On August 2, 1990, Iraq’s ground forces invaded and occupied Kuwait. 40% of the world’s oil production, and the developed world’s economy, was placed in imminent threat by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. In response, the United States promptly assembled an international coalition to attack and expel Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, and to eliminate Hussein’s capability to repeat such an act in the future. What followed would forever transform the face of war.Desert Storm was the first truly high-tech war. It was the first conflict watched live by millions across the world, 24/7. It was the first time that air power decisively defeated ground forces on its own. It featured a logistics build-up that exceeded WW2’s D-Day. For the first time an entire nation’s command and control apparatus was abruptly and effectively removed at the very start of a conflict; and the first time that stealth, standoff and precision-guided weapons were used on a mass scale. For students of military technology and art, this was effectively the first war of the 21st century.

Relive the pivotal events of the conflict that sealed the Cold War and radically changed the Middle East geopolitical landscape: The massive coalition build-up following the Iraqi invasion; The first night over Baghdad on January 17, 1991; the “do or die” strike that stopped Iraq’s chemical retaliation in the nick of time; the frustrating “Scud hunts” all over the Iraqi desert; coalition attacks on Iraq’s airfields; the annihilation of the Iraqi navy at Bubiyan, the “highway of death” during the Iraqi retreat from Kuwait, and much more. Additionally, step into the unknown as you probe the great unanswered questions of the conflict: What if Iraq had pre-empted the coalition build-up and rolled right into S.Arabia? What if Israel had retaliated for the Scud attacks against it? What if Iran or even the Soviet Union had intervened against the coalition?