The end of the ripple effect of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, and the ensuing Gulf War, may be decades away but this collection is a systematic attempt to investigate the implications of that invasion for the significant political actors, in the Middle East and beyond. From varied perspectives and fields of interest, political scientists focus on the military dynamics of the war and its political effects on the Persian Gulf, on the Arab-Israeli zone of conflict, and on the superpowers. This study includes an analysis of both US military and diplomatic strategy during the war, and US efforts to convene the Arab-Israeli peace talks after the war; Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's attempts to follow a "minimax" strategy under which he sought a minimum level of co-operation with the United States while retaining maximum influence in Iraq; the debate in Japan about whether to get involved in the Allied war effort; and the reasons for Palestinian support of Iraq during the war. Other subjects include Saddam Hussein's post-war strategy for staying in power; Jordan's effort to walk a tightrope between the Allies and Iraq; Syrian, Iranian, and Egyptian exploitation of the war to improve their regional positions; and the changes in Israel and Saudi Arabia precipitated by the war.