ABSTRACT
At 9:30 P.M. on Wednesday, January 16,1991, the pilots and aircrew of the US 48th Tactical Fighter Wing were receiving the orders that would send them to war. The Gulf War, unique as it was, held a broader meaning and carried wider implications than those relating only to military questions or weapons systems: It was both symbol and substance of the sea change in US foreign policy that has taken place since the mid-1980s. During the cold war, US interests and the regions in which the truly vital ones resided were relatively clear, if sometimes magnified by the zero-sum rhetoric of the period. The Gulf War provides an example of how this strategy can work: Washington did not intervene actively in the Gulf region, overturning governments and pursuing gunboat diplomacy; its presence, and eventual assistance to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, merely served to counterbalance Iraqi power.
