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The Gulf War and Bush’s formulation

The Gulf War and Bush’s Formulation

Bush started to take the initiative from Gorbachev during the run-up to the Gulf War, when he began to define the elements of the new world order as he saw it, and link the new order’s success to the international community’s response in Kuwait. Initial agreement by the Soviets to allow action against Saddam highlighted this linkage in the press. The Washington Post declared that this superpower cooperation demonstrates that the Soviet Union has joined the international community, and that in the new world order Saddam faces not just the US but the international community itself. A New York Times editorial was the first to assert that at stake in the collective response to Saddam was “nothing less than the new world order which [Bush] and other leaders struggle to shape In A World Transformed, Scowcroft notes that Bush even offered to have Soviet troops amongst the coalition forces liberating Kuwait. Bush places the fate of the new world order on the ability of the US and the Soviet Union to respond to Hussein’s aggression. The idea that the Gulf War would usher in the new world order began to take shape. Bush notes that the “premise [was] that the United States henceforth would be obligated to lead the world community to an unprecedented degree, as demonstrated by the Iraqi crisis, and that we should attempt to pursue our national interest, wherever possible, within a framework of concert with our friends and the international community”.

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