Armies of the Gulf War (repost)

War is a national undertaking which must be co-ordinated from the highest levels of policv-making to the basic levels of execution. Military strategy, operational art, and tactics are the broad divisions of activ it) in preparing for and con­ducting war. Successful strategy achieves national and alliance political aims at the lowest cost in lives and trea­sure. Operational art translates those aims into effective military operations and campaigns. Sound tactics win the battles and engagements which produce successful cam­paigns and operations

If the above description of the structure of modern warfare seems to have been written to describe the Gulf War, it was. 1 low ever, it appeared in the 1986 edition of I'M 100 5, Operations* the LS Army's keystone war-lighting manual describing the Airl.and Battle concept. The 1990 91 war was fought exactlv as specified bv the US Army's AirLand Battle doctrine. There can be little argu­ment that no previous military operation of anywhere near the scale of Operations DESERT SI HELD and DESERT STORM has ever come close to achieving the degree of success that coalition fortes achieved between August 1990 and I'ebruarv 1991. (minted, there were problems - that is the nature of the business; but overall, it was executed just as the planners intended.