David O. Smith

About the Author: David O. Smith is a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and a senior fellow at the U. S. State Department's Institute Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs in Arlington, Virginia. He previously commanded a battalion in South Korea.

Operation Desert Storm, the military campaign that liberated Kuwait, constitutes a watershed in Middle East politics comparable in magnitude to the founding of Israel in 1948. Political, social, and economic forces have been set into motion which will profoundly influence the region for decades. As leader of the 28-nation coalition victorious against Iraq, the United States will be viewed as responsible both for the success of military operations and for shaping the postwar environment. A common danger of war is that...