Explaining Conflict and Conflict Resolution in the Gulf War (1990-1991) Introduction It is generally said that human interaction

is very complicated that explanation of and discretion between various elements of interaction are highly challenging. Human interaction which is done by either individuals or groups (social groups, associations, organizations and states) can take many forms such as writing, reading, verbal communication and telecommunication and bear the cause and the result of either cooperative or conflictual or mixed. Barash and Webel (2002) asserted that conflict is inevitable as two physical objects cannot occupy the same space unless they have new and different position. In this essay, human interaction here as the topic refers to the state conflict in the Gulf War in early 1990s in which detailed analysis of background of conflict, causes, parties involved, dynamics, consequences, and how conflict ends is very crucial to reach an objective of understanding how interstate conflict in contemporary era can be resolved. In short, the essay aims to answer two elements of Gulf War: (a) causes and evolvement of the conflict, and (b) how the conflict ended. The essay is organized by introducing the theoretical and conceptual framework of the conflict and conflict resolutions in general, which includes the definitions of conflict, causes of conflict, conflict intervention, presentation of conflict theories and explanations, and different conflict resolution mechanisms and their implications for successful resolution of different types of conflict. Then, this is followed up by a brief background of the conflict before heading to the main part, analysis and discussion about the conflict which will include causes, parties, dynamics, consequence, and how the conflict ended or what form of intervention ends the conflict within the framework of theories and conceptualization that are presented before. Last but not least, major points in the analysis are raised in summary part to implicate subjective reactions toward the conflict and suggestions or recommendations to resolve conflict of similar sort in the future. Theoretical and Conceptual Framework Scholars from different fields of study tend to have different emphases and definitions of conflict. In social term, Coser (as cited in Stewart, 1998, p. 7) explained that conflicts involve struggles between two or more people over values, or competition for status, power and scarce resources. Psychologically, conflict is defined as perceived divergence of interest, or a belief that the parties current aspirations cannot be achieved simultaneously (Pruitt, Kim, & Rubin, 1994, p. 5). In sociologist term, definition of conflict is a social fact in which at least two parties
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are involved and whose origins are differences either in interests or in social position of the parties, according to Imbusch (1999, as cited in Wehrmann, 2008). Theoretically, conflict can be explained using different lens ranging from actor-based, interaction-based, process-based, structure-based, or even logic-based. Schellenberg (1996) devised theories of conflict into four main perspectives such as individual characteristics theories which are actor-based, social process theories which are interaction and process-based, social structural theories which are structure-based, and formal theories which are logic-based. Each theory explains conflict in different ways even the way causes of conflict, actor in conflict, evolvement of conflict, consequence of conflict, and even how conflict is resolved as well. Differences in the term conflict also apply in how scholars view causes of conflict as well. Even though there are many divisions of causes of conflict when it is specified in certain context, such differences start from the common ground of goals incompatibility. For example, psychologists Bell and Hart identified eight causes of conflict in workplace, yet all the causes still retain at the core of self-interest of workers in a workplace (Art & Hart, 2000). As many prominent scholars as Avruch (1998), Galtung, Jacobsen, and Brand-Jacobsen (2002), Reychler and Paffenholz (2001), and Wehrmann (2008) agree that conflicts evolve from the latent level of human being, or simply psychological force, resulted from the conflict of interests, goals, and positions between individuals and/or groups in the society. To solve various forms of conflict ranging from interpersonal and intergroup conflict to organizational and state conflict in the field of trade and commerce, politics, economics, psychology, sociology, and many more, scholars actually come up with similar catch-all resolutions namely mediation and good office, negotiation and bargaining, arbitration, adjudication, coercion and the use of force with war as the final arbiter, and even combination of these resolutions (Buergenthal & Murphy, 2007; Schellenberg, 1996). Observation into chapters explaining these resolutions, Schellenberg (1996) seems to imply that specific resolution can be used best in certain nature of conflict. For example, coercion is used best in traditional security matter in which the powerful states can resolve conflict using their coercive power, while arbitration is commonly applied in civil matters such as tort and commercial conflict. In application of these frameworks to the Gulf War case, we will see whether all these can integrate into the overall picture of the Gulf War or not.

Disputants, Causes, and Dynamic Gulf War is the interstate conflict/war between Kuwait and Iraq in the Middle East region from 1990 to 1991. In fact, there were many actors involved in the first Gulf war. On one hand, Kuwait is the disputant with its allies such as United States, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, France, Syria, Morocco, Qatar, Oman, Pakistan, Canada, Argentina, Spain, and Italy. The great majority of the coalition's military forces were from the U.S., with Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and Egypt as leading contributors, in that order. Particularly, Saudi Arabia paid around US$36 billion of the US$60 billion cost (Peters & Deshong, 1995). On the other hand, Iraq is a belligerent state with no clear position from the Soviet Union while the Soviet Union itself was on the verge of collapse during the early 1990s. What led to Gulf War traced from the bloody Iraq-Iran war in the late 1980s. In the war, Iran was not only attacking Iraq but also attacking the small kingdom of Kuwait, the richest oil field in the world too. To support the ending of the war, Kuwait financially aided Iraq by lending the country 14 Billion US Dollars (Peter, n.d.). Iraq tried to convince Kuwait to default the debt as Iraq had done Kuwait a favor by being at war with Iran, Kuwait declined and this caused a serious break in friendly relations between the two countries. For a year they tried to resolve the financial situation but there was no fruitful result. The next step was for Iraq to ask all Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members to reduce oil production, so the price of crude oil would increase, and it would in turn increase revenues for Iraq by allowing the country to pay back its debts. While other countries agreed, Kuwait opposed and asked to increase its quota by fifty percent, which gave much to the dissatisfaction of Iraq. Next, Iraq started allegation that Kuwait was drilling in a diagonal manner into Iraq Rumaila oil field territory over the border. This accusation would mean that Kuwait was stealing Iraqs oil. Plus the perception that pro-western Kuwait is the proxy for exerting western influence and colonialism in the region, it is believed that Saddam Hussein had no other choice but to use military might; therefore, he stationed 100,000 troops on the border and in early August invaded Kuwait (Peter, n.d.). As the Iraqi forces invaded and took over Kuwait, they set fire to hundreds of Kuwaiti oil fields on the way. From here, the war represents the final resort by Iraq to pursue the wealth of oil and default of debt at the expense of Kuwait national sovereignty and security. After invading Kuwait the UN declared Iraqs actions as invalid and economic sanctions were put in place. By November Iraq was still in control of Kuwait so the UN drew up Resolution
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678 in which Iraq had until midnight on January 15th 1991 to leave otherwise military intervention could be used (Council on Foreign Relations, 1990). On January 16th, Iraqi forces were still in Kuwait and a coalition force made up of 34 countries headed by the U.S. took up the challenge and started Operation Desert Storm (Peter, n.d.) It must be said that while Iraq caused military action to be brought against it, there is a good justification which could help explain the speed in which the Americans were happy to start military action. Iraq had been an ally with the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. This was something that had irritated the Americans for a while and could have had some impact in the Americans wishing to speed up the start of the Gulf War. Up to this point, dynamic of the war has evolved from the bilateral war between Iraq and Kuwait to the US intervention. The next question is to find out the consequence of and interventions to the conflict. Consequence of and Interventions to the Conflict As an ultimate consequence, the Gulf War ended with the withdrawal of Iraq troops from Kuwait which marked the victory of American and coalition as well as the liberation of Kuwait (Conduct of the, 1992). In February 1991, the US president George W. Bush have concluded the ground campaign started since 23th February, and announced the liberation of Kuwait. Leading to this end, there were interventions into the conflict that form a forceful resolution to such war, or simply say using force against force. First attempt to resolve the conflict of Iraq invasion in Kuwait was economic sanction. In August, 1990, United Nation Security Council Resolution 661 and 665 were passed which called for the economic sanctions against Iraq (UNSC, 1990). Then, in November, another resolution, UNSC Resolution 678 was passed which called for withdrawal of Iraq from Kuwait territory not until 15th January 1991, otherwise, all necessary means would be imposed (UNSC, 1990). Thus, when Iraq failed to follow the resolution, UNSC authorized US led-coalition force was formed and conducted ground campaigns against Iraq (or used force to knock Iraq out of Kuwait). This attempt had led to the end of the conflict with the successful of coercion. Then, this success could be determined through four conditions attached with both the US and Iraq forces: capability, credibility, relevance, and legitimacy (Schellenberg, 1996). For capability, US with other nations built a strong coalition consisted of more than 670.000 troops, 199 ships and many aircrafts, while most of the troops were contributed by US, British and French. This large scale troops was far stronger than the Iraq troops which consisted
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less than 200.000 (Bard, 1999). Moreover, the US had gained the support from the Saudi Arabia, who contributed a lot in funding and as a hosting state for the US troops in the operation, while also gained the support from Soviet Union, who ended up neutralized its support for Iraq, which could limit material supply for Iraq and turned in the reduction of Iraq capability as well (Estes, 2006). Even Iraq had an impressive military succeed from its previous war decade, US ledcoalition military was still stronger than Iraq since they dominated the air, maritime, and ground battlefield. The air campaign over Iraq on 17th January was a huge success, while the sea was dominated by the US led-coalition with the earlier employed of the naval in the area, and the ground was dominated with the outnumber of troops. For credibility, US made its clear of its determination in solving the conflict with military force by launching Operation Desert Shield as the response to the belligerent act of Iraq and its announcement of Kuwait as the 19th province by Iraq. In here, the US earned relatively higher credibility against Iraq because of Iraq persisting violation of traditional rule of sovereignty against Kuwait which provoked a huge anti-Iraq sentiment among many other states, so the US credibility was enhanced by popular international support from other states and endorsement from the UN. As a result, the US made it clear that seeking for Iraq withdrawal from Kuwait was an international demand, while convincing 34 countries to build a coalition for the operation to persue this demand. Due to such popular international support against Iraq belligerent act, the U.S. made a credible intention that ensure Iraq that the U.S. and the coalition would definitely intervene into the war. In reflection to such credibility, the US mobilized a certain amount of force into Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States which were ready to be offensive. Within 5 months, the troops was trained to adapt with the hash condition of desert and the equipment was also improved (Bard, 1999). This signals a readiness to realize such powerful credibility. For relevance, with the objective of the liberation of Kuwait, the request from UN for withdrawal of Iraq, diplomacy and economic sanctions were proved irrelevant as it did not make any change to Iraq objective at all. Instead, Iraq invasion in Kuwait raised the human right abuse and sovereignty issue, combined with potential seizure of its aggressive act to Saudi Arabia, was proved as threat to the US national interest (oil and strategic interest in the Middle East of the US) as well as the interest of all nations as a whole. Thus, the only necessary mean was the use of force which was the most effective way in achieving the objective under the label of Operation Desert Storm by the US that repelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait successfully (Craft, 1992).
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For legitimacy, the US received the legitimacy for its action in the war by the huge domestic and international support. Domestically, the use of military force against Iraq was strongly support by the Congress and the public (Byman & Waxman, 2000). The public viewed the liberalization of world as state responsibility or the state as a global policeman. Thus, Bush administration received strong domestic support in the use of force against Iraqs aggressive invasion in Kuwait, and even sometime was urged to use more force. Internationally, US action was authorized or based on UNSC resolution 678 and other resolutions which legitimized its operation against Iraq. In addition to this, the operation gained large support from and joining hand internationally with more than 34 countries, which include many powerful countries such as Britain and France. Up until this point, we can draw that these four conditions of coercion that actually put an end to the Gulf War which was in 1991. Conclusion In conclusion, we can see that the Gulf War can be traced to the incompatibility of interests between the Iraqi and Kuwait government in term of debt, oil and ideology. Because of Iraq stickiness to its belligerent position, coercive measure from the outside is really significant to end the conflict with the absence of Soviet Union (during the transition in the early 1990s). As a fact, the use of force of the US and its coalition in the liberation of Kuwait shows the success in ending the Gulf War by fulfilling the four coercive requirement such as capability (strong military in all area with impressive outnumber troops), credibility (a weight of coalition against lonely Iraq realizes the intervention), relevance (the use of force by the US and its coalition directly achieved the objective), and legitimacy (strong support from both domestic and international).

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