Early on the morning of January 17, 1991, the Persian Gulf War began. It consisted of massive allied air strikes on Iraq and Iraqi targets in Kuwait. The United States Air Force spearheaded the air offensive and furnished the bulk of the attacking aircraft. During forty-two days of fighting, the U.S. Air Force simultaneously conducted two closely coordinated air campaigns: one in support of allied ground forced; the other, attacking strategic targets. Planners of the strategic air campaign sought to isolate and incapacitate Saddam Hussein's government; gain and maintain air supremacy to permit unhindered air operations; destroy Iraq's nuclear, biological, and chemical capabilities; and eliminate Iraq's offensive military capability, which included its key military production facilities, their infrastructure, and the instruments it used to project its power - the Iraqi Air Force, the Republican Guard, and short-range ballistic missiles. This study develops background information to place the Persian Gulf War in its proper historical and cultural contexts, unfamiliar to and not easily understood by Americans. The first essay quickly summarizes the relationship between Arab culture and Islam, the history of Islam and the Arab conquests, and the creation of one of the flash points in present-day Middle Eastern conflicts - the Arab-Jewish dispute over Palestine. The second essay provides a military analysis of the Arab-Israeli wars from 1948 to 1982. It describes the performance of the engaged armed forces, the performance of Western versus Soviet weapons systems, the development of the respective forces' military professionalization, and the ability of the warring parties to learn from their experiences. The final three essays describe the recent history of the three regional powers of the Persian Gulf - Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq. In addition to providing a detailed character analysis of Saddam Hussein and a military analysis of the Iran-Iraq War, these final sections examine the tension that arose in the three nations when the desire for modernization confronted the demands of Islamic conservatism.

In the Persian Gulf War the U.S. Air Force (USAF) demonstrated that a new era in strategic bombing had begun. Air power could now destroy key portions of a county's military and economic infrastructure without resort to nuclear weapons and heavy bombers and with low losses to both the attacker and enemy civilians. This achievement rested on technology, which both increased bombing accuracy and decreased the effectiveness of enemy defenses, and the reexamination and reapplication of traditional strategic bombing theory by USAF planning officers.

The war in the Persian Gulf in 1991 capped an era of USAF modernization and enhanced readiness begun in the late 1970s and that continued through the 1980s. The long lead-time weapons acquisition and training programs, begun a decade or more earlier, came to fruition against a far different opponent and in an unforeseen locale than that envisioned by their creators. The force designed to counter the superpower foe of the Cold War, the USSR, never fought a direct battle against that enemy during the existence of the Soviet Union. Instead, the USAF fought the first war of the so-called New World Order, a war that had as much in common with the colonial wars of the late nineteenth century as it had with the high-technology wars of the late twentieth century. The USAF shouldered the bulk of the fighting for the first thirty-nine of the conflict's forty-two days. This volume covers the air offensive against strategic military and economic targets within the pre-August 1990 borders of Iraq. The offensive air plan once again displayed the ability of the U.S. military to turn the necessity of improvisation into a virtue when, in mid-August 1990, an element of the Air Staff in the Pentagon wrote the basis of the offensive plan in ten days. The plan was founded upon the precepts of Col. John A. Warden III's air power theories-centers of gravity, shock effect, and the importance of leadership-related targets. Once the outline plan reached the arena of operations, the U.S. Central Air Forces (CENTAF), under the able leadership of Lt. Gen. Charles A. Horner, adopted the targeting philosophy of the plan and, after many modifications owing to new targets and an increased force structure, employed it with devastating effect. The author describes not only the outstanding performance of USAF men and machines but also the difficulties and complexities of coordinating the many elements of air and staff operations. Among these were the complex coordination of the fighters with their tankers, the speedy transmission of data from the allseeing eyes of AWACS and JSTARS aircraft, the multiple bomb runs over chemical and biological warfare bunkers, and the shortcomings of certain types of intelligence. All these factors impacted on mission effectiveness. The author also diagrams how outside influences-political pressure from neutrals, such as the Israelis, and from public news media-can affect the direction of the bombing effort. Although this account of the air campaign in the Persian Gulf concentrates on the operational history of a six-week war, it also places that war into its larger political and military context, especially in its tale of the interplay between the U.S. military and civilian leadership. It illustrates, with reference to actual missions, the operational advantages of stealth fighter bombers as well as their vulnerabilities. Davis presents the reader with a detailed account of one of the USAF's most important air operations in the last half of the twentieth century. In the decade after the conclusion of the Gulf War, the pattern of strategic air operations against Iraq became the template for USAF operations over Bosnia and during the air war over Serbia and, most recently, in Afghanistan as well. In planning for air operations in the Balkans, USAF officers were strongly influenced by John A. Warden's methodology and ideology with its emphasis on centers of gravity and strikes on leadership targets. Stealth air combat operations, inaugurated en masse in the Gulf War, became even more prevalent with the introduction of the B-2 bomber. Likewise, the use of precision weapons grew. The aversion of western democracies to both military and civilian casualties and their effect on targeting, tactics, and strategy first encountered over Iraq became more pronounced in subsequent conflicts-as did the continuing challenge in matching accurate intelligence to precision weapons.

This undertaking is a work of unusual form. At its core this work is a database covering Anglo- American strategic bomber operations against Germany, Italy, and Axis associated or occupied Europe. As such it allows swift and easy listing of day-by-day bombing, bombing of strategic target systems by location and tonnage, bombing of specific countries, comparisons of US and British targeting and operations, and much more. The work details strategic operations only- B-17 and B-24 bomber sorties by the four US numbered air forces in the European and Mediterranean theaters (Eighth, Ninth, Twelfth, and Fifteenth) and all bombing sorties for aircraft assigned to the Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command and RAF 205 Group. This definition excludes US twin-engine medium bomb groups, which often hit the same aiming points as their four-engine compatriots, but includes twin-engine British Wellington medium bombers and twin-engine British Mosquito, Boston, and Ventura light bombers. Although the US heavy and medium bombers had instances of overlapping, targeting those instances usually fell into areas of what US doctrine defined as tactical rather than strategic bombing, such as frontline troops, transportation facilities feeding the front line, and airfields. US medium bombers did not fly deep into enemy country to attack industrial and strategic targets. The case differed for the RAF. Wellingtons and other medium bombers formed the backbone of the main bombing force from 1940 through late 1942 and throughout 1943 for 205 Group. Bomber Command's shortranged Bostons and Venturas of No. 2 Group raided French ports, power plants, and industrial targets until transferring to Tactical Bomber Force in May 1943. Likewise, Mosquitoes conducted numerous hit-and-run daylight raids until May of 1943 and then switched to night harassing attacks on German population centers, particularly Berlin, until the war's end. Such bombing furthered Bomber Command's campaign against the morale of the German labor force.

CMH Pub. 70-111-1. Edited by Richard G. Davis. Presents fifteen papers from the 2007 Conference of Army Historians. Examines irregular warfare in a wide and diverse range of circumstances and eras.

Throughout U.S. military history, the establishment has worked to integrate air power into its doctrine, strategy, force structure, and tactics in order to maximize the nation's security. This study highlights one aspect of this process - providing the most potent mist of army and air forces to prosecute ground warfare. It also illustrates the impediments of joint action created by the services' separate organizations and distinctive doctrine. Office of Air Force History, United States Air Force.

The war in the Persian Gulf in 1991 capped an era of USAF modernization and enhanced readiness begun in the late 1970s and that continued through the 1980s. The long lead-time weapons acquisition and training programs, begun a decade or more earlier, came to fruition against a far different opponent and in an unforeseen locale than that envisioned by their creators. The force designed to counter the superpower foe of the Cold War, the USSR, never fought a direct battle against that enemy during the existence of the Soviet Union. Instead, the USAF fought the first war of the so-called New World Order, a war that had as much in common with the colonial wars of the late nineteenth century as it had with the high-technology wars of the late twentieth century. The USAF shouldered the bulk of the fighting for the first thirty-nine of the conflict's forty-two days. This volume covers the air offensive against strategic military and economic targets within the pre-August 1990 borders of Iraq. The offensive air plan once again displayed the ability of the U.S. military to turn the necessity of improvisation into a virtue when, in mid-August 1990, an element of the Air Staff in the Pentagon wrote the basis of the offensive plan in ten days. The plan was founded upon the precepts of Col. John A. Warden III's air power theories-centers of gravity, shock effect, and the importance of leadership-related targets. Once the outline plan reached the arena of operations, the U.S. Central Air Forces (CENTAF), under the able leadership of Lt. Gen. Charles A. Horner, adopted the targeting philosophy of the plan and, after many modifications owing to new targets and an increased force structure, employed it with devastating effect. The author describes not only the outstanding performance of USAF men and machines but also the difficulties and complexities of coordinating the many elements of air and staff operations. Among these were the complex coordination of the fighters with their tankers, the speedy transmission of data from the allseeing eyes of AWACS and JSTARS aircraft, the multiple bomb runs over chemical and biological warfare bunkers, and the shortcomings of certain types of intelligence. All these factors impacted on mission effectiveness. The author also diagrams how outside influences-political pressure from neutrals, such as the Israelis, and from public news media-can affect the direction of the bombing effort. Although this account of the air campaign in the Persian Gulf concentrates on the operational history of a six-week war, it also places that war into its larger political and military context, especially in its tale of the interplay between the U.S. military and civilian leadership. It illustrates, with reference to actual missions, the operational advantages of stealth fighter bombers as well as their vulnerabilities. Davis presents the reader with a detailed account of one of the USAF's most important air operations in the last half of the twentieth century. In the decade after the conclusion of the Gulf War, the pattern of strategic air operations against Iraq became the template for USAF operations over Bosnia and during the air war over Serbia and, most recently, in Afghanistan as well. In planning for air operations in the Balkans, USAF officers were strongly influenced by John A. Warden's methodology and ideology with its emphasis on centers of gravity and strikes on leadership targets. Stealth air combat operations, inaugurated en masse in the Gulf War, became even more prevalent with the introduction of the B-2 bomber. Likewise, the use of precision weapons grew. The aversion of western democracies to both military and civilian casualties and their effect on targeting, tactics, and strategy first encountered over Iraq became more pronounced in subsequent conflicts-as did the continuing challenge in matching accurate intelligence to precision weapons.

Early on the morning of January 17, 1991, the Persian Gulf War began. It consisted of massive allied air strikes on Iraq and Iraqi targets in Kuwait. The United States Air Force spearheaded the offensive and furnished the bulk of the attacking aircraft. During 43 days of fighting, the U.S. Air Force simultaneously conducted two closely coordinated air campaigns. This study develops background information to place the Persian Gulf War in its proper historical and cultural contexts, unfamiliar to and not easily understood by Americans.

In Bombing the European Axis Powers Dr. Richard G. Davis, currently a division chief for the US Army Center for Military History, provides a detailed chronological narrative of the Anglo-American strategic bomber offensive against Hitler's Germany, his European allies, and German-occupied territory. Davis also includes several in-depth discussions covering such topics as the evacuation of Sicily, Allied airpower and the Holocaust, the bombing of Dresden, and overall Anglo-American policy concerning city-area bombing. An accompanying web site contains a spreadsheet key and seven Excel worksheets that chronicle bombing data from 1939 through 1945. Originally published in 2006.

The strategic air campaign against Iraq engaged organizers from diverse disciplines with diverse views. That the storm, when it broke, lasted just forty-three days is a tribute not only to those who planned it, but also to those who executed it. The strategic air campaign, the focus of this volume, the second in the account of the United States Air Force's participation in the Persian Gulf War, began with a spectacular nighttime attack by Coalition aircraft against the capital city of Baghdad. This attack, seen by the world, occurred in concert with bomb and missile attacks against outlying command, control, and communications nodes and the electrical grid supporting them. The strategic air campaign also targeted Iraq's chemical and biological weapons production and the sites of nuclear reactors. The strategic bombing campaign against Iraq's aircraft shelters, particularly successful, is recounted in this volume, as is the Coalition's effort to prevent the launching by Iraq of Scud missiles toward her Arab and Israeli neighbors. The author has done a thorough job of utilizing the documentation produced by the Air Stall; the Ninth Air Force, and the former Strategic and Tactical Air Commands to describe the evolution of the combined command structure in Saudi Arabia. He has also conducted numerous valuable interviews with key USAF personnel and obtained much detailed information about the interactions among the participants whose responsibility it was to organize the campaign to free Kuwait. He exhaustively analyzes events and issues that preceded the execution of the strategic air war -operationally, Instant Thunder- and the rationale behind the selection of core strategic target sets -enemy centers of gravity. The author, Dr. Richard G. Davis, joined the USAF history program in 1980, transferring to the Air Staff History Branch in 1985 and to the Histories Division in 1990. He has published several articles on World War II strategic bombing and a military biography on one of the USAF's leading practitioners of strategic bombing, General Carl A. Spaatz. Davis became familiar with modern service programs and doctrine by covering the Program Objective Memorandum and issues surrounding the interservice agreements known as the "31 Initiatives" from 1985 to 1990.