The Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991 marked the end of one era and the start of another. Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein would never have dared invade neighboring Kuwait if Soviet and American policymakers still viewed the Middle East, and the world, as a zero-sum competition. Cold War peace in Europe, in other words, enabled war elsewhere. In this webinar, Jeffrey A. Engel explains Iraq’s invasion and Kuwait’s liberation, the largest American military expedition since Vietnam and the broadest diplomatic coalition since the Korean War, and the war’s dramatic but ultimately unsatisfying end. An off-shore presence at most before 1991, after that year the United States effectively became a Gulf state, beginning an on-site diplomatic and military deployment that continues through today.
