Principal tools and tactics for U.S. coalition building with UK and Saudi Arabia

¶ … Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and the Bush administration assembled a "winning" coalition of domestic and international supporters, and prevented opposing or "blocking" coalitions from forming. In several phases of coalition building, the Bush administration gained: access to bases in Saudi Arabia; financial support from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Japan and Germany; international legitimacy in the U.N. Security Council; a commitment from Israel not to respond if attacked; and domestic political support from the U.S. Congress. The Bush administration sequenced their coalition by starting with approaching the Arab coalition by recruiting the Saudis, who were arguably harder to recruit than other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

The Bush administration sequenced their coalition assembly since doing so would influence parties' assessments of the potential returns to be realized from joining. Parties would take into consideration the previous countries who had agreed to join and those who were still to be approached. Looking at those who had agreed (or disagreed) to become involved would more likely influence the decision of the candidate regarding whether or not to join too. This, in turn, would influence the success of the coalition.

Coalition-assembly can be done in an easy-to-hard way with more likely-to-agree figures approached first, or it can be done in the reverse order. The Bush administration chose the hard-to-easy approach. This hard-to-easy approach of the Bush administration was smart in that it persuaded the other, more potentially reluctant parties to also join the coaltion.

The U.S. effort was particularly vulnerable with the Arab parties since they had to oppose their Islamic brother and friend, Iraq, who was not only part of their faith, but also Brother-in-Arms in many of their previous wars. More so, they owed obligations and commitments to Iraq since Iraq had helped the Arab nations fight many of their previous wars. Furthermore, most of the Arab nations (such s Saudi Arabia) were in alleged conflict with America and Israel. As the Kennedy School of Government Case Program notes:

Winning King Fahd's blessing for a U.S. deployment, even with the express purpose of defending Saudi Arabia would not be easy. American military bases were largely shut out of the Gulf, both because of cultural and religious differences, and because of America's pro-Israeli stance regarding the Palestinian problem and other Arab-Israeli disputes. As a result of such political tensions, most Arab countries avoided military alliances with the U.S., and even requests for short-term U.S. military support were often cloaked in secrecy. Moreover, some Arab leaders spurned American involvement because they suspected that the U.S. would exploit any opportunity to move into the region by establishing permanent bases and refusing to leave. (p.10)

One would have expected these nations, therefore, to be at best neutral and to decline offer of joining in the coalition. Their decision to do so support Watkins and Rosegrant's suggestion of the conceptual framework that is inherent in collation building and persuades other normally reluctant parties to join their opponent's group.

Watkins and Rosegrant (1996) point out that each of the collation parties had their own desires and interests. The Bush administration appealed to each of these. Secondly, the Bush administration approached the parties in a timely manner. This is called achieving psychological readiness to commit. The Bush administration, for instance, could not have gotten Congress to authorize the use of military force in October 1990 before giving economic sanctions some possibility of working. The fortuitous factor of readiness to commit was also seen in that congressional support for the offensive option also climbed after President Bush agreed to the final negotiations between U.S. Secretary of State Baker and Iraqi Foreign Minister Aziz in Geneva. By that time (January 1991), Congress was ready to consider heretofore unpalatable actions: American lives were committed to war and "Operation Desert Storm" began.

The passage of time, on the other hand, may influence potential recruits' perceptions of their alternatives in ways and this may or may not be favorable to a coalition builder. The bush administration was lucky: Most of the parties that it approached agreed to join.

The ability to persuasively frame their message and their possession of information also handed the advantage to the Bush administration. Furthermore, America possessed the power of deference, of authority and of influence that compelled the other nation-states to listen to it. Watkins and Rosegrant (1996) also purpose the power of obligation and previous commitments in that one of the parties feels itself obligated to the U.S.A. due to a previous factor that the U.S.A. performed to that nation. In this case, Watkins and Rosegrant (1996) proposed that:

In international relations, obligations between nations are built up over time through the provision of military, political, and economic support, and that reciprocity can powerfully affect how nations behave. In the Gulf crisis, for example, Egypt was indebted to the United States for large foreign aid payments and other support for regional stability. The resulting sense of obligation probably contributed to Hosni Mubarek's early willingness to support the United States against Iraq (although other factors were clearly also at work. (p.61)