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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Kuwait
Index
As the Iraqi invasion demonstrated, Kuwait's large oil
revenues and inherently small defense capabilities gave it
tremendous vulnerability. Historically, until the Iraqi
invasion,
Kuwaiti leaders had always dealt with that vulnerability
through
diplomacy, trying to find allies that would protect them
while
maintaining as much independence as possible from those
allies by
playing them off against each other. Historically, the
most
important ally was Britain. Kuwait's relationship with
Britain
came about at the bidding of the early Kuwaiti leader
Shaykh
Mubarak in an effort to deter a still more troublesome
actor, the
Ottoman Empire. As one consequence of the 1899 treaty,
which gave
Kuwait a better status than was the case in British
treaties with
other possessions, the British presence remained somewhat
distant, and British officials meddled less frequently in
local
politics.
The relationship with Britain continued beyond
independence
on June 19, 1961, and the new agreement between
independent
Kuwait and Britain promised continued British protection
as
necessary. That protection proved necessary when Iraq, six
days
after Kuwait's independence, declared Kuwait a part of
Iraq and
sent troops toward the amirate in support of that claim.
Because
Kuwait's army was too small to defend the state, British
troops
arrived, followed soon after by forces from the League of
Arab
States (Arab League), in the face of which Iraqi forces
withdrew.
As Britain increasingly withdrew from the gulf in the
1970s
and 1980s, Kuwait was forced to look for other sources of
support. Although Kuwaiti leaders tried to maintain a
degree of
neutrality between the superpowers--Kuwait had an early
and
sustained economic, military, and diplomatic relationship
with
the Soviet Union--in the end it was obliged to turn to the
United
States for support. The Iran-Iraq War was the decisive
factor in
consolidating closer ties with the United States. Although
at the
outset of the war Kuwait was an outspoken critic of United
States
military presence in the gulf, during the war this
position
changed. When Kuwaiti ships became the target of Iranian
attacks,
Kuwait's security situation deteriorated, and Kuwait
approached
the Soviet Union and the United States with requests to
reflag
and thus protect its beleaguered tankers. As soon as the
Soviet
Union responded positively to the request, the United
States
followed. The ground was thus laid for subsequent United
States
support.
Data as of January 1993
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