Bushs Ideas of New World Order - Essay Example

BUSH’S IDEAS OF NEW WORLD ORDER IN THE CONTEXT OF THE GULF WAR OF 1991 Introduction “The new world Order” is a statement that the US president George Bush used in response to the Gulf of 1991. At this time, the US president was speaking in response to its involvement in war against Iraq when Iraq intrusively besieged Kuwait. Since then, the concept of New World Order has become a controversial topic, subject to a wide range of scholarly interpretation (Slaughter, 2009, P. 12). While there is a concession that Bush was referring to the development of an era when there would be a balance of power in the world and a development of international political control by oversight bodies such as the United Nations. While the Gulf War is a manifestation of the development of new World Order, it is clear that the idea is still at conception stage and that the rationale for its application is still debatable. Gorbashev’s idea of New World order seems much similar to the ideas that Bush advanced at this point of time and converges to the development of peaceful world void of imperialistic aggression. To a large extent, the Gulf war signified the role of international bodies and power nations in safeguarding weak nations from ill political aggression towards a peaceful new world era. The Gulf War of 1991 The Gulf war in 1991 refers to the historic war that emerged shortly after Saddam Hussein of Iraq invaded Kuwait. Over the world, history, Iraq is a country that has always ignited numerous wars against different nations. The Iraq war against Kuwait started shortly after Iraq was given up on its war with Iran. In July 1990, Saddam Hussein gave up on the conflict he had held for a long time with Iran. At this time, Iraq had greatly invested in its military and the country was in an economic crisis. As a matter of fact, Iraq owed Kuwait 30 billion dollars and was unwilling to pay. To counter the demand of Kuwait that Iraq pays this debt, Saddam Hussein launched a counter claim that Kuwait had cost Iran a great fortune by reducing the price of Oil, hurting the business operations in Iraq (Finlan, 2003, P. 30). Consequently, Saddam Hussein demanded compensation and refused to pay the debt they owed this country. To make matters worse, Saddam Hussein launched claims that he had held earlier that Kuwait is a country that belongs to Iraq. In an effort to control Kuwait, Saddam Hussein ordered his troops to monitor the borders of Kuwait and counter any resistance from the government of this country. The feeling of this letter was that Kuwait being a small country, he could easily capture it to his economic advantage as this country was rich of Oil wells. From this perspective, the Gulf war was an expansionism strategy in which a powerful state abused its power to its own political and economic advantage. New World Order as a Paradigm for Cold War Behavior The invasion of the Iraq in Kuwait was triggered by cold war thinking a time when the strong nations oppressed the weak nations (Art & Waltz, 2003, P.24: Layne, 1991). As the Cold War had ended the US was lacking a theoretical or intellectual justification for global military and diplomatic globalism. The New World Order was like a new paradigm and referred to as a Pavlovian response to the invasion of Kuwait as a sort of Cold War response. Bush framing the Post-Cold War era as unstable, uncertain and dangerous was a gift that enabled and justified American global activism to continue unhindered by the end of bipolarity. In various occasions, US has come under spot over the abuse of political power in the war. In issuing his speech on new world order, Bush seems to have been contemplating on the abuse of power in the cold war era. The cold war era refers to a time when nation used their power to advance their own development goals. The US continuous attack in Iraq has been viewed as part of its imperialistic aggression in attempt to control the Middle East Oil reserves (Frank, 2012, Pp. 267-269). While this is still a debatable issue, the Iraqian invasion in Kuwait was a more clear manifestation of the cold war thinking. The main aim of Iraq was to control Kuwait oil reserves and to achieve economic recovery after their long war with Iran. Secondly, the Iraq intended to avoid paying Kuwait its debt by taking advantage of its military weakness. According to Bush, the New World Order describes a situation where there would be proportional balance of power and strong nations would no longer oppress weak nations (LaFeber, 1994). In the Gulf war, the war of US against imperialism was clearly manifested in tandem with Bush’s claims. US was among the first nations that launched a negotiation plan to reinstate peace in Kuwait and pursue Saddam Hussein to withdraw his army that had already besieged Kuwait. However, Saddam Hussein refused to withdraw his army and refused any negotiations with Kuwait as well as the international country. Iraq felt confident to seize Kuwait and any demands that he withdraw his troops became a source of noise to his ears. To react to the adamancy of Saddam Hussein, the US government declared war against Saddam Hussein and his country if he failed to withdraw his armies by the 15th of 1991(Monshipouri & Zolty, 2001, Pp. 551-577). The US government requested the government of Saudi Arabia to allow them set up camps in this country to mitigate any attack from the Iraq. The motive of the US government interest in the case seems to emanate from Bush’s idea of New World Order and the intention of the US to become a political watchdog. The action of the US government seems to be in line with Gorbachev’s idea of new world order that he developed during his speech in 1988 to the UN National Assembly (Slaughter, 2009, P. 25). He advocated for the involvement of the international population in the control of selfish power. Unlike in the cold war era where countries remained silent over imperialism, the new world order would pave way for an internationally inclusive plan to create peace among nations. Bush’s strategy to provide military support was a milestone in pushing away the cold war era and its negative social political impacts. The New World Order as Protection of the Weak Before the concept of New World Era, the role of international bodies such as the UN and USSR was limited as far as balancing political power. The cold war era prevented the engagement of the UN in the war against power abuse and down played the role of any international body in peace keeping mission. However, the new World Order allowed special inclusion of international regulatory bodies in safeguarding weak nations and in the pursuance of power restraint. Gorbachev had already foreseen the vision of formation of a more peaceful nation. He required that UN be allowed to participate in international conflicts and in the realization of peace across the world. This ideology is much similar to Bush’s utterances during his speech (Monshipouri & Zolty, 2001, Pp. 551-577). Bush stated that the UN nations had responded to Iraq unprovoked invasion in Kuwait by issuing 12 resolutions. Therefore, there seems to be a strong convergence between Bush’s idea of new world order and Gorbachev’s conception Evidently, UN played a critical role in intervening against Kuwait’s invasion by Saddam Hussein. The UN criticized Iraq’s aggression and declared it an illegal mission. UN provided that Iraq withdraw from Kuwait and engage in peaceful negotiations. This seems to be part of the UN mission to create world order by playing a central role in international peace keeping. When Iraq refused to heed to the order, the UN supported the US in its mission to protect Kuwait and termed this as a called for mission. Next, the UN played role in mobilizing the international community to provide its military power and to station it Saudi Arabia as part of the way against tyrannical application of power against weak nations (Frank, 2012, Pp. 267-282). The action of Saddam Hussein against Kuwait was highly criticized by the international community in support of the UN. Consequently, the international community launched a negotiation plan to reinstate peace in Kuwait and pursue Saddam Hussein to withdraw his army that had already besieged Kuwait. On this light, 765, 000 troops from 28 different countries were stationed in Saudi Arabia and the US commander Schwarzkopf took the role of controlling the troops (Finlan, 2003, Pp. 30-68). Therefore, the Gulf war was one of the instances when the international community played loyal to the development of New World Order. New World Order as a Throw Away Comment The idea that Bush attractive speech on New World Order was an empty rhetoric was emerged as soon as Bush brought up this concept (Slaughter, 2013, 183-197). In the US invasion in Iraq in 2003, critics emerged terming this as Bush instability in his perspective of new World Order (Sussman, 2010, 147). While he showed commitment during the Gulf war, he downplayed his own principles in the Iraq invasion. The US invasion in Iraq is one of the controversial topics that have generated a lot of heat in the international sphere. Shortly after the Gulf War in which America successfully defeated Iraq, there emerged rumours that the Iraq government had plans to manufacture weapons of mass destruction. As this rumour continued to spread, the United Nations Organization reacted by launching a plan to inspect Iraq and confirm whether these allegations were true of just mere speculations (Art & Waltz, 2003, P. 123). In various unsuccessful attempts, the UN negotiated with Iraq over the inspection, but Iraq leader, Saddam Hussein declined this effort and dismissed the allegations as mere speculations. The UN team engaged a powerful gear to unravel the truth of the matter. In 2002, the plan of inspection was underway and there was light that the Iraq government would comply with the inspection plan (Leet, 2014, P. 124: Brynjolfsson, McAfee & Spence, 2014, P. 44). On the other hand, the US government felt that this process was slow and that there was a need to hasten the process to avoid the looming threat that the weapons would be used against the US. In essence, they felt that the UN and the international bodies were slow in neutralizing a threat that would have dire consequences on US. However, the international body insisted that it was important to give Iraq sometime to comply with the demands of the inspection as there was still hope that the process would succeed. Even a number of the US allies accepted that this was not a time of war as there was no any evidence that there was any destructive weapon. Despite the efforts of many countries and international bodies to stop US from engaging Iraq in a war, the US government declared a war in the country and organized their troops to invade Iraq. The US President, Bush, declared that there was a need for a war as the diplomatic process had lasted for long enough. In this light, the US and its allies organized thousands of troops that marched into Iraq and conducted an operation that was meant to recover any weapons of mass destruction and demote Saddam Hussein of his leadership (Abashin, 2014, pp. 8-23). There is evidence of excessive use of force that lead to the death of about 30 people per day in Iraq and others suffered rape and torture (Scales & Brown, 2012, P. 23). From this perspective, Bush defied his own definition of New World Order and exercised his military power to intimidate Iraq (Selvidge, 2008, 61-78). From a critical perspective, New World Order for Bush was an opportunity that leaves America sitting too prettily as sole remaining superpower. Conclusion Bush’s concept of New World Order ushered a new era where countries would exercise power restraint and international would reinvent harmony in the world. In the Gulf War, the US government led the UN and other countries in reinstating peace in Kuwait by restraining Iraq tyrannical use of power. However, Bush’s idea seems to be double-edged knife that aims at maintaining US as the sole super power. While the country was played by its principles during the Gulf war, they resisted UN and international intervention during the Iraq Invasion. They applied their power to intimidate Iraq over mere speculation that they were in possession of dangerous weapons of war. From this perspective, it is evident that the notion of New World order that Bush created is controversial and does necessary refer to the formation of a more peaceful world. Bibliography Abashin, S 2014, 'Migration from Central Asia to Russia in the New Model of World Order', Russian Politics & Law, 52, 6, pp. 8-23, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 6 December 2014. Available from: Art, R. J., & Waltz, K. N. 2003. The use of force: military power and international politics. Lanham, Md, Rowman & Littlefield. Brynjolfsson, E, McAfee, A, & Spence, M 2014, 'New World Order', Foreign Affairs, 93, 4, pp. 44-53, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 6 December 2014. Available from: Frank, AG 2012, 'Third World War: A political economy of the Gulf War and the new world order', Third World Quarterly, 13, 2, pp. 267-282, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 6 December 2014. Available from: Finlan, A. 2003, The Gulf War 1991. Oxford, Osprey Pub. 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