Making War to Keep Peace by Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Read Free Book Online

superior force than to hold out the prospect of a diplomatic solution based on a compromise. In such situations, the mirage of a peaceful alternative to war breeds false hope and diminishes the will to fight, though the “solution” may be only the first step on the road to defeat. The classic textbook example is Neville Chamberlain’s “peace in our time” compromise at Munich.
    If Saddam Hussein did not understand how vulnerable the West is to appeals to peace, his good friend Yasir Arafat did. Words like “negotiatedsettlement, peaceful solution,” and “compromise” are the political equivalents of the rubber hammers with which physicians test our reflexes. But any compromise that gave Iraq a piece of Kuwait would have rewarded Saddam’s aggression and left him stronger than ever and emboldened to target other governments in the region. On behalf of the coalition, Bush and Baker rejected the siren song of appeasement. “It’s our position that he should not in any way be rewarded for his aggression,” Baker said. 55
    As Carl von Clausewitz observed, as long as an aggressive man remains armed, he can be persuaded to abandon his aggression by “one single motive alone, which is that he waits for a more favorable moment for action…. If the one has an interest in acting, then the other must have an interest in waiting.” 56
    Preparations for war went forward. At the end of October 1990, 200,000 more U.S. troops were ordered to the Gulf, doubling the total in the region. Saddam had made not one move to end the devastation and plunder of Kuwait or defend its suffering people, and now the U.S. and allied troops and materiel required to restore Kuwait’s independence were being moved into position. Saddam Hussein had been given ample notice of the seriousness with which the United States and its allies regarded his aggression, though he may not have understood that unless he withdrew his forces, they would be driven out.
    â€œIf we desire to defeat the enemy,” wrote von Clausewitz, “we must proportion our efforts to his powers of resistance. This is expressed by the product of two factors which cannot be separated; namely, the sum of available means and the strength of the will.” 57 Bush had assembled the necessary means. Now he needed to demonstrate a will to use them equal to Saddam’s will to resist.
    As Eliot Cohen, Professor of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University, wrote at the time: “The longer he [Saddam] has to fortify Kuwait, to prepare his armies and people for war and to lay the groundwork for a campaign of terror and subversion overseas, the harder he will make it for us.” 58
    Saddam had been given plenty of time. It was time to begin the liberation of Kuwait.
    Dreaming of a New World Order
    Bush was determined not only to turn back Saddam Hussein’s aggression, but to create a new system of international security that would deter or defeat future aggression. This new world order would be his legacy. “The civilized world is now in the process of fashioning the rules that will govern the new world order beginning to emerge in the aftermath of the cold war,” he told Newsweek in November 1990. “When we succeed, we will have shown that aggression will not be tolerated. We will have invigorated a United Nations that contributes as its founders dreamed. We will have established principles for acceptable international conduct and the means to enforce them.” 59
    George Bush, a man who had once publicly proclaimed to be devoid of “the vision thing,” had a clear vision of America’s role in the post–cold war world. He shared that vision with Congress and with the American people in a series of speeches that explained who we were, what we must do in the Gulf, and why. In his January 1991 State of the Union Address, he spelled out his version of American exceptionalism and