests of particular states and had demonstrated an intention to project power that was unrestrained by anything other than prudential considerations, the immediate foundations of the power of these regional states appeared to be put at risk. The nature of the Iraqi action—the context of its occurrence and the dual character of the threat it represented—suggested both the nature of the response and the authority invoked to justify that response. Furthermore, Iraq simply did not have the moral resources or the material capacity to back up its government's claims to be acting in the name of a new, more just world order. It was therefore confronted by the unmediated military power of the alliance ranged against it.

As the military campaigns of the Kuwait War demonstrated, Iraq's power, although formidable in certain contexts, was less than that of the Coalition. Military operations are, of course, an exercise in power, but they also have an authoritative component. On both levels, the armed forces of the Iraqi state were found wanting. Precisely because the Iraqi government's power failed so spectacularly, its long-standing deterrent effect within Iraq evaporated. In much of the country no authority structure existed to maintain domestic order when military power collapsed. The consequences were the widespread uprisings in the north and south of the country in March 1991.

It was during these uprisings that the question arose whether the international Coalition that had liberated Kuwait should use its probably unstoppable power to capture Baghdad, thereby ending the rule of Saddam Hussein. Once again, the problematic relationship between power and authority in international relations surfaced. It was generally believed that only the Iraqis themselves have the authority to change their government. But, in 1991, those Iraqis who wished to change their government and had the authority to do so clearly lacked the power to carry this project through. They appeared to require the assistance of the foreign Coalition forces.

For the United States and its allies, however, the situation raised two problems. First, they could not be certain that the Coalition that had been assembled to uphold the sovereignty of Kuwait and to use force to reestablish that sovereignty would accede to undertaking a massive intervention in Iraq in an attempt to establish a particular form of political order in the country. The Coalition's intervention in Iraq might not have made much difference in terms of the power needed to effect a decisive change in the power of the Iraqi government's forces. It would, however, have posed a challenge to the authority America and its allies would have had to invoke to justify such an exercise of power. Second, the situation touched on another aspect of the relationship between power and authority—the realization that the use of power to dismantle one political order, such as the regime of Saddam Hussein, would not automatically result in the suggestion of an authoritative successor. Indeed, many people feared that powerful and profound intervention by external forces might complicate and indeed delay the emergence of any new authoritative structures in Iraq, leaving the foreign forces with the task of maintaining order without the backing of any accepted Iraqi authority.

The potential consequences of this course of action, redolent as they were of other inconclusive and ultimately damaging military interventions, were enough to discourage the Bush administration from undertaking military involvement on this scale. Instead, the order restored to the Gulf in the aftermath of the crisis over Kuwait reflected the predilections and interests of the principal players. This outcome should not be surprising, since Iraq's challenge to that order is what provoked the crisis in the first place. The UN and hence Washington and the international community had used power to restore the disrupted order, invoking the authority of the United Nations as justification for the continued use of that power.

As a consequence of the Kuwait crisis, Iraq's military power has been reduced or restrained in certain areas. Its ballistic missile program and its programs for developing weapons of mass destruction have been severely curtailed, possibly terminated, by the intrusive activities of UN teams. Under the terms of the Security Council resolutions, the Iraqi armed forces have been constrained from reestablishing central government control in the northern Kurdish areas of the country. Similarly, the Iraqi air force has been prohibited from operating in areas of the south, although central government control has been reestablished there. All of these measures, as well as the continuing economic sanctions, have been implemented in the name of the United Nations; all of them, however, are backed up and made a reality by the power of the United States. The latter is the power that Iraq has felt whenever its government has been tempted to defy the impositions placed upon it; consequently, Iraq perceives the invocation of UN authority as merely a cover for the power of the United States.

In other words, Iraqi attitudes toward the authority of the international order do not seem to have changed much. On the contrary, the experiences of the Kuwait crisis and its aftermath appear to have rein-forced the Iraqis' belief that power—expressed ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• PART ONE National and Regional Dimension
• PART TWO Power, Strategy, and Technology
• PART THREE Outside Powers and the Emerging Order
• Appendix A: Resolutions of the United Nations Security Council Regarding the Situation Between Iraq and Kuwait
• Appendix B: Chronology
• List of Abbreviations
• About the Book and Editors
• About the Contributors