The Gulf War- A Realist Perspective
Introduction
Persian Gulf War, also called Gulf War (1990–91), was an international conflict that was triggered by Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. Iraq’s leader, Saddam Hussein, ordered the invasion and occupation of Kuwait with the apparent aim of
• acquiring that nation’s large oil reserves,
• canceling a large debt Iraq owed Kuwait,
• and expanding Iraqi power in the region.
If Saddam were successful in capturing Kuwait, he would be considered the Supreme Leader of the Oil rich area. But it was not only a question of oil; territory was another relevant issue in Saddam’s agenda. He wanted to gain access of an old disputed territory, Kuwait. The United States, Europe and Japan saw such a potential monopoly as a danger.
This war is important because it puts forward a perfect example of Realism being practiced in real life. The war shows us the need of an International Peacekeeping Organization but also warns us that they might not always be useful and this is when the use of ‘Power’ comes in which is the essence of Realism. In this case the ‘Power’ we are referring to is the United States which intervened in this war to help Kuwait defeat Iraq.
Realist Perspective of the War:
According to realists, the International Political system is anarchical. There is no sovereign entity ruling above the sovereign states in the world. Whilst this anarchy needs not to be chaotic, for various member states of the international
Since the beginning of time, war has been practiced for numerous reasons ultimately to benefit a group of people or nations. But, when war divides the world into two different sides with the capability to destroy faster than we can create, it makes us question, is war really worth it? With the aftermath of World War One, people we’re still divided, but for a different reason, after a war with a catastrophic amount of deaths we had militarists advocating to fight and pacifists demanding peace. The two sources I have used from this essay comes from a European militarist, Friedrich Von Bernhardi with his book “War a Biological Necessity” and United States pacifists, William James, in his book “Moral Equivalent of War”. Therefore this essay will review the
War. Is it a necessary injustice? Does it leave us in triumph or with shattered dreams? War can bring brutality and death to many innocent people, but it can also create unity and result in freedom. The repercussions of war rely on war itself.
When talking about war, there are many books with few answers to what war truly is. Barbara Ehrenreich brings forth not only the possibilities towards understanding war but also the passion people from history have had towards it. One key issue she brings to light is humanities love for war, so much so that people would use excuses like holy wars to justify their need to fight in a war. She declares that war is as muddled as the issue of diseases and where diseases came from around 200 years ago. More so than that she even goes further on to state that these rituals that date back to prehistoric times are the cause of human nature during times of war rather than human instinct.
War is about principles. It can be used to end injustice, tyranny, or both. It can band people together to form a bond that is unbreakable, all fighting for the same cause. But that bond can have a high price. War kills soldiers, tearing them from family; it kills innocent people, just trying to survive.
The Gulf War (2 August 1990 – 28 February 1991), codenamed Operation Desert Shield (2 August 1990 – 17 January 1991) for operations leading to the buildup of troops and defense of Saudi Arabia and Operation Desert Storm (17 January 1991 – 28 February 1991) in its combat phase, was a war - in the Persian Gulf region - waged by coalition forces from 34 nations led by the United States against Iraq in response to Iraq 's invasion and annexation of
Actually defining the Iraq/Iran border still in place today, the world’s finest carpets, outstanding architecture, volatile religious differences, and battles for territory, what do these have in common? To answer this, let’s explore the Ottoman and Safavid Empires. Both empires had a key leader. For the Ottoman Empire 1301-1922 (AD), this was Suleiman the Magnificent. As sultan of the Ottoman Empire he overhauled the Ottoman legal system, led his armies into battle, brought peace to different religious sects, and contributed to the advancement of the arts.
The first great-war shattered the human mind so profound that out of its aftermaths’ emerged a fresh discipline (in 1919 at the University of Whales known to us as International Relations) proposed to prevent war. “It was deemed by the scholars that the study of International Politics shall find the root cause of the worlds political problems and put forward solutions to help politicians solve them” (Baylis 2014:03). International Relations happened to play the role of a ‘correcting-mechanism’ restoring the world order of peace and amity by efforting at its best to maintain the worlds’ status quo. However with the emergence of a second world war much more massive that the first put at stake all the values of that young discipline of IR. The
The result of questionnaire shows that 68% of the students regarded themselves as Kurds only, whereas 32% of the students regarded themselves as Iraqi Kurds, if we take into our consideration that this questionnaire had been done during the period preceding the elections of Iraqi parliament, which effects on the general mode of citizens. * Unpublished paper which submitted (abstract only) to Arab and Islamic Studies (Centre for Gulf studies) in University of Exeter. Although it has been accepted; but unfortunately I couldn’t attend the conference for some reasons. I would like to develop this paper after huge changes occurred in the area.
War has many connotations, negative and positive. Although no matter how you look at it, it is a tough decision. War is a serious subject because of the fact that we are not talking about economics or politics anymore; we are specifically taking into account the lives of the people of our country. It has always been a large decision whether or not to go into war. This stirs up lots of opinions and neutralities that can be seen in our writing as well as our artwork.
Idealism and Realism are two strongly opposed views of foreign policy. At the core of this opposition is the issue of power and security in politics. Realism establishes a separation between politics and ethics in order to understand and comprehend international events. Realists don’t oppose morality to politics, nor power to law, but rather oppose the utopian peaceful society to the nature of society.
The current work is meant to explain the differences and similarities between the most dominant theories in international relations, Realism and Liberalism, both theories have some similarities and differences but much more important and interesting is to discuss and explain what differs and makes similar both theories. Conflicts and wars, Similarities and differences between Realism and Liberalism: Both Liberalism and Realism believes that there is no world government that can prevent countries to go to war on one another. For both theories military power is important and both Realism and Liberalism can understand that countries can use military power to get what they need or want. Also, both theories are conscious that without military
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK It involves using theories to explain the existing problem in various situations. Realism theory and the dependency theory will be used to explain the existing conflict between Israel and Palestine. It will also be able to justify the use of force by the Israeli government when dealing with Palestinian Hamas. Realism theory in the Israeli and Palestine conflict Realism theory explains how states are selfish, struggle to gain power and succeed in acquiring its national interests in the international system. Realists identify world politics as a trans-historical and trans-geographical struggle for power, and that in this context Thucydides’ dictum that, “the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept” (where strength and weakness are calculated by military capabilities) is the stark and universal truth (Schmidt, 2007; Thucydides, 1972, p. 402).
Iran and Iraq war The Iran and Iraq war was in September 22,1980 and ended in August 20,1980. The Iran and Iraq started by the Iraqi forces going into Iran borders and taking over Iran. Iraq had many support unites their was seven the names are Soviet Union ,France ,Qatar ,United States, United Kingdom, Kuwait, Jordan and The MEK. Iran had the KDP and PUK as allied.
Until the Gulf War the Patriot had not been tested in combat. (7) In August 1990, Saddam Hussein ordered his army and strategically placed his troops on the southeastern border of Iraq. Surrounding nations predicted that
T´etreault describes the main contours of Kuwaiti politics in the 20th century with special attention to the 1990s. According to T´etreault, the “main event” of 20th century Kuwaiti politics has been the “repeated clashes between would-be citizens demanding civil and political rights and what has become over the period a deeply entrenched albeit variably autocratic ‘traditional’ regime” (p. 2). Citizens are in conflict with the regime in Kuwait to expand political pluralism while limiting the rulers’ prerogatives. It is not a fight to control a lone dictator the amirs of Kuwait are thus not