COLUMN RIGHT : Money and Might--Policy Handmaidens : Rather than replace military power, economic clout frequently compliments it.

Before Desert Storm and Desert Shield, it had become fashionable in some circles to predict the receding importance of military power, and its replacement by economic power, in the hierarchy of global policy instruments.

Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and the successful prosecution of the U.S-led war effort silenced the rhetoric about the obsolescence of military power. Nevertheless, while the Gulf War strikingly demonstrated the importance of military power, it also demonstrated an equally important point about the crucial role of economic power.

Economic instruments of power--including capital, technology, goods and services--are intimately linked with those of military power. These linkages are often complex, subtle and significant. Rather than substituting for it, economic power often complements military power. The converse is no less true. (As physicist Niels Bohr once observed, the opposite of a shallow truth is false, while the opposite of a deep truth can also be true).

In the Gulf crisis, economic power was a vital adjunct of military power. Curtailing Iraq’s access to oil revenues and imports weakened Baghdad’s capabilities for resistance. And economic interests and incentives helped bond the extraordinary U.S.-led, 29-nation coalition. Forgiveness of Egypt’s $7-billion military debt to the United States, as well as the promise of more direct economic support in the future, were important in enlisting and sustaining Egypt’s role in the coalition. Assurance to Turkey that economic sacrifices resulting from its embargo of oil deliveries from Iraq would be offset played a similar role in facilitating its participation in the coalition.

Although the Soviet Union’s participation in the coalition was limited, its political role in supporting the 12 U.N. Security Council resolutions was important. To be sure, the Soviets became somewhat tendentious, if not mischievous, in the final stages of the war. But Moscow’s generally supportive stance was valuable, and doubtless was influenced by Soviet interest in avoiding anything that might further impair its access to Western trade, technology and finance.

Similarly, other members of the anti-Iraq coalition--notably, Syria, Pakistan, Czechoslovakia and Poland--were influenced by considerations of economic interest and access. In these cases, economic leverage enhanced military effectiveness. In other instances, the causality runs the other way. Consider Saudi Arabia’s steadfast resistance to OPEC pressure, since the war’s end, to reduce oil production and raise oil prices. The U.S. military effort to protect Saudi security has resulted in economic benefits to the United States, as well as other oil importers.

The closeness and complexity of the linkages between economic and military power are also exemplified by the roles of Japan and Germany in the Gulf crisis. Both countries opted to provide funds rather than forces, due to real or alleged political constraints. Economic instruments substituted, although imperfectly, for military ones. However, from the standpoint of the coalition as a whole, the Japanese and German financial commitments, which still remain to be fully implemented, helped to support the coalition by providing economic benefits (or relief from costs) for several of the “front-line” states whose military participation would otherwise have been more problematic.

The interplay between economic and military instruments is also crucial in the war’s aftermath. Constructing, protecting and supplying enclaves for the Kurds has depended on the coordinated use of economic and military measures. If a durable political solution is to be found to the plight of the Kurdish and Shiite populations of Iraq, it will require a combined application of military and economic instruments by countries within and outside the Middle East.

For the United States and other countries to make progress in fashioning a less disorderly world, if not a “new world order,” coalitions and collective institutions that prominently involve Third World countries will be of central importance. And economic and military instruments will be essential in bringing such coalitions and institutions into being, or in revitalizing existing ones, whether within or outside the United Nations. If this process is to be effective, the economic and military instruments of power will have to be carefully coordinated.