cooperation among them ... With the United States serving as a night watchman (emphasis added), fears about relative gains among the Western European states were mitigated ..." Afterwards, Mearsheimer did not mention the "watchman" for some time. A decade later, he described the "international anarchy" as having not changed with the end of the Cold War, "... and there are few signs that such change is likely any time soon. States remain the principal actors in world politics and there is still no night watchman standing above them." Five more years later, Mearsheimer confirmed that "in an anarchic system there is no night watchman for a state to call when trouble comes knocking at their door." Precisely two decades after Mearsheimer had detected the watchman in the world for the last time, he rediscovered the watchman, which exists and keeps Europe at peace. The article "Why Is Europe Peaceful Today?" unambiguously answers, "The reason is simple: the United States is by far the most powerful country in the world and it effectively acts as a night watchman." Gulf War In January and early February 1991, Mearsheimer published two op-eds in the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times and argued that the war to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi forces would be quick and lead to a decisive U.S. victory, with less than 1,000 American casualties. Mearsheimer's argument was based on several points. Firstly, the Iraqi Army was a Third World military that was unprepared to fight mobile armored battles. Secondly, U.S. armored forces were better equipped and trained. Thirdly, U.S. artillery was also far better than its Iraqi counterpart. Fourthly, U.S. airpower, unfettered by the weak Iraqi air force, should prove devastating against Iraqi ground forces. Fifthly and finally, the forward deployment of Iraqi reserves boded ill for their ability to counter U.S. efforts to penetrate the Iraqi defense line along the Saudi–Kuwaiti border. All of those predictions came true during the course of the war. Noelle-Neumann controversy In October 1991, Mearsheimer was drawn into a bitter controversy at the University of Chicago regarding Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, then a visiting professor from Germany. Noelle-Neumann was a prominent German pollster and a leading academic on public opinion research, who authored the highly regarded book, The Spiral of Silence. The debate centered on an article written for Commentary magazine by Leo Bogart, "The Pollster and the Nazis," which described Noelle-Neumann's past employment as