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Military activities require good strategic assessment preceding successful implementation. Good strategic assessment is developed when civil-military relations allows for structural processes to take shape. In the Gulf War of 1991, the US used strategic bombings to coerce Iraq from withdrawing from Kuwait with convincing results. The Iraqi regime led by Saddam Hussein and the Ba´ath party suffered tremendous loss even though their military power held sufficient numbers and posed a real threat to the US and coalition forces. 

This study argues that the strategic assessments by the Iraqi regime were severely hampered due to measures of counterbalancing to coup-proof the regime against overthrowal from the military power. This study tests Risa A. Brooks’ theory on shaping strategy by complementing it with a theory on counterbalancing in autocracies presented by Escribà-Folch, Böhmelt & Pilster in a within-case comparison of the prelude to the Gulf War of 1991 as a single case study. This qualitative content analysis aims to explain how civil-military relations within autocracies differ from democracies due to measures of counterbalancing. 

The results show that civil-military relations in Iraq were severely impeded due to extensive measures of counterbalancing which ultimately led to bad strategic assessment, being one possible reason for their loss against the US. This study contributes to existing research on civil-military relations and emphasizes the need of a more comprehensive theory on civil-military relations depending on regime type.