Match List - I with List - II.

Choose the correct answer from the options given below:

(A)-(IV), (B)-(II), (C)-(I), (D)-(III)

*The correct answer is Option 1: (A)-(IV), (B)-(II), (C)-(I), (D)-(III)*

Explanation:

In August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, rapidly occupying and subsequently annexing it. After a series of diplomatic attempts failed at convincing Iraq to quit its aggression, the United Nations mandated the liberation of Kuwait by force. For the UN, this was a dramatic decision after years of deadlock during the Cold War. The US President George H.W. Bush hailed the emergence of a ‘new world order’.

On 11 September 2001, nineteen hijackers hailing from a number of Arab countries took control of four American commercial aircraft shortly after takeoff and flew them into important buildings in the US. One airliner each crashed into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Centre in New York. A third aircraft crashed into the Pentagon building in Arlington, Virginia, where the US Defence Department is headquartered. The fourth aircraft, presumably bound for the Capitol building of the US Congress, came down in a field in Pennsylvania. The attacks have come to be known as “9/11”. (In America the convention is to write the month first, followed by the date; hence the short form ‘9/ 11’ instead of ‘11/9’ as we would write in India).

On 19 March 2003, the US launched its invasion of Iraq under the codename ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’. More than forty other countries joined in the US-led ‘coalition of the willing’ after the UN refused to give its mandate to the invasion. The ostensible purpose of the invasion was to prevent Iraq from developing weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Since no evidence of WMD has been unearthed in Iraq, it is speculated that the invasion was motivated by other objectives, such as controlling Iraqi oilfields and installing a regime friendly to the US.

The sudden collapse of the Soviet Union took everyone by surprise. While one of the two superpowers ceased to exist, the other remained with all its powers intact, even enhanced. Thus, it would appear that the US hegemony began in 1991 after Soviet power disappeared from the international scene. This is largely correct, but we need to keep in mind two riders to this. First, as we shall see in this chapter, some aspects of US hegemony did not emerge in 1991 but in fact go back to the end of the Second World War in 1945.