ABSTRACT
The international response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 is a historical event that is commonly categorised as an almost ideal case of collective security in action as envisaged under the UN Charter. Here the Security Council was able to come to agreement relatively quickly on both the identification of the invasion as a ‘threat to international peace and security’ under Article 39 and on the appropriate measures to take to restore it under Articles 41 and 42. For some, the strong international consensus that emerged on these two issues showed that a majority of states held strong beliefs about the legitimacy of core principles enshrined in the Charter, principles which were seen to be obviously breached by the invasion and therefore worthy of defence. In the Gulf Crisis, the United States also undeniably led the international response to the invasion in diplomatic, financial and military terms. In the Security Council it acted as the clear agenda-setter, initiating and garnering support for key resolutions which applied a series of serious and escalating measures on the Iraqi regime. In military terms, the US displayed an unwavering commitment to the defence of Saudi Arabia, the enforcement of an embargo and the forcible eviction of Iraq by contributing the bulk of the military forces in the coalition, a coalition which in the end included forces from 40 states from all corners of the globe and a wide range of political persuasions.1 It is also clear from the statements of US leaders that these acts were undertaken with the conscious intent to play an international leadership role. As Secretary of State James Baker argued before Congress, ‘[w]e remain the one nation that has the necessary political, military and economic instruments at our disposal to catalyze a successful response by the international community.’2 This seeming unity of the international community behind the leadership of the United States provides us with a useful case in which to study the attempts by the US to assert hegemonic leadership over the international community and the significance of legitimacy as a consideration by states in largely accepting this aspiration. In our earlier discussion of the theoretical treatment of the concept of hegemony in IR scholarship, we determined that hegemony is usually characterised as either a relationship of dominance or of leadership, with the former being primarily reliant on the exercise of coercive or reward power to keep subordinate states in line, and the latter on the phenomenon on self-enforcement derived from
a normative acceptance of the legitimacy of a hegemonic order. In this and the following chapter, our goal is to evaluate which conceptualisation of hegemony is most persuasively supported by the events in the Gulf Crisis. To do this, the following two chapters ask the question: why did states choose to follow the lead of the United States in the Gulf Crisis of 1990-1991? Some may argue that the unity of the international community behind US leadership did indeed stem from a normative commitment to the UN Charter system, the hierarchical relations enshrined within it and a normative belief in the legitimacy of the US ‘vision’ for the resolution of the crisis. All of this would support a demonstration of hegemony as a leadership role of international society. On the other hand, others may view the response of the international community as a chance overlap between material and normative interests, with the former being the real and decisive factor in explaining state responses to the crisis. Followership motivated by a fear of coercion or through a rational calculation of material self-interest would in contrast provide evidence of hegemony as a dominance relationship over other states. In order to obtain an accurate explanation of why states followed the lead of the United States in the Gulf Crisis, we will need to examine the evidence in relation to states’ reasons for action. In this chapter we will focus upon the extent to which beliefs about legitimate conduct among states were significant in motivating or driving actions to support the US-led coalition in dealing with the invasion of Kuwait through their political, financial and military support. In the next chapter we will examine in more depth the material interests which may have motivated key states in supporting the US-led coalition through such contributions. Because motives for action are usually mixed between the normative and the material, our standard for success cannot be that legitimacy or material interests alone motivated state action. Rather, our standard is whether an explanation of the course of the Gulf Crisis of 1990-1991 is substantially incomplete or flawed without taking account of the normative beliefs of states with regard to legitimate conduct in international relations. I hypothesise that a broad spectrum of states were significantly motivated to follow the US because of their belief in the illegitimacy of the Iraqi invasion, and the legitimacy of the solution to the crisis or ‘vision’ put forward by the United States to reverse it. These beliefs and normative processes are most easily accessible through public statements in which decision-makers seek to give reasons to justify the decisions they have made. Focus is therefore placed on arguments put forward by Members of the Security Council, key regional organisations and states to justify or oppose the important decisions made by the Council throughout the crisis. The analysis to follow will be divided into four sections, representing the four main decisions taken by the international community in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. These include the decisions to characterise the situation as a threat to international peace and security, to set the liberation of Kuwait as the only appropriate end goal, to choose economic sanctions in the first instance and, finally, when this was perceived to have failed, to use force as the ultimate
means to achieve this goal. Within these four sections, the normative justifications used by states to support their decisions will be analysed to determine the extent to which normative beliefs about legitimate state behaviour affected the actions taken by the parties.
