Hannah Pheasant

                                                                                                                                    POLI 388

                                                                                                                    Executive Summary

                                                            Desert Storm

            The first military adventure in Iraq is recognized as a United States victory in strategic intervention. The United States objective was to 1, Liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein, 2, prevent destabilization of market oil prices, and 3, protect Saudi Arabia and Israel from the threat of Saddam’s militia. Iraq’s original intention for invading revolved around gaining access to the Persian Gulf and taking control of Kuwait’s oil reserves. The success of the adventure was made possible by launching “Operation Desert Storm for the Liberation of Kuwait.” Desert Storm encompassed a number of game theory tactics including generalized chicken. The first player, the United States, gave Iraq an ultimatum to leave Kuwait or suffer the consequences. The first move was a credible commitment to act if Iraq refused to leave Kuwait; it also gave the United States the first player advantage of using their maximum strategy. Iraq chose to remain in Kuwait, therefore, Iraq could only obtain the maximin payoff of avoiding United States and allied forces. Because this was a game of generalized chicken the moves were made sequentially with open information. Iraq expected to stand firm and have the United States give in to their demands. This is similar to what we saw in the Cuban Missile Crisis. However, in the attempt to stand firm Iraq proposed concessions in return for its retreat, but the concessions were too high for the United States. Iraq also displayed a number of threats, such as exploiting American POW’s and using the media to portray a negative image of the war to remind American’s of Vietnam. Even with these threats the United States objective stayed in tact. Instead, Iraq gave in to the United States after General Norman Schwarzkopf led an extremely effective ground invasion. The conflict ended with a ceasefire and series of other resolutions established by the United Nations.