The Dominion War and the Gulf War.

In early 1990, Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime launched a ground invasion on the sovereign state of Kuwait which was quickly condemned in an almost unilateral international response, led by the United States of America, leading to Operation Desert Storm - the first ground war in history given rolling media coverage, which led to Iraqi defeat and Kuwaiti liberation within a manner of weeks. This became known as the Gulf War, and the first of several conflicts across the next three decades that have ripped the Middle East apart. It came just a few years before Star Trek: Deep Space Nine would engage in the Dominion War, a quadrant-wide conflict led by the Federation to prevent the all-powerful Dominion invading and conquering the Alpha Quadrant, which dominated DS9's narrative across its final few seasons.

In this episode, host Tony Black is joined by guest Isaac Gooch to discuss how the Dominion War in DS9 relates to the conflict in the Gulf, and how the preconditions of both wars hold a certain connection. Was the Dominion conflict stoked by the shapeshifter's agents such as the Vorta in the manner Republican politicians encouraged the use of force against the Iraqi regime? Can we draw a parallel between the use of the Jem'Hadar's drug dependency with the exposure of American soldiers to chemicals on the battlefield? And on a broader context, what does the Dominion War say about the Federation, and Star Trek as a series', need for a level of conflict at the so-called End of History?

Host / Editor

Tony Black

Guest

Issac Gooch

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