What is soviet cooperation?

Baker met Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze in Moscow on 3 August 1990; the joint condemnation that day was unprecedented. Bush met Gorbachev at the Helsinki summit on 9 September 1990.

What is arab participation?

Baker secured Egypt (Mubarak), Saudi Arabia (King Fahd), and Syria (Assad). The Cairo Arab League summit (10 August 1990) voted to deploy Arab forces against Iraq. Bush met Assad in Geneva on 23 November 1990.

What is japan and Germany?

Constitutional restraints prevented combat participation but they paid: Japan around 13 billion US dollars, Germany around 6 billion. Baker's "tin cup" diplomacy raised around 54 billion total, more than covering US war costs.

What is congressional authority?

Bush requested authority to use force on 8 January 1991. The vote on 12 January 1991 was 250-183 in the House and 52-47 in the Senate.

NESA Practice (NESA)-style practice: Evaluate the role of President George H. W. Bush in the Gulf conflict of 1990 to 1991.

Needs criteria, dated evidence, judgement. **Thesis.** Bush 41 was the decisive Coalition architect: his diplomatic mobilisation of the post-Cold-War UN, his Coalition building, and his 28 February 1991 ceasefire defined the war. The unresolved Saddam problem was Bush's inheritance to his successors. **Initial response.** Bush met with Margaret Thatcher in Aspen on 2 August 1990. The 5 August "this will not stand" press conference at Andrews committed the US to reversal. **Coalition diplomacy.** Bush, James Baker, and Brent Scowcroft built a 35-nation Coalition through August-November 1990. Baker's diplomacy secured Soviet acquiescence (Helsinki summit with Gorbachev, 9 September 1990) and Arab participation. **UN sequence.** Bush refused to act outside Security Council authority. The sequence (Resolutions 660, 661, 662, 665, 678) created the legal basis. UNSCR 678 (29 November 1990) authorising "all necessary means" was a personal Bush priority. **Congressional authorisation.** Bush sought and won congressional authority (House 250-183, Senate 52-47 on 12 January 1991). **War conduct.** Bush deferred operational decisions to Powell, Schwarzkopf, and Cheney. The 28 February ceasefire after 100 hours was Bush's call. **New World Order.** The 11 September 1990 address to Congress promised "a new world order... where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle." **Limits.** Bush expected the Iraqi army or the Shia uprising would topple Saddam. He did not back the March 1991 uprisings. This decision shaped the next 12 years. **Conclusion.** Bush built the Coalition, fought the war well, and ended it too soon; his containment legacy was bequeathed to Clinton and Bush 43.

NESA Practice (NESA)-style practice: Explain what President Bush meant by the 'New World Order' in 1990 to 1991.

A 5-mark "explain" needs three developed components. **The phrase.** Bush 41 used "new world order" repeatedly between September 1990 and 1992, most prominently in his 11 September 1990 address to a joint session of Congress on the Persian Gulf crisis. **The content.** The new order had three pillars. First, the end of US-Soviet rivalry and the operability of the UN Security Council. Second, the rule of law in international relations: aggression met collective response. Third, US leadership. **The application.** The Gulf war was the test case. The 35-nation Coalition under UN authority would expel Iraq from Kuwait, vindicating collective security. **Critique and limits.** Critics pointed to the selective application (no equivalent response to other invasions of the era) and the unilateral US assertion of "what is at stake". The order proved more US-led than UN-led. Markers reward 11 September 1990 address, the link to UN Security Council operability, and the contrast with Cold War deadlock.

§-Syllabus dot point

NSWModern HistorySyllabus dot point

How did President George H. W. Bush respond to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and what did he mean by a New World Order?

The role of President George H. W. Bush (Bush 41), including the formation of the 35-nation Coalition, the diplomacy at the United Nations, the decision to end Desert Storm with Saddam in power, and the New World Order rhetoric of 1990 to 1992

A focused answer to the HSC Modern History Conflict in the Gulf dot point on President George H. W. Bush. The 5 August 1990 line in the sand, the Coalition assembly with Baker and Scowcroft, the September 1990 New World Order speech, UNSCR 678 brinkmanship, the Highway of Death and the 28 February 1991 ceasefire, and the post-war containment policy.

Generated by Claude Opus 4.88 min answerUpdated 2026-06-26

Reviewed by: AI editorial process; not yet individually human-reviewed

Have a quick question? Jump to the Q&A page

Jump to a section

What this dot point is asking
The answer
How to read a source on this topic
Examples in context
Try this

What this dot point is asking

NESA expects you to explain the role of President George H. W. Bush ("Bush 41") in the Gulf conflict of 1990 to 1991: how he assembled the Coalition, secured the UN mandate, fought and ended the war, and articulated the "New World Order" vision. Strong answers tie his decisions to outcomes (Kuwait liberated; Saddam in power; sanctions and no-fly zones bequeathed to successors).

In plain English

In August 1990 Iraq's dictator Saddam Hussein invaded his small, oil-rich neighbour Kuwait and swallowed it whole. The US President, George H. W. Bush ("Bush 41", because his son later became President too), decided this could not stand - but he chose to do it carefully rather than charge in alone.

Think of the school principal who catches the biggest bully shoving a smaller kid into a locker. Instead of fighting the bully one-on-one, the principal first gets the whole staffroom and the other students on side, then publicly tells the bully to let the kid go "or else". That way, when the bully is finally pulled off, everyone agrees it was fair - it was not just one teacher's grudge. Bush spent three months lining up 35 countries, the Soviet Union (the old enemy) and the United Nations behind him before firing a shot.

When the war came in early 1991 it was over in weeks. But here is the famous catch: Bush stopped the moment Kuwait was free and left Saddam in charge of Iraq, because chasing him to the capital was not what the world had signed up for. Bush talked about a hopeful "new world order" where countries would gang up to stop bullies like this. Critics said it was really just America deciding who counted as a bully - and Saddam stayed a problem for the next twelve years.

The answer

Bush's preparation

George Herbert Walker Bush (1924-2018) had unusual preparation for the Gulf crisis. He had been a Navy combat pilot in 1944-45, a Texas oil executive in the 1950s, US Ambassador to the UN (1971-1973), US envoy to Beijing (1974-1975), Director of Central Intelligence (1976-1977), and Vice President under Reagan (1981-1989).

His core team: Secretary of State James Baker; National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft (the most senior foreign-policy thinker of the team); Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell. The team was unusually experienced and unusually collegial.

Initial response, August 1990

The invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990 reached Bush at his Kennebunkport, Maine, vacation home. Bush was at the Aspen Institute on 2 August meeting British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher was unequivocal: this was a clear breach of international law requiring military response. Her later "this is no time to go wobbly, George" remark crystallised the British position.

The first NSC meeting on 2 August was inconclusive. By the second meeting on 3 August, after Scowcroft's intervention, Bush was hardening. On 5 August on the South Lawn at Andrews Air Force Base, Bush told reporters "this will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait." This was the commitment.

Coalition building, August to November 1990

Soviet cooperation: Baker met Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze in Moscow on 3 August 1990; the joint condemnation that day was unprecedented. Bush met Gorbachev at the Helsinki summit on 9 September 1990.
Arab participation: Baker secured Egypt (Mubarak), Saudi Arabia (King Fahd), and Syria (Assad). The Cairo Arab League summit (10 August 1990) voted to deploy Arab forces against Iraq. Bush met Assad in Geneva on 23 November 1990.
Japan and Germany: Constitutional restraints prevented combat participation but they paid: Japan around 13 billion US dollars, Germany around 6 billion. Baker's "tin cup" diplomacy raised around 54 billion total, more than covering US war costs.
Congressional authority: Bush requested authority to use force on 8 January 1991. The vote on 12 January 1991 was 250-183 in the House and 52-47 in the Senate.

The UN sequence

Bush insisted on UN cover. The five core resolutions:

660 (2 August 1990). Condemnation and demand for withdrawal.
661 (6 August 1990). Comprehensive sanctions.
662 (9 August 1990). Annexation void.
665 (25 August 1990). Naval enforcement of sanctions.
678 (29 November 1990). "All necessary means" with 15 January 1991 deadline.

The UN cover was a Bush priority. Powell later wrote that Bush insisted "we will go to the UN. We will get authority. We will get the world behind us." The decision distinguished Bush 41 from Bush 43 in 2003.

The war

Bush deferred operational command to Powell, Schwarzkopf, and Cheney. He set strategic objectives (expel Iraq from Kuwait; restore the Sabah government; protect American lives; promote regional security) but did not micromanage.

The war began at 03:00 Gulf time on 17 January 1991. Bush ordered the ceasefire on 27 February evening Washington time (28 February 08:00 Gulf), against Powell's preferred 24-hour continuation.

The ceasefire decision

Bush's reasons for halting at 100 hours, drawn from his and Scowcroft's memoir A World Transformed (1998):

The UN mandate was achieved. Kuwait was liberated.
The Arab participation depended on a limited war. Continuing to Baghdad would have lost Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
The Highway of Death imagery suggested a slaughter that could turn international opinion.
Occupying Iraq would be a different war: counterinsurgency, civil administration, ethnic complexity.
Bush expected the Iraqi military or the Shia uprising would do the regime-change job.

The fifth expectation failed. The Republican Guard, which had escaped the trap intact, crushed the Shia uprising in March 1991. The Kurdish refugee catastrophe of April 1991 forced the belated Operation Provide Comfort (5 April 1991) and the no-fly zones.

The New World Order

Bush used the phrase "new world order" repeatedly between September 1990 and his 1992 reelection campaign. The most important formulation came in the 11 September 1990 address to a joint session of Congress:

"Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective, a new world order, can emerge: a new era, freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace... A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle."

The order had three pillars: end of Cold War deadlock at the UN Security Council; collective response to aggression; US leadership of a legitimate international system.

The order had clear limits. The same Bush administration did not act on Tiananmen Square, the Bosnian war, or the genocide in Rwanda. Critics including Noam Chomsky (Deterring Democracy, 1991) treated the New World Order rhetoric as cover for US unilateralism.

Containment after the war

Bush 41's post-war policy was containment: maintained UN sanctions under UNSCR 687, UNSCOM weapons inspections (established 3 April 1991), and the Northern (33rd parallel, from 7 April 1991) and Southern (32nd parallel, from August 1992) No-Fly Zones.

Defeat in 1992

Bush 41 lost the November 1992 election to Bill Clinton (43.0 to 37.4 per cent, with Ross Perot taking 18.9 per cent), despite the Gulf victory pushing his approval rating to 89 per cent in March 1991. The recession of 1990-91 and Clinton's "it's the economy, stupid" campaign produced an unusual case of foreign-policy victory not translating into electoral success.

Timeline

Date	Event	Significance
2 Aug 1990	Aspen meeting with Thatcher	UK pressure
5 Aug 1990	"This will not stand"	US commitment
9 Sept 1990	Helsinki summit	Soviet cooperation
11 Sept 1990	New World Order speech	Rhetorical frame
29 Nov 1990	UNSCR 678	Legal basis
12 Jan 1991	Congressional vote	Domestic authority
17 Jan 1991	Air war opens	War begins
27 Feb 1991	Ceasefire ordered	War ends
5 Apr 1991	Provide Comfort	Belated Kurdish response

Historiography

George H. W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft (A World Transformed, 1998) is the participants' account.

Bob Woodward (The Commanders, 1991) is the contemporary inside-the-administration journalism.

Jeffrey Engel (When the World Seemed New, 2017) is the major academic study of Bush 41 foreign policy.

Andrew Bacevich (American Empire, 2002) treats the New World Order as an opening of US strategic overreach.

How to read a source on this topic

Sources commonly include Bush's 5 August "this will not stand" remarks, the 11 September 1990 New World Order address, the 16 January 1991 war announcement, and the 27 February 1991 ceasefire speech.

First, note the diplomatic-vs-rhetorical distinction. The diplomacy was meticulous (UN sequence, Coalition assembly). The rhetoric was grand (New World Order).

Second, distinguish Bush 41 from Bush 43. Bush 41 with UN cover, multilateral, limited objectives. Bush 43 (2003) without UN cover, mostly unilateral, regime change.

Model exam responses

A. Source response (5 marks). Source: Bush's 11 September 1990 address to a joint session of Congress, in which he proclaims that a "new world order" can emerge in which "the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle". Assess the usefulness of this source for a historian studying American foreign-policy aims in the Gulf crisis.

The source is an official presidential address delivered while Bush was still assembling the Coalition, so its purpose is partly to persuade Congress and the public, not just to describe policy - that shapes its usefulness. It is highly useful as direct evidence of how Bush wished to frame the crisis: as the founding test of a post-Cold-War order of collective security, with aggression met by a UN-sanctioned coalition rather than by superpower deadlock. Read against own knowledge, it also illuminates the strategy that followed - the 35-nation Coalition and the UNSCR 678 mandate of 29 November 1990 were the order in action. Its limitation is that as rhetoric it conceals the order's selectivity (no comparable response to Tiananmen or Bosnia) and its US-led reality. The source is therefore most useful for the administration's stated aims and self-image, and least useful, taken alone, for what the order actually delivered.

Marker's note: a top response states origin and purpose, separates what the source is useful FOR (stated aims, the legitimising frame) from what it conceals (selectivity, US dominance), anchors this in dated own knowledge, and reaches a judgement rather than paraphrasing the quote.

B. Essay paragraph (from a 25-mark response on whether the ceasefire was Bush's greatest failure).

The clearest evidence that the ceasefire was defensible rather than a blunder lies in the legal and diplomatic limits Bush had deliberately accepted. UNSCR 678 authorised force only to expel Iraq from Kuwait, and the Arab partners - Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia, secured through Baker's diplomacy in August 1990 - had joined a limited war, not a march on Baghdad. When Kuwait was liberated, Bush halted at 08:00 Gulf time on 28 February 1991, reasoning in A World Transformed (1998, with Scowcroft) that occupying a multi-ethnic Iraq in civil war was a different and open-ended conflict, and that the Highway of Death imagery risked turning a liberation into a perceived slaughter. As Lawrence Freedman argues in A Choice of Enemies (2008), this was mandate-bound coercive diplomacy working as designed; the failure lay not in stopping but in the gamble that Saddam would fall, a gamble that only later evidence - the crushed uprisings - exposed.

Marker's note: the paragraph argues a single proposition (the ceasefire as a defensible, mandate-bound decision), supports it with dated specifics and a primary-source memoir, and uses a historian to advance the argument rather than as decoration. Sustained argument plus historiography is what lifts a paragraph into Band 6.

C. Source response (5 marks). Source: a 2002 academic study arguing that the Gulf war marked the beginning of an era of American strategic overreach in the Middle East. Assess its reliability for understanding Bush 41's intentions in 1990 to 1991.

This is Andrew Bacevich's interpretation (American Empire, 2002), a scholarly secondary source written with the hindsight of a decade of containment and on the eve of the 2003 war. Its reliability for Bush's actual 1990-91 intentions is mixed: as retrospective analysis it is well-evidenced and useful for the long-term consequences, but it reads later overreach back into a war Bush deliberately kept limited - he sought UN cover, halted at the mandate, and resisted the march on Baghdad. The source is reliable for the argument that the war opened a longer cycle of US involvement, but should be weighed against participants' accounts (Bush and Scowcroft) that stress restraint, lest hindsight distort intent.

Marker's note: the response identifies the source as retrospective historiography, distinguishes reliability for consequences from reliability for intentions, and corroborates and qualifies it with own knowledge before judging.

Command words and weaving historiography

Read the verb first. "Explain" wants developed reasons with dated evidence; "Account for / Assess the reasons" want CAUSES weighed and ranked; "To what extent / Evaluate" want a JUDGEMENT defending a thesis (here, rank the ceasefire against Bush's other decisions). "Assess the usefulness/reliability" of a source wants ORIGIN, MOTIVE and PERSPECTIVE, then a verdict - run O-M-P-U and always ask whether you are reading stated AIMS (the New World Order speech) or actual OUTCOMES. Weave historians as a clash, not a list: pit the idealist, mandate-bound reading (Freedman - principled multilateralism that worked) against the critical reading (Chomsky and Bacevich - US primacy dressed as collective security; Galbraith - the abandonment of the uprisings as the true failure), then say which carries more weight and why. One historian used in genuine tension beats five name-dropped.

Examples in context

Example 1. Bush's State of the Union address (29 January 1991). Bush spoke of "a new world order... where the principles of justice and fair play protect the weak against the strong." Lawrence Freedman (A Choice of Enemies, 2008) treats the speech as the high-water mark of post-Cold War American universalism. Brent Scowcroft and Bush's co-memoir (A World Transformed, 1998) records the decision to halt Desert Storm at 100 hours and to leave Saddam in power as a deliberate adherence to UN mandates.

Example 2. The Shia and Kurdish uprisings (March 1991). Bush's encouragement of Iraqis to "take matters into their own hands" was not followed by military support. Roughly 30,000 Shia and Kurdish civilians were killed in the suppression. Faleh Jabar (The Shi'ite Movement in Iraq, 2003) and Peter Galbraith (The End of Iraq, 2006) treat the abandonment as the most enduring grievance of the post-war settlement, the seed of the post-2003 sectarian crisis.

Try this

Q1. Source A is Bush's State of the Union address (29 January 1991) on the New World Order. Using Source A and your own knowledge, explain American foreign policy after the 1991 Gulf War. [5 marks]

What the marker wants. Identify New World Order rhetoric; cite UN-based legitimacy; pair with the limits of the order (Bosnia 1992 to 1995).

Q2. Evaluate the extent to which the decision to end Desert Storm with Saddam in power was justified. [25 marks]

What the marker wants. Weigh mandate-bound success against post-war Shia and Kurdish massacres; use Scowcroft, Freedman, Galbraith.

Q3. Compare the views of Lawrence Freedman and Peter Galbraith on the legacy of Bush 41's Iraq policy. [10 marks]

What the marker wants. Freedman (successful coercive diplomacy) versus Galbraith (abandonment of Iraqis sowed 2003 catastrophe); judgement.

Exam-style practice questions

Practice questions written in the style of NESA exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.

Practice (NESA)15 marksEvaluate the role of President George H. W. Bush in the Gulf conflict of 1990 to 1991.

Show worked answer →

Needs criteria, dated evidence, judgement.

Thesis: Bush 41 was the decisive Coalition architect: his diplomatic mobilisation of the post-Cold-War UN, his Coalition building, and his 28 February 1991 ceasefire defined the war. The unresolved Saddam problem was Bush's inheritance to his successors.
Initial response: Bush met with Margaret Thatcher in Aspen on 2 August 1990. The 5 August "this will not stand" press conference at Andrews committed the US to reversal.
Coalition diplomacy: Bush, James Baker, and Brent Scowcroft built a 35-nation Coalition through August-November 1990. Baker's diplomacy secured Soviet acquiescence (Helsinki summit with Gorbachev, 9 September 1990) and Arab participation.
UN sequence: Bush refused to act outside Security Council authority. The sequence (Resolutions 660, 661, 662, 665, 678) created the legal basis. UNSCR 678 (29 November 1990) authorising "all necessary means" was a personal Bush priority.
Congressional authorisation: Bush sought and won congressional authority (House 250-183, Senate 52-47 on 12 January 1991).
War conduct: Bush deferred operational decisions to Powell, Schwarzkopf, and Cheney. The 28 February ceasefire after 100 hours was Bush's call.
New World Order: The 11 September 1990 address to Congress promised "a new world order... where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle."
Limits: Bush expected the Iraqi army or the Shia uprising would topple Saddam. He did not back the March 1991 uprisings. This decision shaped the next 12 years.
Conclusion: Bush built the Coalition, fought the war well, and ended it too soon; his containment legacy was bequeathed to Clinton and Bush 43.

Practice (NESA)5 marksExplain what President Bush meant by the 'New World Order' in 1990 to 1991.

Show worked answer →

A 5-mark "explain" needs three developed components.

The phrase: Bush 41 used "new world order" repeatedly between September 1990 and 1992, most prominently in his 11 September 1990 address to a joint session of Congress on the Persian Gulf crisis.
The content: The new order had three pillars. First, the end of US-Soviet rivalry and the operability of the UN Security Council. Second, the rule of law in international relations: aggression met collective response. Third, US leadership.
The application: The Gulf war was the test case. The 35-nation Coalition under UN authority would expel Iraq from Kuwait, vindicating collective security.
Critique and limits: Critics pointed to the selective application (no equivalent response to other invasions of the era) and the unilateral US assertion of "what is at stake". The order proved more US-led than UN-led. Markers reward 11 September 1990 address, the link to UN Security Council operability, and the contrast with Cold War deadlock.

Practice questions

Original practice questions graded from foundation to exam level, each with a full worked solution. Try them before revealing the solution.

foundation3 marksOutline President Bush's initial response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990.

Show worked solution →

A 3-mark "outline" wants three distinct, correctly dated steps.

The invasion and first reaction: Iraq invaded Kuwait on 2 August 1990; Bush, meeting Thatcher at the Aspen Institute, condemned the invasion but the first NSC meeting that day was inconclusive.
Hardening, 3 to 5 August: After Scowcroft's intervention at the second NSC meeting, Bush committed publicly on 5 August: "this will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait."
Building the response: Bush began assembling international support, including the unprecedented joint US-Soviet condemnation secured by Baker and Shevardnadze in Moscow on 3 August 1990.
Marking criteria: 1 mark each for three distinct, correctly dated points; do not drift into narrating the whole war.

foundation4 marksExplain how Bush secured United Nations authority for the use of force against Iraq.

Show worked solution →

A 4-mark "explain" needs a sequenced cause-and-effect chain with specific detail.

The principle: Bush insisted on acting through the Security Council rather than alone, exploiting the new post-Cold-War cooperation with the Soviet Union (Helsinki, 9 September 1990).
The resolution sequence: A graduated series built the legal basis: 660 (condemnation, 2 August), 661 (sanctions, 6 August), 662 (annexation void, 9 August), 665 (naval enforcement, 25 August).
The authorisation: UNSCR 678 (29 November 1990) authorised "all necessary means" to expel Iraq if it had not withdrawn by 15 January 1991 - the legal trigger for Desert Storm.
The effect: UN cover gave the Coalition legitimacy and held the Arab and Soviet partners together, distinguishing Bush 41 from the unilateral path of 2003.
Marking criteria: 1 mark for the multilateral principle; 1 mark for the resolution sequence; 1 mark for UNSCR 678 and its deadline; 1 mark for linking UN cover to legitimacy/coalition cohesion.

core5 marksSource A (paraphrased, owned): In his address to a joint session of Congress on 11 September 1990, President Bush declared that out of the Gulf crisis a "new world order" could emerge - a new era freer from terror and stronger in the pursuit of justice, in which "the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle" and nations recognise a shared responsibility for freedom. Using Source A and your own knowledge, explain what Bush meant by the "new world order". [5 marks]

Show worked solution →

A 5-mark "explain ... using the source" wants the source decoded, then linked to own knowledge.

Decode the source: The 11 September 1990 address frames the Gulf crisis as the founding test of a post-Cold-War order: collective enforcement of international law ("rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle") in place of aggression.
The three pillars (own knowledge): First, the end of US-Soviet deadlock made the Security Council operable (Helsinki, 9 September 1990). Second, aggression would meet a collective response - the 35-nation Coalition under UN authority. Third, the order would be led by the United States.
The test case: Expelling Iraq from Kuwait under UNSCR 678 was meant to vindicate collective security and model the new order.
The limit: In practice the order proved more US-led than UN-led and was applied selectively (no equivalent response to Tiananmen, Bosnia or Rwanda).
Marking criteria: 1 mark for reading the source as collective-security rhetoric; 1-2 marks for the three pillars; 1 mark for the Gulf war as test case; 1 mark for a limitation.

core5 marksSource B (paraphrased, owned): A later historian argues that Bush 41's "new world order" was less a genuine framework of international law than a slogan dressing US power in multilateral clothing - the order was applied where it suited Washington and ignored where it did not, and remained American-led from start to finish. Using Source B and your own knowledge, assess the usefulness of this interpretation of the New World Order. [5 marks]

Show worked solution →

A 5-mark "assess the usefulness" question rewards origin/perspective plus own knowledge, ending in a judgement.

Perspective: Source B is a critical/revisionist reading (the position of Chomsky and, more soberly, Bacevich) that treats the rhetoric as a cover for US primacy - useful for puncturing the idealistic self-image of the order.
Corroboration from own knowledge: It fits parts of the record: the same administration did not act on Tiananmen Square, the Bosnian war, or (later) Rwanda; the US, not the UN, set "what is at stake"; and the Coalition was overwhelmingly American in command and forces.
Limitation: It understates what was genuinely new - the Security Council actually functioned, Soviet cooperation was real (Helsinki), and Bush deliberately bound himself to UNSCR 678 rather than acting alone, in sharp contrast to 2003.
Judgement: Useful for exposing selectivity and US dominance, but it must be read against the real multilateral discipline of 1990-91; the order was US-led, yet it was not merely a slogan.
Marking criteria: 1 mark for identifying the critical perspective; 1-2 marks for own knowledge corroborating selectivity/US dominance; 1 mark for a limitation; 1 mark for a judgement on usefulness.

core6 marksAssess the importance of coalition diplomacy to Bush's success in the Gulf conflict of 1990 to 1991.

Show worked solution →

A 6-mark "assess" wants a weighted judgement, not a list - rank diplomacy against the other factors.

The case for diplomacy as decisive: The 35-nation Coalition was not automatic; it was built over three months. Baker secured Soviet acquiescence (joint condemnation 3 August, Helsinki 9 September 1990) and Arab participation (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria; the Cairo Arab League vote of 10 August 1990). "Tin cup" diplomacy raised around 54 billion US dollars, more than covering US costs. UN cover (Resolutions 660 to 678) gave legitimacy and held the partners together.
The competing factors: Military dominance (air supremacy, the "left hook") won the war on the ground, and Bush's domestic authority (the 12 January 1991 congressional vote) mattered too.
Judgement: Diplomacy was the foundation: without Soviet acquiescence and Arab participation there is no legitimate Coalition and no UN mandate, and the military victory would have been politically impossible. It ranks first among the enabling factors, even though the war itself was won by force of arms.
Marking criteria: 1-2 marks for specific diplomatic evidence (Soviet, Arab, UN, financial); 1-2 marks for weighing against military/domestic factors; 1-2 marks for a sustained, defended judgement rather than a list.

exam25 marksTo what extent was the decision to end Operation Desert Storm with Saddam Hussein in power Bush 41's greatest failure in the Gulf conflict?

Show worked solution →

This is an extended-response/essay. Markers reward a sustained, evidence-based argument that addresses "to what extent" directly and weaves in historiography - not a narrative.

Band-6 PLAN

Thesis. The decision to halt at 100 hours was a defensible application of the UN mandate that became Bush's most consequential failure only in hindsight: it preserved the Coalition and international law but, by leaving Saddam to crush the 1991 uprisings, bequeathed twelve years of containment and helped set the stage for 2003. It was less a failure of judgement than the cost of a deliberately limited war.
Argument 1 - Why the decision was sound at the time. UNSCR 678 authorised only the expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait; Arab participation (Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia) depended on a limited war; occupying Iraq meant counterinsurgency in a multi-ethnic state; and the Highway of Death imagery suggested the war had become a slaughter. Evidence: ceasefire 08:00 Gulf time, 28 February 1991; Powell-Cheney occupation arguments; Bush and Scowcroft's reasoning in A World Transformed (1998).
Argument 2 - Why it became a failure. Bush expected the Iraqi army or the Shia uprising to topple Saddam; both expectations failed. He did not back the March 1991 uprisings, and the surviving Republican Guard crushed them, killing roughly 30,000 and triggering the Kurdish refugee catastrophe and the belated no-fly zones. Saddam survived to defy UNSCOM for a decade.
Argument 3 - The long shadow. The unresolved Saddam problem became containment (sanctions, no-fly zones) under Clinton and the casus belli for Bush 43 in 2003 - so the 1991 ceasefire shaped the entire arc of the conflict.
Historiography. Lawrence Freedman (A Choice of Enemies, 2008) treats the limited war as successful coercive diplomacy bound by its mandate; Peter Galbraith (The End of Iraq, 2006) and Faleh Jabar (The Shi'ite Movement in Iraq, 2003) see the abandonment of the uprisings as the war's defining moral failure and the seed of later sectarian catastrophe; Andrew Bacevich (American Empire, 2002) frames it as the opening of US strategic overreach. Set Freedman's mandate-bound defence against Galbraith's indictment.
Judgement. Weigh the mandate-bound success against the human and strategic cost: the decision was right by the law and the Coalition but wrong in its central gamble that Saddam would fall. It is a serious failure, but one rooted in the deliberately limited nature of the war rather than in poor execution.

MODEL PARAGRAPH (Argument 2)

The strongest case that the ceasefire was a failure lies in what followed it. Bush halted at 100 hours partly on the expectation that the battered Iraqi army or the restive Shia south would finish the regime, and he publicly encouraged Iraqis to "take matters into their own hands". Yet when the Shia and Kurds rose in March 1991, no Coalition support came; the Republican Guard, whose Hammurabi division had escaped the trap north of Basra, crushed the uprisings, killing roughly 30,000 and driving Kurdish refugees into the mountains until the catastrophe forced the belated Operation Provide Comfort and the no-fly zones. Saddam not only survived but consolidated, defying UNSCOM inspectors for a decade. As Peter Galbraith argues in The End of Iraq (2006), the abandonment of the 1991 uprisings was the most enduring grievance of the post-war settlement and a direct seed of the post-2003 sectarian collapse - a judgement Faleh Jabar's account of the Shi'ite movement reinforces. The very limitation that made the war legally clean made its ending morally and strategically costly.

Marker's note. A band-6 response keeps "to what extent" and "greatest failure" in view throughout - ranking the ceasefire against Bush's other decisions rather than just narrating it - anchors every claim in dated evidence (28 February 1991, the March uprisings, UNSCR 687), sets at least two historians in genuine tension (Freedman's mandate-bound defence versus Galbraith's indictment), and reaches a graded judgement. Narrating the war without weighing the decision caps the response in the middle bands.