Sabot Cat
Banned
The entire geopolitical situation that had been in place since the end of the second World War would soon be changing during the Dukakis administration. On January 28th 1989, the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan in accordance with Gorbachev's new foreign policy for the USSR (labeled the 'Sinatra Doctrine'). Gorbachev also ended Soviet support of Iraq which partially led to a United Nations mediated ceasefire on March 6th 1989, ending the Second Iran-Iraq War with borders status quo ante bellum. Most of Eastern Europe soon transitioned from Communism, the Berlin Wall fell, Germany was reunified and the Cold War was soon galloping towards an end (although not without a fight, as the Tiananmen Square protests showed).
In October 1990, President Dukakis and Gorbachev signed the Strategic Offensive Arms Reduction Treaty or the SOAR Treaty, while the United States helped to facilitate the ascendancy of the Soviet Union into the International Monetary Fund and other trade agreements. This rapprochement between the superpowers would come to a halt in August 17th 1991, when communist hardliners staged a coup d'etat of the USSR. The Russian White House was seized, while Boris Yeltsin was assassinated in Kazakhstan and Gorbachev was assassinated in Foros in the Crimea. Gennady Yanayev became acting President of the Soviet Union while the coup leaders formed the State Committee on the State of Emergency (the GKChP) who suspended the ratification of the New Union Treaty.
Masses of people congregated in front of the White House to protest the coup, while the Soviet Army began to disintegrate into two factions: one that supported the GKChP (the Communists), and the other that supported the martyred Yeltsin and Gorbachev (the Reformists).The GKChP expanded the scope of the Soviet Civil War on August 21st 1991 by issuing a three day ultimatum for the breakaway Soviet states to renounce independence, with an oblique threat of nuclear assault. This move backfired, as the remaining Soviet republics in Eastern Europe and the Caucus region signed the Minsk Declaration, which collectively invoked Article 72 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution to justify their independence. The threat of weapons of mass destruction also caused a desperate bombing of the Red Square by the Reformist forces, killing the Gang of Eight (along with many others as collateral) on August 22nd.
With the dissolution of the GKChP, the previous political order was partially restored by October 1991. The Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union convened to make amendments to the constitution. The Cabinet of Ministers was dissolved, and the offices of President and Premier for the Soviet Union were rendered defunct. Anatoly Lukyanov the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, becoming the new head of state for the USSR under the amended the constitution.
In the Middle East, the threat of an Iranian invasion loomed large on the mind of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The United States maintained a heavy harbor presence to bolster Iran and dissuade from an invasion, but Iraq interpreted this as preparations for a Third Iran-Iraq War with peace terms to be mediated by an internationally supported Iran. The Iraqi government thus continued to buildup its military, increasing Iraq's already tremendous debt to its neighbors in the Gulf. Prime among them was Kuwait, with which Iraq had slowly deteriorating relations with due to the former's overproduction of oil, which had consistently negative effects on the Iraqi economy. OPEC temporarily maintained peace by negotiating oil production controls to Iraq's favor, but an invasion was all but inevitable. On November 29th 1991, Iraq invaded Kuwait, earning international condemnation and sanctions mediated by the United Nations. This caused an oil prices spike, dealing a blow to the already weak economy and leading to the onset of a recession.
On January 30th 1992, Anatoly Lukyanov met with President Dukakis at Camp David, where the former confirmed that the Soviet Union would continue to seek peaceful coexistence with the United States as Gorbachev (who had since become a political martyr in the USSR) would have wanted. The terms of the SOAR Treaty and previous agreements, such as those eliminating missiles with intermediate range, were also confirmed to still be in effect by the new Soviet government. The Moscow-Washington Accords were thus drafted, an agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union to cease targeting each others' cities with pre-programmed nuclear weapons, while also banning MIRVs and ICBMs. Its bilateral ratification on March 16th 1992 is often seen by historians as the formal end of the Cold War.
On April 13th 1992, a United Nations Security Council issued a resolution for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait or be subject to a military intervention by June 9th. Dukakis acted in concert with the UN through an extensive arms sale to Saudi Arabia, which he hoped would deter an Iraqi invasion. Meanwhile, the U.S. was subject to a media blitz by Kuwait-backed lobbyists showcasing Iraqi human rights abuses, which helped sell the war on humanitarian grounds. As a last-ditch effort to convince Hussein to back down from Kuwait, Dukakis stationed U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia while building an international coalition to aid them. He also hoped to use the situation to build closer ties with the Soviet Union, who had condemned the invasion.
Lukyanov, faced with a large, struggling nation fresh from a civil war, did not want to compete with America for global dominance at the moment. In fact, many in the Soviet government had supported a policy of (provisionally) co-opting Western nations in order to peacefully accumulate political capital and recover international prestige lost in the violent break-up of 1991. Thus, the Soviet Union pledged support for the 'Grand Alliance', a term used by Dukakis for the Kuwait liberation coalition to invoke the Soviet-Western cooperation in World War II.
On June 8th, Congress approved a military intervention against Iraq, and two days later, an aerial bombing campaign opened the Gulf War. The liberation of Kuwait proved to be surprisingly quick with minimal causalities for the coalition forces, and by July 20th, Iraq was on the defensive. Military brass hoped to completely cripple the nation by supporting Shia and Kurdish rebels against Saddam's regime, so that the U.S. presence in Iran could be stepped down, allowing for more latitude in negotiations with its Sunni neighbors. This idea was personally shot down by Dukakis, who wished to avoid the war in the first place and feared plunging the United States into another Vietnam. Nonetheless, the Grand Alliance maintained forces in Saudi Arabia to enforce Iraqi no-fly zones and the terms of the cease fire.
In August, Pat Buchanan won the Republican primaries, with Jack Kemp as his running mate. Buchanan had a slight edge in that he was much more energetic than Dukakis. However, Buchanan could not surmount the incumbent President's foreign policy successes with the Soviet Union and Iraq which was bore out on election night, where Buchanan carried Mississippi (7), South Carolina (8), Alabama (9), Nebraska (5), Virginia (13), North Dakota (3), North Carolina (14), Utah (5), Oklahoma (8), Idaho (4), South Dakota (3), Wyoming (3), Alaska (3), Kansas (6) and Arizona (8) for 99 Electoral College votes, allowing Dukakis a comfortable victory with 439 votes across 35 states (and D.C.).
Things were looking bright for the Dukakis administration, but forces from without would soon threaten the peace...
In October 1990, President Dukakis and Gorbachev signed the Strategic Offensive Arms Reduction Treaty or the SOAR Treaty, while the United States helped to facilitate the ascendancy of the Soviet Union into the International Monetary Fund and other trade agreements. This rapprochement between the superpowers would come to a halt in August 17th 1991, when communist hardliners staged a coup d'etat of the USSR. The Russian White House was seized, while Boris Yeltsin was assassinated in Kazakhstan and Gorbachev was assassinated in Foros in the Crimea. Gennady Yanayev became acting President of the Soviet Union while the coup leaders formed the State Committee on the State of Emergency (the GKChP) who suspended the ratification of the New Union Treaty.
Masses of people congregated in front of the White House to protest the coup, while the Soviet Army began to disintegrate into two factions: one that supported the GKChP (the Communists), and the other that supported the martyred Yeltsin and Gorbachev (the Reformists).The GKChP expanded the scope of the Soviet Civil War on August 21st 1991 by issuing a three day ultimatum for the breakaway Soviet states to renounce independence, with an oblique threat of nuclear assault. This move backfired, as the remaining Soviet republics in Eastern Europe and the Caucus region signed the Minsk Declaration, which collectively invoked Article 72 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution to justify their independence. The threat of weapons of mass destruction also caused a desperate bombing of the Red Square by the Reformist forces, killing the Gang of Eight (along with many others as collateral) on August 22nd.
With the dissolution of the GKChP, the previous political order was partially restored by October 1991. The Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union convened to make amendments to the constitution. The Cabinet of Ministers was dissolved, and the offices of President and Premier for the Soviet Union were rendered defunct. Anatoly Lukyanov the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, becoming the new head of state for the USSR under the amended the constitution.
In the Middle East, the threat of an Iranian invasion loomed large on the mind of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The United States maintained a heavy harbor presence to bolster Iran and dissuade from an invasion, but Iraq interpreted this as preparations for a Third Iran-Iraq War with peace terms to be mediated by an internationally supported Iran. The Iraqi government thus continued to buildup its military, increasing Iraq's already tremendous debt to its neighbors in the Gulf. Prime among them was Kuwait, with which Iraq had slowly deteriorating relations with due to the former's overproduction of oil, which had consistently negative effects on the Iraqi economy. OPEC temporarily maintained peace by negotiating oil production controls to Iraq's favor, but an invasion was all but inevitable. On November 29th 1991, Iraq invaded Kuwait, earning international condemnation and sanctions mediated by the United Nations. This caused an oil prices spike, dealing a blow to the already weak economy and leading to the onset of a recession.
On January 30th 1992, Anatoly Lukyanov met with President Dukakis at Camp David, where the former confirmed that the Soviet Union would continue to seek peaceful coexistence with the United States as Gorbachev (who had since become a political martyr in the USSR) would have wanted. The terms of the SOAR Treaty and previous agreements, such as those eliminating missiles with intermediate range, were also confirmed to still be in effect by the new Soviet government. The Moscow-Washington Accords were thus drafted, an agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union to cease targeting each others' cities with pre-programmed nuclear weapons, while also banning MIRVs and ICBMs. Its bilateral ratification on March 16th 1992 is often seen by historians as the formal end of the Cold War.
On April 13th 1992, a United Nations Security Council issued a resolution for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait or be subject to a military intervention by June 9th. Dukakis acted in concert with the UN through an extensive arms sale to Saudi Arabia, which he hoped would deter an Iraqi invasion. Meanwhile, the U.S. was subject to a media blitz by Kuwait-backed lobbyists showcasing Iraqi human rights abuses, which helped sell the war on humanitarian grounds. As a last-ditch effort to convince Hussein to back down from Kuwait, Dukakis stationed U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia while building an international coalition to aid them. He also hoped to use the situation to build closer ties with the Soviet Union, who had condemned the invasion.
Lukyanov, faced with a large, struggling nation fresh from a civil war, did not want to compete with America for global dominance at the moment. In fact, many in the Soviet government had supported a policy of (provisionally) co-opting Western nations in order to peacefully accumulate political capital and recover international prestige lost in the violent break-up of 1991. Thus, the Soviet Union pledged support for the 'Grand Alliance', a term used by Dukakis for the Kuwait liberation coalition to invoke the Soviet-Western cooperation in World War II.
On June 8th, Congress approved a military intervention against Iraq, and two days later, an aerial bombing campaign opened the Gulf War. The liberation of Kuwait proved to be surprisingly quick with minimal causalities for the coalition forces, and by July 20th, Iraq was on the defensive. Military brass hoped to completely cripple the nation by supporting Shia and Kurdish rebels against Saddam's regime, so that the U.S. presence in Iran could be stepped down, allowing for more latitude in negotiations with its Sunni neighbors. This idea was personally shot down by Dukakis, who wished to avoid the war in the first place and feared plunging the United States into another Vietnam. Nonetheless, the Grand Alliance maintained forces in Saudi Arabia to enforce Iraqi no-fly zones and the terms of the cease fire.
In August, Pat Buchanan won the Republican primaries, with Jack Kemp as his running mate. Buchanan had a slight edge in that he was much more energetic than Dukakis. However, Buchanan could not surmount the incumbent President's foreign policy successes with the Soviet Union and Iraq which was bore out on election night, where Buchanan carried Mississippi (7), South Carolina (8), Alabama (9), Nebraska (5), Virginia (13), North Dakota (3), North Carolina (14), Utah (5), Oklahoma (8), Idaho (4), South Dakota (3), Wyoming (3), Alaska (3), Kansas (6) and Arizona (8) for 99 Electoral College votes, allowing Dukakis a comfortable victory with 439 votes across 35 states (and D.C.).
Things were looking bright for the Dukakis administration, but forces from without would soon threaten the peace...