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ECONOMIC NOTES

The Gulf Crisis: Seven Lessons

By Joseph S. Nye Jr.
LIKE a flash of lightning on a summer night, an International crisis can suddenly illuminate a murky situation. Many analysts have tried to describe the shape of a post Cold War world, but its portrait remains uncertain. Though the storm in the Gulf may have effects for years to come, certain preliminary lessons about our new world are already visible from early lighting flashes
•First, and perhaps most important, the events of August 1990 called into question the fashionable cliche that the post Cold War world had become multipolar. As the Economist put It. Multipolarity is not only bad English. It is sloppy thinking. The term Implies a world of five or six equally balanced great powers shifting alliances to maintain order in a historical analogy to the 19th century or the 1930s. When one looks closely, however, one sees that the Soviet Union is declining as a power. China remains a less developed country. Europe lacks unity and Japan's power is unidimensional. The references to Germany and Japan as new superpowers, so fashionable at the time of the July summit in Houston, seemed to wilt under the August sun in the Gulf. Only the United States possessed the broad range of military and other forms of power that enabled It to organize an international response to Saddam Hussein's aggression.
•Second, the events in the Gulf called Into question the view that the United States had entered a period of decline and withdrawal. Shortly before the Invasion, Paul Kennedy the yale historian whose Rise and Fall to the Great Powers had helped to launch the 'declinist' side of the debate over America's global position responded to those he labeled "revivalists" (including this author). The drop In Cold War tensions-. Kennedy wrote, "has caused a reduction in the value many people put on military power the one measure of power in which the United States has a clear advantage over the other countries."
In fact. the natural economic decline of the United States from its artificially high position at the end of World War II had tapered off by the mid 1970s Since then the American share of world product has held constant at 23% of the total, or roughly the level it was before the war. While the United States has many problems which need attention, the aggregate numbers Indicate that they did not add up to continuous decline. In manufacturing, which held constant as a share of GNP, productivity increased by more than 31/2% per year, in the past decade. In other words, the declinists's portrait of the United States as merely a military dinosaur seemed a caricature in light of the American response.
•Third, the cliches about economic power replacing military power in a post Cold War world were falsified when Saddam Hussein's armoured columns swept across the Kuwait border. Military power proved crucially important in preventing Saddam Hussein's from gaining control of 40% of the world's oil reserves and a position to hold the world economy for ransom. It is far too simple to argue that we have entered the Japanese era of the age of the trading state in world politics. Similarly, the fact that the protective role of force is important for other issues besides countering the Soviet threat means that the end of the Cold War does not lead to a radical devaluing of the American military capability.
•Fourth, the crisis in the Gulf confirmed the extent to which the Soviet Union had declined as a superpower. While the Soviet Union will remain a major power with a formidable nuclear arsenal, the crippling of the Soviet economy and its Inability to cope with the demands of the information revolution have made the Soviets much less formidable as a factor in regional conflicts than they were during the Cold War era.
Moreover, the domestic preoccupation with economic reform and the resulting new thinking in foreign policy led to a level of cooperation with economic reform and the resulting new thinking in foreign policy led to a level of cooperation in the United Nations which has been unthinkable in past Middle East crises.
•Fifth, the events of August showed the importance of soft power as well as hard power. Soft power is the ability to co-opt rather than command and an important manifestation is the ability to build coalitions in International Institutions. It was important for the United States to have the hard power represented by its forces in the Gulf region, but it was equally important to organize United Nations resolutions that defined Iraq's actions as violation of internationally law requiring enforceable sanctions. The legitimacy provided by such resolutions allowed Saudi Arabia to accept foreign troops on its soil. Egypt to send troops. Turkey may close the pipeline and many more crucial actions. Without the UN defining the issue as an illegal Invasion. It is possible that Iraq might have succeeded in its claim that the incursion into Kuwait was merely the reclaiming of a lost province.
•Sixth, the early success of the Security Council in quickly defining the situation in the Gulf suggests that the United Nations may play a larger role in the post Cold War order than had previously been Imagined Contrary to some cynical comments, the crisis in the Gulf is about far more than the price of a gallon of gasoline. It is about the institutional shape of order in a world in which the bipolar cleavage no longer defines all issues.
For 40 years, the United Nations had been hamstrung by the Cold War The major exceptions were modest peacekeeping activities and one large action in Korea. But the UN force in Korea was the exception that proved the rule, made possible only because of the Soviet boycott of the Security Council in 1950. The Soviets quickly learned not to repeat that mistake. Now, If the United Nations does not rise to the occasion in a case of blatant aggression. Its role in providing order will have been severely diminished in a Cold War world.
•Seventh, the concern of the United States to encourage its allies and other to share the burden suggests that although the United States will remain the leading power In World politics. It will not be the worlds sole policeman. Neither public nor Congressional opinion will tolerate the overreaching that led to the mistakes and excesses of the Vietnam period. In part the American concern with Burden-sharing is Justified. Why should American tax payers alone foot the bill for benefits of stability which are enjoyed by citizens of Europe, Japan and other countries? In part, the concern with burden sharing reflects the unnecessary self hobbling effect of the federal government deficit And in part if may show that the Americans are learning that they will have to use multilateral measures for effective leadership in a post cold War world.
It is too early to draw a bottom line under the crisis in the Gulf, or even to predict whether these lessons will eventually be undone. Nor should we assume that the Gulf will be typical of future crises in a post Cold War world. But the lightning flashes of the early days of crisis suggest that at least some of the previous predictions about a post Cold War world have been to simplistic —By arrangement with the Executive, Hong Kong.
A former Rhodes Scholar, Professor Nye is Director Centre for International Affairs. Harvard University and one of the America's leading experts on International affairs.