The Persian Gulf War (2 August 1990 – 28 February 1991), codenamed Operation Desert Storm (17 January 1991 – 28 February 1991) commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a UN-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.

The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf War, Gulf War I, or the Iraq War, before the term "Iraq War" became identified instead with the 2003 Iraq War (also referred to in the U.S. as "Operation Iraqi Freedom").

The invasion of Kuwait by Iraqi troops that began 2 August 1990 was met with international condemnation, and brought immediate economic sanctions against Iraq by members of the UN Security Council. U.S. President George H. W. Bush deployed American forces into Saudi Arabia, and urged other countries to send their own forces to the scene. An array of nations joined the coalition. The great majority of the military forces in the coalition were from the United States, with Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and Egypt as leading contributors, in that order. Around US$36 billion of the US$60 billion cost was paid by Saudi Arabia.

War is an organized, armed, and often a prolonged conflict that is carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political communities, and therefore is defined as a form of political violence. The set of techniques used by a group to carry out war is known as warfare. An absence of war (and other violence) is usually called peace.

In 2003, Nobel Laureate Richard E. Smalley identified war as the sixth (of ten) biggest problems facing the society of mankind for the next fifty years. In the 1832 treatise On War, Prussian military general and theoretician Carl von Clausewitz defined war as follows: "War is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will."

While some scholars see warfare as an inescapable and integral aspect of human culture, others argue that it is only inevitable under certain socio-cultural or ecological circumstances. Some scholars argue that the practice of war is not linked to any single type of political organization or society. Rather, as discussed by John Keegan in his History of Warfare, war is a universal phenomenon whose form and scope is defined by the society that wages it. Another argument suggests that since there are human societies in which warfare does not exist, humans may not be naturally disposed for warfare, which emerges under particular circumstances. The ever changing technologies and potentials of war extend along a historical continuum. At the one end lies the endemic warfare of the Paleolithic^{[citation needed]} with its stones and clubs, and the naturally limited loss of life associated with the use of such weapons. Found at the other end of this continuum is nuclear warfare, along with the recently developed possible outcome of its use, namely the potential risk of the complete extinction of the human species.

Bob Simon (born May 29, 1941) is a CBS News television correspondent.

From 1964–67, Simon served as an American Foreign Service officer and was a Fulbright Scholar in France and a Woodrow Wilson scholar. From 1969–71, he served a tour in the CBS News London bureau. From 1971–77, he was based in the London and Saigon bureaus where he served as a Vietnam War correspondent. From 1977–81, he was assigned to the CBS News Tel Aviv bureau.

From 1981–82, he spent time in Washington, D.C., as the CBS News State Department correspondent. From 1982–87, Simon served as a New York-based CBS News national correspondent. In 1987, Simon was named the CBS News Chief Middle Eastern correspondent.

During the opening days of the Gulf War in January 1991, Simon and his CBS News team were captured by Iraqi forces and spent 40 days in Iraqi prisons; he later chronicled the experience in the book, Forty Days.

In 1996, Simon joined 60 Minutes as a correspondent, and in 1998 he was named a 60 Minutes II correspondent. Notable stories he has done in recent years include the first profile of the so-called "Lost Boys of Sudan", and an exclusive interview with Iraqi Shiite insurgency leader Muqtada al-Sadr. He currently serves as the Senior Foreign Correspondent for 60 Minutes.