Gulf Crisis Rewrites the Policy-Makers’ Guidelines : Stability: The allied campaign is seen as a hopeful precedent. But it may not be easy to duplicate.

Unprecedented in its international scope, miraculous for its low allied casualties and breathtaking in its swift and crushing victory, Operation Desert Storm will be studied for years as a model application of German military theorist Carl von Clausewitz’s principle that war is political relations carried out by other means.

Confronted with what he considered a potential threat to the peace and economic stability of the world, President Bush successfully countered it with military power when he concluded that political methods would not succeed.

But if the resulting triumph is being widely hailed as the shape of things to come, just exactly what lessons does the Gulf War offer to policy-makers in future crises?

On some counts--from the success of collective security to an effective policy on hostages and human shields--the seven-month campaign to oust Iraq from Kuwait is seen by some analysts as an encouraging precedent.

“It was as important for the future as for the present,” said Augustus Richard Norton, a fellow at the International Peace Academy in New York. “We’re entering an extraordinarily turbulent era in world history, a period during which political institutions are breaking down, a period of enormous instability and change.

“The Iraq case gives us hope that the world community will be able to cope with this change constructively,” he said. “It’s a very promising harbinger.”

But on other counts--from the unusual circumstances that shaped the winning coalition to the unrelenting extremism of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein--the conflict with Iraq suggests that such successes may not be easy to duplicate in the future.

“The most important lesson is that this operation was unlike any war in the past and will be unlike any war in the future. We should be clear that this is not the new paradigm for Third World conflicts involving the United States,” said Geoffrey Kemp, a Mideast specialist on the Reagan Administration’s National Security Council.

As a result, the Gulf War--rather than offering a single set of clear-cut, consistent rules for the future, offers an array of precedents, guidelines and caution-flags for future policy-makers:

Collective Action

* In the post-Cold War era, the principle of collective international action has proven it can be a potent and effective force in countering aggression.

“Coalitions are going to be very important in the future,” predicted David Aaron, deputy national security adviser during the Carter Administration. “They’ve always been sought after, but most haven’t been real coalitions.”

Former President Lyndon B. Johnson “tried during Vietnam with the ‘Flags for Freedom’ campaign that had well over 30 countries involved in some way, but only (South) Korea and Australia were there really fighting,” Aaron said. “The lack of broader support was an extreme vulnerability for him.”

Added Norton, “The scale of victory is such that when the Security Council speaks again, its words will have some teeth behind it. In terms of building a new world order, that’s very significant.”

Because of the 12 U.N. resolutions and the essential unity of the United States and the Soviet Union, the war in the Arabian sands had greater legitimacy and credibility than any major conflict since World War II.

Four months of methodically constructing a legal framework for the use of force will also serve as a model for defining the extent of--and the limits on--big power reactions to future crises around the world.

Seeking Allies

* For major wars, the key to forging such coalitions will be finding common purpose and common values among potential allies .

“The key may have been that, unlike Vietnam, this was not framed in terms of East vs. West, communism vs. democracy. There was broader and better integration than ever before because it was so clearly and unambiguously over aggression,” said Bruce Hoffman, a military analyst at the RAND Corp.

“The (1987-88) tanker-escort operation was also a coalition. In both cases, the coalition held because we and the Europeans shared common and vital interests. Apart from Eastern Europe, we don’t share many other common interests,” Kemp said.

Added Aaron, “The U.N. worked this time because of the changes in the Soviet Union. But things have changed in Moscow since this started. If the next issue involves matters embarrassing to Soviet conservatives, then it won’t happen again.”

Elusive Unity

* Applying the techniques of the Gulf War to future aggression may prove difficult because the unity of the United Nations against Iraq may have been a unique case, perhaps even an accident of history.

“It’s very difficult to see a similar situation in which there will be a strategic confluence of factors,” Aaron said. “I don’t think there’ll be a lot of occasions to repeat this kind of operation unless we actually go looking for them.”

Among the many factors contributing to unity against Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait were the ebbing of the Cold War rivalry between Moscow and Washington for hegemony in the Middle East; the Soviet Union’s economic vulnerability and need for international aid; and the industrialized world’s fear of Iraqi domination of Gulf oil policy and prices at a time when the international economic order seemed precarious.

Egypt’s formal return to the Arab fold after its ostracism for making a separate peace with Israel, Syria’s gradual turn westward after Soviet aid cutbacks and Iran’s growing interest in rejoining the community of nations after 12 years of isolation also contributed to the uniqueness of the circumstances surrounding the Gulf crisis.

“This was a perfect war with perfect timing,” said Kemp. “Later on, maybe by 1995, we would not be as able to fight. . . . Iraq would have had nuclear weapons and Congress would have gutted the (U.S.) Army in budget cutbacks.”

Sharing the Burden

* Burden-sharing is demonstrably feasible, though it may be hard to sustain in future crises. Without it, attempts at collective action could founder.

Tapping the financial resources of wealthy allies, such as Germany and Japan, is now politically acceptable, even necessary, to pay for war, despite an element of unseemly haggling among the Gulf partners.

“The money is out there, and we don’t have to be embarrassed about asking people to pay their fair share of the freight,” said Richard Murphy, former assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs. “There were initial fears that this would be a mercenary army. But the world’s problems are now so interrelated and the world is such a single economy that everyone pitched in with contributions in kind or in cash to support it.”

Yet the experience in the Gulf also suggests that putting such packages together will seldom be easy. “Next time, nations may also be wary about giving us a blank check,” said Aaron. “This was more expensive than contributors expected.”

Germany, saddled with the exorbitant costs of reunification, is debating a surtax to pay for its commitments, while Japanese officials voted to take a 10% pay cut.

Even Third World participants that contributed in-kind found that joining the Gulf coalition had its price. Pakistan’s contribution of 11,000 troops, for example, proved highly controversial and unpopular at home.

Moreover, leadership by a single strong nation is required to pull together and command a coalition. “You’ll never be able to take collective action without a coalition, but there are a limited number of countries that can lead those coalitions,” said Brian Urquhart, former chief of U.N. peacekeepers.

A Deterrent?

* Whatever difficulties there may be in forging and financing future coalitions, the crushing power that forced Iraq to retreat may send a powerful message of deterrence to future aggressors and radical political movements.

The severity and humiliation of Hussein’s defeat sent a warning to other dictators and political radicals about the dangers of aggression or political misadventures.

“If the (1986 U.S.) bombing of (Libyan leader Moammar) Kadafi clipped his wings, the destruction of Hussein has put all potential regional dictators on notice,” said Kemp. “This was a shattering blow to radicals throughout the world, whether they are crazed students or visionaries. Radicals will not play games any more.”

Winning the Peace

* As the history of Europe between the world wars reflects, winning the peace is even more demanding than winning the war. In the case of the Gulf, the extent of “victory”--and its impact on Bush’s hoped-for new world order--will depend as much on the political aftermath of the fighting as on the war itself.

“The easy part is over,” said Norton. “In the military campaign, it was clear what had to be done. But it’s not clear what the diplomatic objectives are or how they’re to be achieved or who will achieve them.

“If the military was a model of precision and organization, then what we’re looking at now is a diplomatic campaign just the opposite. There’s a real prospect here that we will find ourselves with extraordinary influence in the Mideast and not exploiting the opportunity.”

Several analysts recalled what happened when U.S. envoys and Marines were sent into Beirut after the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Instead of securing the peace, the Marines became targets and were eventually forced to withdraw after a suicide bomb and other attacks killed almost 300 of them.

“The real test of our ability to replicate this kind of security enforcement role will depend on how we behave in the next year,” said Aaron. “If we’re still in the Gulf a year from now, and bogged down and becoming a target in the region, then there’ll be little zest about having us go into other areas.”

Arms Proliferation

* Though chemical, biological and nuclear weapons were not used in the Gulf War, the technology needed for these weapons of mass destruction may have spread so widely, particularly in the Third World, that effective control is now all but impossible.

“There is a major lesson on arms proliferation,” said Peter Galbraith, a Mideast specialist on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff. “The striking fact of this situation is that virtually all the countries that supplied Iraq with its weapons were part of the coalition that later joined forces against Iraq.”

The Soviet Union was Iraq’s major arms supplier. Among the other countries that provided weapons or related systems were the United States, Britain and France. Governments or private firms from Germany, Brazil, Egypt and Argentina were among the parties that helped Iraq develop chemical weapons and longer-range missiles.

“The challenge of collective security in the near and long term is not the crises that flare up in the Middle East or between Pakistan and India, but in controlling the transfer of military technology,” Aaron said.

The Sanctions

* Sanctions can be an effective punitive measure but, standing alone, they are usually not sufficient to counter aggression or undermine public morale, unless the international community is prepared to wait many months or even years.

“There’s a temptation to forget sanctions,” Norton said. “There’s no question that the 100-hour war was made possible by a very effective air campaign and Iraq’s military miscalculations. But sanctions also reduced the Iraqi capacity to stockpile weapons or to import more lethal technology. And it cut away ever so slowly but consistently on the morale of the army.”

At the same time, even after the four-day ground war, shops in Baghdad were stocked with fruits, vegetables and basic foodstuffs.

The economic squeeze did not begin to be seriously felt until after the aerial bombardment destroyed Iraq’s infrastructure and transport routes.

Worry of Terrorism

* International cooperation can limit terrorism, but even the threat of terrorist attack remains a potent psychological weapon.

The RAND Corp. terrorism database cites more than 160 terrorist incidents dating from the Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait, but all were comparatively small-scale and all but a few were linked to non-Mideast groups, according to RAND researcher Karen Gardela. Neither Palestinian radicals nor Islamic zealots carried out the spectacular bombings and hijackings that had been widely anticipated.

“Collective security was felt most tangibly on terrorism as many nations, even outside NATO, came together. The benefits were unparalleled, as we have been weak on human (intelligence) sources,” Hoffman said. “Having access to Arab sources helped a great deal.”

At the same time, he added, “This crisis shows once again that we’re our own worst enemies, and we overreact to the slightest threat.”

Hostage Seizing

* Under some circumstances, at least, hostage seizures can be negated as a weapon of conventional warfare.

Thousands of mainly Western foreign nationals were held captive in Iraq and Kuwait, some even positioned in “strategic locations” to intimidate the international community. The largest modern hostage ordeal, however, ended in December when the West refused to budge and instead used Baghdad’s tactic to win votes for additional U.N. resolutions.

“The fact that Bush was not thrown off balance by the taking of thousands of hostages was a remarkable break with past American handling of the hostage issue. It showed the validity of a policy that says we will not be jerked about on hostages,” Murphy said.

Still, kidnaping foreigners is still likely to be a common tactic of unconventional warfare.

Foreign Policy Goals

* Finally, military might is a poor substitute for an active, consistent foreign policy to deal with longstanding problems of arms proliferation, political radicalism and the rise of potential aggressors.

“The first lesson of this crisis is that it was avoidable,” Galbraith said. “We got into this situation because we abandoned our principles in favor of a politically expedient and economically greedy policy toward Saddam.

“There was an appalling period in the 1980s when, on the issue of chemical weapons use, we condemned it without naming the country. And we were indifferent to Saddam’s treatment of the Kurds and clear-cut human rights abuses. All that sent a message that he could quite literally get away with murder.

“It would have been a lot cheaper if we’d sanctioned him earlier for use of chemical weapons on the Kurds and condemned him for attacking Iran. Instead, we saw dollar signs and a bulwark against fundamentalism whenever we looked at Iraq,” he added.

“It was nothing short of appeasement. And look at the price we had to pay to redress it when we were finally forced to face up to our own principles.”