Did War prove to be a Successful Means of Achieving Political objectives in the 1991 Gulf War?

Answer

It depends on which political objectives you mean.

General Clausewitz famously said: "War is politics by other means."

This means that political and strategic military objectives are the same thing.

Tactical military objectives are things like: taking over a particular hill during a war, moving your troops into a particular area, destroying a specific military unit of the enemy, establishing a solid logistical tail for your troops.

Strategic military objectives are things like destroying a whole army, taking over and occupying all or a large part of a country, killing or otherwise deposing a head of state, or taking over and holding--or destroying--an important economic and/or military resource, like a canal, strait, or shipping route, important mines, or oil fields.

Strategic military objectives are, by their nature, political objectives--this is because achieving them, in and of itself, shifts the elements of power and control, between and among nations, on the big geopolitical chessboard.

Getting the Iraqi Army out of Kuwait and restoring control over it to the Kuwaitis was a political objective. It kept the Iraqi border where it was before the invasion. Long term, peacetime, internationally recognized national borders are POLITICAL lines, which is why a map that shows primarily those lines and country names is called a political map.

On the other hand, the Gulf War coalition decided maintaining the previously existing border between Iraq and Kuwait was their ONLY political objective. The Gulf War coalition decided that deposing the existing government of Iraq was NOT one of their objectives for the war.

In retrospect, the United States saw this choice as a mistake.

The Gulf War achieved the limited political objectives the coalition fighting it chose to achieve. That makes the war partially successful at achieving political objectives.

The specific political objectives the coalition chose to achieve were too limited. This poor choice on the part of coalition leaders amounts to a failure at achieving political objectives. They did not achieve the political objectives that they, in retrospect, needed to achieve because they made poor choices in selecting their objectives. That makes the war partially unsuccessful at achieving political objectives.

CAUTION: Instructors at secondary and post-secondary institutions frequently have poor understanding of geopolitics and some may not consider maintaining the border of Kuwait a "political objective." They may well define it as solely a military objective. If you use this answer as a starter to investigating the issue, be aware that one instructor or textbook's decision about where to draw the line between political versus military objectives may be different from another's.

First answer by ID1281488093. Last edit by ID1281488093. Question popularity: 25 [recommend question]