ABSTRACT
The machinery of war was nearly ready, and though diplomatic efforts to end the crisis would continue until the very eve of war, conflict—a huge military clash between modern armies totaling over a million people—seemed all but inevitable. The Gulf War strongly suggests that the defense reorganization laws did in fact measurably promote the goals. Cultural distinctions can play a large role in the failure of compellence. As war became increasingly probable, military analysts outside the government began to speculate. The most famous casualty estimates in this war were of likely coalition and Iraqi casualties. The revelation of a secret British and French plan to avoid war by offering Italy concessions, including de facto control over Abyssinia, undermined the anti-Mussolini coalition—as similar concessions might have done to the anti-Iraq coalition. Meanwhile the world economic embargo against Iraq continued. By March 1991, coalition ships enforcing the embargo had compiled an impressive resume.
