The persian gulf war 550 000 american troops have amassed in saudi arabia
they are ready to face dictator saddam hussein in his notorious army now occupying kuwait
on august 2nd 1990 some 80 000 iraqi troops stormed their southern border officially
commencing the invasion of kuwait although fighting officially began on august 2nd the
conflict began years earlier after the end of the iran iraq war in 1988 iraq found itself burdened
by more than 14 billion dollars in debt it had taken out to finance the eight-year conflict
this added to the 20 billion dollars iraq was already carrying totaling more than 80 percent
of the country's gdp and this was not a time to be carrying debt in the midst of a particularly nasty
recession the federal reserve under chairman paul volcker had raised interest rates to record highs
with the us's position at the center of global finance this sent shock waves and increasing
rates across the world particularly in a country like iraq with a high risk of default today most
first world countries national debts have interest rates in the low single digits but iraq's topped
13 and while their national debt was piling up oil markets were collapsing from their peak in 1980
oil prices had fallen by more than two-thirds amid falling demand and increased production
and this especially hurt iraq who at the start of the 1980s saw more than half their total gdp
come from oil reserves this all put great pressure on the iraqi government to find additional revenue
sources so when kuwait supposedly started stealing their oil they weren't in a forgiving mood
most people think of oil wells as going straight down but they don't have to
underground you can drill at an angle or even perpendicular to the ground
in the lead-up to the invasion iraq alleged that kuwait had been doing this to steal oil under
iraqi soil this coupled with kuwait's high oil production which had depressed regional
prices for years was all the justification they needed for war it's important to note that while
iraq claimed the invasion was in retaliation for kuwait's actions the rest of the world
recognized this as a thinly veiled excuse to seize valuable oil fields deep within the country
the invasion began on thursday and by saturday most of kuwait's armed forces had been overrun
or were forced to retreat to neighboring countries by annexing kuwait iraq now controlled a fifth of
the world's oil reserves and for the first time a substantial coastline on the persian gulf
that same day the united nations security council
unanimously denounced the invasion and demanded iraq's immediate withdrawal from kuwait
and following extensive consultations with our coalition partners
saddam hussein was given one last chance to withdraw unconditionally from kuwait
regrettably the noon deadline passed without the agreement of the government of iraq after failing
to withdraw by january 15th in building up an occupying force of some 300 000 iraqi troops
the us acting under a u.n resolution authorizing force led a coalition of 39 nations against iraq
the following 42-day war would become the most one-sided conflict in military history
the allied coalition suffered about 250 deaths and 500 wounded while iraqi casualties numbered
at least 25 000 and left more than 75 000 wounded but how did the allied coalition win such a
staggering victory a large part was thanks to the us's technological supremacy the counter-invasion
would see the most advanced technological weapons ever deployed in combat the first gulf war
was the us's first major military intervention since the vietnam war more than a decade prior
and technology had advanced considerably in that time the conflict saw the rollout of the f-117
nighthawk this was the plane that would come to popularize the term stealth in reference to an
aircraft's reduced radar signature before the days of computer modeling the f-117 frame was designed
by hand to reflect enemy radar up into the atmosphere and away from the ground-based source
the plane's aluminum exterior was coated with a radar absorbent material that further reduced its
radar signature this stealth technology was so advanced that the plane's 13 meter wingspan was
reduced on radar to a cross-sectional area between 10 and 100 centimeters squared a size smaller than
most of the birds that flew over iraqi airspace making the planes nearly impossible to identify
although the 36 f-117s made up less than 3 percent of the more than 1900 allied planes
in the early days of the counter invasion before iraqi radar stations were taken out
they flew more than a third of the bombing runs across the 1 000 hours of the conflict
these 36 planes saw an impressive 7 000 hours of combined flight time the stealth fighter attacked
the most heavily fortified targets and it was the only coalition jet allowed to strike targets
inside baghdad the capital city protected by more than 3 000 anti-aircraft guns and 60 surface air
missile battery defenses despite these defenses the f-117 was never shot down over iraqi skies
and over its whole 25 years of service only three would ever be downed by enemy defenses more than
just stealth technology equipped on these planes were the most advanced bombs ever developed
laser-guided bombs first introduced during the vietnam war allowed coalition forces to
pick apart hostile tanks from miles away the planes releasing the bombs a target control
aircraft or even forces on the ground would illuminate the target with an infrared laser
sensors in the bomb's nose would then lock onto the reflections from the laser and mini computers
fitted within the casing would then control adjustable fins on the bomb to guide them to
their target these laser-guided munitions were 100 to 200 times as effective as conventional bombs
flying at 50 000 feet a bomb dropped half a second late could miss its target by hundreds of feet but
in the first gulf war laser-guided munitions had an average accuracy of 10 feet or less
this was especially crucial in major iraqi cities where military fortifications were often
surrounded by civilian homes and after the launch of navstar 1 the first gps satellite only
two years prior coalition forces were the first ever to use gps to precisely track both friendly
and enemy troop movements this was especially important in a theater like the first gulf war
the vast majority of the coalition's forces were not from the middle east mostly americans and
so they didn't know the regional geography and whereas european and east asian theaters of war
provided geographical landmarks to use as guides most of kuwait and iraq were empty deserts with no
mountains or rivers and very little infrastructure to aid in navigation gps technology allowed ground
troops to coordinate real-time movements across hundreds of miles of open desert proving a
decisive advantage another technological advance that's often overlooked are night vision goggles
during operation desert storm soldiers use 25 thousand dollar holographic night vision goggles
the amplified light too dim for the naked eye normally you can't see at night because there
isn't enough light for your eyes but night vision goggles can detect very small amounts of light
and even wavelengths that we can't normally detect like infrared the goggles then boost
these signals between two and seven thousand times allowing you to see enemy movements these glasses
give the coalition a major edge over iraqi forces and night battles especially because
the iraqi troops were unaware of this technology and often favored knight battles to hide from
coalition aircraft only to be spotted by the ground-based forces using these goggles
the combination of these technologies gave coalition forces the upper hand leading to
the largest one-sided conflict in military history in the liberation of occupied kuwait
hey guys as you could probably tell this was a different style of video than what we normally do
in both what we talked about it was sort of half history in the beginning
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