The Persian Gulf War in the context of the debate over the political economy of US militarism

Abstract

Critics of the U.S. role in the 1990-91 war in the Persian Gulf region have provided various explanations for it: global militarism, preemption of the so-called peace dividends, oil and/or petrodollars, and even presidential reelection motivations on the part of the Bush administration. This study is an attempt to go beyond the short-term, conjunctural factors that contributed to the war. It examines the role of the United States against the backdrop of the long dispute among in ruling circles over the issue of how to cure the economic malaise that began in the late 1960s and early 1970s. That long and continuous dispute revolves around the question of a long-term economic and/or industrial policy and the role of military industry and military power within such a policy. Copyright 1993 by Oxford University Press.