Volume 7, Issue 1 (1991)

This issue of the New England Journal of Public Policy was conceived during the hot, slow days of early August when Saddam Hussein's marauding armies swallowed Kuwait. Contributors made revisions to their manuscripts while President George Bush committed the United States to protecting Saudi Arabia's oligarchy (read "oil for the West"), requiring a military buildup in the harsh sands that was larger than anything of its kind since World War II. The admen in the Pentagon came up with the catchy little logo Desert Shield. Repeated calls by the coalition of nations, led by the United States, for Saddam Hussein's withdrawal from Kuwait went unheeded. Comprehensive economic sanctions against Iraq followed, and in November, after the congressional elections, President Bush made war all but inevitable when he doubled the United States' land forces from 200,000 to 400,000. When the machinery of war is in place, it creates its own dynamic; the sheer size of the machinery becomes a catalyst for its use. We were, in the words of one observer, making the world safe for feudalism.