Moscow and the Gulf War: Decisions and Consequences

Abstract

The cooperation of the two superpowers during the Gulf crisis of 1990-1 confirmed how far they had moved from rivalry to reconciliation. Although the two were not always in complete agreement on tactics, Moscow's partnership was essential to the successful reversal of Saddam Hussein's aggression against Kuwait. It was also the most dramatic manifestation of Mikhail Gorbachev's 'new thinking' operating in the Third World. In 1987 he had signalled his determination to withdraw Soviet troops from Afghanistan, but that move had been prompted by a number of objectives for example, stopping what he had referred to at the Twenty-Seventh Congress of the Communist Party in February 1986 as the country's 'bleeding wound,'1 redirecting domestic attention to the restructuring of Soviet society, and improving relations with the United States, China, and key Muslim countries. His actions during the Gulf crisis, however, were driven by but one consideration his determination to consolidate the Soviet Union's already transformed relationship with the United States. Moreover, in Afghanistan, the Soviet withdrawal was the disappointing end of a three-year-long search for an alternative that would have permitted Moscow to hold on to its puppet regime in Kabul, in the hope that President Najibullah would find some way of remaining in power;