In this chapter, I will argue that the combination of power politics with moral and ideological motivations is typical of Western political culture. Although wars have become obsolete among liberal democracies, modern liberal democracies consider the use of force as an essential foreign policy instrument. During the Cold War, the emphasis was on fighting communism as an opposing ideology that simply did not harmonize with Western values. As a consequence, interventions in the Third World were seen as an ideological struggle between Communists and anti-Communists. After the end of the Cold War, a new debate emerged concerning militant Islam, which seemed to replace Communism as the opposing ideology. Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order played an important role in initiating this debate. Huntington argued that states are part of broader civilizations that share strong bonds of culture, religion, values, and ideologies. The crux of his “civilization thesis” is that conflict is likely to occur between states of different civilizations.

Two cases: Iraq and Somalia

The cases of Iraq and Somalia shed more light on Western interventions. On the morning of August 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein initiated one of the very few textbook examples of interstate aggression since the Second World War. Following Iraq's successful occupation of Kuwait City, Hussein moved part of his forces to the Kuwaiti-Saudi border. By August 6, Iraq had six divisions in Kuwait and many more close at hand. The Saudi border was almost defenseless because of the limited number of forces in place. On August 8, Saddam announced that he had annexed Kuwait and moved another 50,000 troops to the Saudi border.

Saddam claimed that, historically, Kuwait was part of Iraq and justified the invasion by saying that his objective was the elimination of the “trace of Western colonization” left since the turn of the century. In truth, however, the Iraqi interest in Kuwait had more to do with its incredible oil wealth. Iraq's war with Iran had resulted in an economic recession. The Iraqi leader told fellow Arab leaders that this war was the defense of the eastern flank of the Arab world against fundamentalist Islam.