ABSTRACT
The end of the Vietnam War is a good place to start thinking about how wars can lead to peace. Sino-Soviet hostilities had not lessened, and the North Vietnamese victory led to brutal repression against the indigenous Chinese in Vietnam that, as it turned out, created a casus belli for a war between these two countries in 1978. In Vietnam, the US government constantly misled itself, the Congress, and the public. Desert Storm was not a war to end all wars or a model of what to do in the future. It was a war of limited objectives and very limited results. Not every war to be fought in the 1990s will be about the struggle to create a new world order, nor will each be resolved in the name of its principles. The end of the cold war has significantly altered the course of international relations and the corresponding defense strategies of most global actors.
