The End of the Cold War, Desert
Storm, and the New World Order
Theme: The US emerges as the world’s
only superpower
Lesson 24
President Reagan
• During the1980s, Cold
War tensions increased
as Ronald Reagan
pursued a vigorous antiSoviet policy
– Characterized the Soviet
Union as “the evil empire”
– Dedicated massive
amounts of money to
military spending to include
the Strategic Defense
Initiative or “Star Wars”
– Successfully confronted
communist challenges in
Grenada and Nicaragua
Reagan delivers his “Mr.
Gorbachev, Tear Down This
Wall!” speech in 1987
The Soviet Union
• While the US was
spending at levels the
USSR was finding difficult
to match, the Soviets
were having their own
internal problems
– The Soviets withdrew from
Afghanistan in 1989 after
ten years of a failed war
many likened to the US
experience in Vietnam
– The Soviet economy and
those of its eastern and
central European satellites
were in serious trouble
US-supplied Stinger missiles
helped the mujahedeen
defeat Soviet forces in
Afghanistan
Gorbachev
• With economic and political reforms
obviously needed, Soviet premier
Mikhail Gorbachev initiated
perestroika (the “restructuring” or
decentralizing of the economy) and
glasnost (an “opening” of the Soviet
society to public scrutiny)
• Gorbachev’s reforms proved
difficult to implement and
unleashed hostility from the old
order it threatened, long
suppressed criticism, and ethnic
and nationalist separatism
• By the summer of 1990,
Gorbachev’s reforms had spent
themselves
Collapse of the Soviet Empire
• Revolutions broke out
throughout eastern
Europe as people
overthrow communist
dictators in places like
Poland, Bulgaria, and
Romania and
countries such as
Czechoslovakia and
Yugoslavia broke apart
• The Berlin Wall came
down on November 9,
1989 and East and
West Germany united
in 1990
The 1989 Romanian Revolution
was a violent overthrow of the
communist regime of Nicolae
Ceauşescu
Collapse of the Soviet Empire
• Beginning in August 1991,
Soviet republics began
declaring their independence
from the USSR
• Also in August, a group of
conspirators representing
dissatisfied elements of the
Communist Party, the KGB,
and the military attempted to
seize power while Gorbachev
was on vacation
• Boris Yelstin crushed the coup,
but himself replaced
Gorbachev
• By the end of 1991, the USSR
had ceased to exist
AP photo of Boris Yelstin
atop an armored personnel
carrier encouraging
resistance to the coup
End of the Bipolar World
• The demise of the Soviet Union left the US as
the world’s sole superpower
• Without the danger of a superpower
confrontation, the US was now more free to use
its military power
• Additionally, new opportunities for cooperative
international efforts would become possible
without the bipolar competition
• This new dynamic would be tested when Iraq
invaded Kuwait in 1990
Desert Storm
Theme: The end of the Vietnam
Syndrome
The Middle East
Background
• Majority of region administered by Britain until postWorld War II.
• Long-standing disputes between Iraq and Kuwait.
– Iraq argues Kuwait is an Iraqi province.
• Iraq mobilized and prepared for invasion in 1961
immediately after Kuwait was granted
independence by Britain.
– Iraq wants Kuwait to forgive debts Iraq owes from
Iran-Iraq War.
• Claims Kuwait actually owes Iraq for “defending” it
against Iran.
– Iraq accuses Kuwait of overproduction of oil/theft of
Iraqi oil.
• On Aug 2, 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait
Coalition Operations
• The end of the Cold War and Russia’s willingness
to join the US in opposing Iraq created an
unprecedented level of international cooperation
• The United Nations adopted resolutions
condemning Iraq and authorizing the use of force
• Thirty-six countries (as well as Kuwait) contributed
forces
Combat Operations
• 17 Jan 1991 - Air war
begins
• 23 Feb - Ground war
begins
• 28 Feb – Cease fire takes
effect
• 2 March – 24th Infantry
Division fights last
engagement of the war
• 3 March – Norman
Schwarzkopf accepts Iraqi
surrender at Safwan
Shaping Operations
• Create and preserve
conditions for the success
of the operation
– FM 3-0, p. 4-23
• Air operation
– Cut supplies bound for Iraqi
forces in Kuwait from 20k
tons per week to 2k tons
per week and eliminated
Iraqi air threat
• Deception operation
– Highly visible Marine
rehearsals persuaded
Saddam to commit an
estimated four divisions to
protect his flank against an
amphibious assault
Leaflets such as these
deceived the Iraqis into
thinking the main attack would
be amphibious
The Shift Westward
The Ground Offensive Plan
As Samawah
Iraq
Iran
An Nasiriyah
Al
Basrah
Al
Busayyah
XVIII
Airborne
Corps
Republican
Guards
Persian
Gulf
VII
Corps
Kuwait
City
JFC
Hafir North MARCENT
al Batin
Third Army
Saudi Arabia
The ground war begins Feb 23
Khafji
JFC
East
“Highway of Death”
Situation, February 28, 1991
Iraq
As Samawah
XX
An Nasiriyah
101
XX
XX
6
Iran
82
FR
XVIII
Airborne
Corps
Al
Busayyah
Al
Basrah
XX
AL
24
III
AD
3
XX
1
XX
1
VII
Corps
XX
3
XX
1
III
XX
JFN
Persian
Gulf
XX
2
1
XX
UK
2
Marine
X
XX
2 1
Marine
XX
JFE
Kuwait
City
JFC
North
US Third Army
MARCENT
Hafir
al Batin
Saudi Arabia
JFC
East
Iraq
• The objective of Desert Storm
was to liberate Kuwait, not to
destroy the Iraqi army or
remove Saddam
• Even though the coalition
experienced amazing military
success, Saddam remained in
power and crushed short-lived
uprisings by the Kurds in the
north and the Shia in the south
• Iraqi Freedom would have the
objective of changing the
regime in Iraq
Legacy of Desert Storm
• Won with an operational concept that sought
in a single climatic operation to destroy the
enemy’s center of gravity
• In 100 hours of combat, American forces
destroyed or captured more than 3,000 tanks,
1,400 armored carriers, and 2,200 artillery
pieces
• The “Great Wheel” swept over and captured
almost 20,000 square miles of territory
• Only about 140 soldiers died in direct combat
• Erased the “Vietnam Syndrome”
• Scales, Certain Victory, p. 382-383
The New World Order
Theme: International cooperation and
military intervention in the post-Cold War
era
“New World Order”
• “We stand today at a unique and extraordinary
moment. The crisis in the Persian Gulf, as grave
as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move
toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of
these troubled times, our fifth objective -- a new
world order -- can emerge: a new era -- freer
from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of
justice, and more secure in the quest for peace.
An era in which the nations of the world, East
and West, North and South, can prosper and live
in harmony.…
“New World Order”
• ….A hundred generations have searched for this
elusive path to peace, while a thousand wars
raged across the span of human endeavor.
Today that new world is struggling to be born, a
world quite different from the one we’ve known.
A world where the rule of law supplants the rule
of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize
the shared responsibility for freedom and justice.
A world where the strong respect the rights of
the weak.”
– President George H. W. Bush Sept 11, 1990
Post-Cold War Environment
• Cold War threats were
potentially catastrophic but
they were also measurable
and somewhat predictable
• The bipolar structure and
the desire to avoid
superpower confrontation
had provided a certain
degree of order and
stability
• The post Cold War period
was much more
ambiguous and uncertain
and many new threats
emerged
CIA Director James Woolsey
described the post-Cold War
environment by saying, “We have
slain a large dragon (the U.S.S.R.) —
but we now live in a jungle filled with a
bewildering variety of poisonous
snakes. In many ways, the dragon
was easier to keep track of.”
International Economic Challenges
• The Post Cold War era included an everwidening gap between rich industrialized nations
(mostly in the Northern Hemisphere) and poor
agricultural ones (mostly in the Southern
Hemisphere)
• The goal of all poor nations is economic growth,
but most lack the requirements for industrial
development
– Trapped in a cycle of poverty: lack of capital resulting
from low production leads to low savings which in turn
means little or no available capital for future
development projects
International Economic
Opportunities
• The collapse of communism in
the USSR and Eastern Europe
opened up huge economic
markets
– On the other hand West
Germany’s previously booming
economy struggled as it tried to
integrate the much poorer former
East Germany
• In 2004, the EU swelled to 25
members including the former
Soviet republics of Latvia,
Lithuania, and Estonia
As Germany moved its
capital from Bonn to
Berlin, construction
projects were rampant
Ethnic Conflict and Humanitarian
Crisis in the 1990s
• The Cold War structure had kept in check ethnic
divisions in many countries and limited military
interventions
• The end of the Cold War changed all that
– UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali
advocated the “legitimate involvement” of the UN in
“peace enforcement” and “peacemaking” operations
– President Clinton proclaimed a “National Security
Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement”
• After the Cold War, the United Nations went from
an average of three or four peacekeeping
operations a year to 13 in December 1992
Ethnic Conflict and Humanitarian
Crisis in the 1990s
• “In a globalized war, bad things that happen in
other countries spread more quickly to our
shores. Genocides spawn refugees, who
destabilize their neighbors. Corruption sparks
financial meltdowns, which rock the world
economy. Pandemics hopscotch across the
globe.”
– Peter Beinart in explaining why the US intervened in
Kosovo where there was “no direct threat to the US”
(Time, 23 Apr 2007, 28)
Ethnic Conflict and Humanitarian
Crisis in the 1990s
• In Somalia, various clan
leaders struggled for power
and plunged the country into
a humanitarian crisis
• When Yugoslavian republics
began to seek
independence, terrible
ethnic conflicts ensued
– Bosnian Serbs initiated an
“ethnic cleansing” campaign
against Bosnian Muslims
– Yugoslav Serbs did the same
against Kosovar Albanians
Warlord Mohammed Farah
Aidid emerged as the
dominant clan leader in
Somalia
Ethnic Conflict and Humanitarian
Crisis in the 1990s
• A military coup in Haiti
ousted the democratically
elected president and
motivated thousands of
Haitians to flee to the US
in fragile boats
• Ethnic violence erupted
between Hutu and Tutsis
in Rwanda which resulted
in up to a million deaths,
mostly from the Tutsi
minority
Deep gashes in the skulls of
victims of the Rwanda
genocide evidence the
violence of their deaths
Ethnic Conflict and Humanitarian
Crisis in the 1990s
• East Timor declared
independence after
a 27-year
occupation by
Indonesia but antiindependence militia
forces unleashed a
campaign of
violence and
destruction
International Efforts
• The United Nations Charter proclaims one of the
UN’s principle purposes as being “to maintain
international peace and security”
• Sometimes the UN effectively intervened in
these crises, sometimes it didn’t
– Same for the United States
• The US found that its status as world economic
and military superpower would not necessarily
equate to unchallenged world leadership
– The US would meet a host of challenges within the
UN and from non-governmental organizations
(remember Lesson 23) as well as from new enemies
Next Lesson
• Post Cold War Challenges: September 11
and Terrorism