In 1991, Iraq openly provoked the United States, and also claimed that if Iran and the United States went to war, it would definitely make the US military bleed into a river! The provoked United States resolutely decided to fight back, and the Gulf War broke out. So where did little Iraq come from with the courage to provoke the United States? What were the causes and consequences of the Gulf War? Today's video will talk about the Gulf War that shocked the world, and new friends remember to pay attention to it a little, both to review the previous content and not to miss the excitement after that.
In all modern countries, although Iraq is a small country, but in terms of war experience may be the most abundant, since the 1973 Middle East war, the Iraqi army has been fighting almost always, whether it is missile attacks, or large-scale position defense wars, Iraq has experienced, can be described as a hundred battles division.
In the 1980s, during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, when the United States had just emerged from the quagmire of the Vietnam War, for its own global interests, Saddam Hussein's government, which had supported Iraq, provoked a war against Iran in an attempt to retake An important strategic pawn in the Middle East from its biggest rival, the Soviet Union. With the support of the United States, Iraq's military strength has increased greatly, with more than 2,000 tanks, more than 4,000 artillery pieces and an army of more than 1 million people, at the same time, in the air force, Iraq also has a large number of advanced fighters, all carrying a large number of missiles, the military scale is very strong, the military strength is also very strong, can be called the world's first-class military level, which makes Saddam Hussein government rapidly expanded, known as Iraq as "the world's fourth military power."
Saddam Hussein
However, in the eight-year Iran-Iraq War, Iraq did not achieve a complete victory, but was heavily indebted, owing a bunch of debts to the Arab oil countries, one of which was Kuwait. In order to repay the debt, Iraq proposed that the United Petroleum Exporting Countries organization reduce oil production, thereby raising the price of oil and quickly getting out of the shadow of debt. However, Kuwait did not cooperate with Iraq's proposal at all, because Kuwait and Iraq bordered each other, the two countries had been in territorial disputes in the border area, and in order to force Iraq to comply with the compromise, Kuwait vigorously increased oil production, pulled down global oil prices, and opposed Iraq.
Therefore, after the tough Saddam Hussein demanded to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to forgive Iraq's tens of billions of debts, which was directly rejected, the ambitious Saddam hussein government was very unhappy and decided to preemptively invade Kuwait. On August 2, 1990, Iraq sent 100,000 troops across the Kuwaiti border and launched a large-scale lightning raid on Kuwait, this time the operation surprised the Kuwaiti military, and was attacked by a sudden attack without any defense, coupled with the fact that the combat effectiveness was inferior to Iraq, resulting in a disparity in strength between the two sides on the battlefield, and finally, Iraq took only ten hours to capture Kuwait, after which Saddam Hussein publicly announced that Iraq had annexed Kuwait and Kuwait became Iraq's 19th province.
Why did Iraq, in the face of international pressure, seize Kuwait? Originally, in the Middle East, the world's largest "gas station", Kuwait is a fairly representative country, the region is small but rich in resources, Kuwait covers an area of only 17,800 square kilometers, but the south is bordered by the Persian Gulf, the west side is bordered by Saudi Arabia, the north is surrounded by Iraq, the east side and Iran are across the sea, the terrain is dangerous, and the oil storage accounts for ten percent of the world, known as the "Pearl of the Gulf". As a result, Iraq has long coveted Kuwait and, even though it knew it would offend the interests of the United States, preferred to take the risk of occupying Kuwait.
Sure enough, after the news of Iraq's troops in Kuwait came out, it triggered unanimous opposition and condemnation from the international community, and the Americans could not sit still at all. In fact, the US military had always thought that Saddam Hussein would not launch an offensive against Kuwait, but he never expected that Saddam Hussein would eat the bear's heart and divide his cake with great fanfare.
In the eyes of the United States, this behavior of Iraq challenges the international order established after World War II, and the United States, which prides itself as a defender of justice, naturally cannot tolerate such behavior; at the same time, in terms of practical interests, after Kuwait was occupied by Iraq, a large amount of foreign exchange generated by the sale of oil was bound to go to Iraq's hands, and the Western countries suffered heavy losses, and their "gas stations" were in the hands of Iraq. In order to preserve the oil channel in the Gulf region and to ensure that the hegemony of the United States in the Middle East is not shaken, the top level of the United States held a meeting and decided to take large-scale military action against Iraq to force Iraq to withdraw its troops from Kuwait.
Iraq anticipated a military repression of the U.S. military against itself long before the occupation of Kuwait, so Iraq adopted internal austerity economically, stepped up the expansion of its army to prepare for war, and built 24 new divisions, bringing the total strength of the army to 77 divisions, a total of 1.2 million people. Not only that, Iraq has also strengthened the deployment of troops in the Kuwaiti theater, with a total of 43 divisions, about 540,000 people, 4,280 tanks, 2,800 artillery pieces, and more than 2,800 armored transport vehicles deployed on the three lines of defense, ready for battle.
On the third day after the occupation of Kuwait, the US military formulated a military plan called "Desert Shield" at the military conference, called "Shield", which is actually based on deterrence, through large-scale troop increases to the Gulf region, with military strategic threats and economic sanctions, line blockades and other means to make Iraq submit, forcing its main force to withdraw from Kuwait and protecting the interests of the Americans in the Gulf region. The plan was quickly approved by then-U.S. President George W. Bush, and the prelude to the Gulf War began.
After Operation Desert Shield began, the United States mobilized more than 300 C-141s and C-5s to rapidly deliver troops and supplies to the Gulf region from August 7, 1991. The C-5 was the largest strategic transport aircraft in the United States at the time, from main battle tanks to helicopters, the C-5 could carry almost anything, and it also had aerial refueling capabilities, and in theory, it had unlimited endurance. The data shows that on average, a strategic transport plane lands in Saudi Arabia every 7 minutes, and 22 days after the start of Operation Desert Shield, the number of U.S. airlifts has exceeded the total number of 11 months of airlift in Berlin in 1949, but this is only a fraction of the volume of U.S. sea traffic.
By the beginning of November of the same year, the United States had completed the delivery of all combatants and large weapons, and the DEPLOYMENT OF THE US MILITARY had a total of 170,000 troops, 40,000 navy troops, 30,000 air force units, and a total of 240,000 navy, army and air force. In terms of large-scale weapons and equipment, including 800 tanks, a total of about 450 aircraft of various types, and 85 ships.
The United States thought that Iraq would immediately obey when it saw its powerful military strength, but it never expected that Saddam Hussein's government was extremely arrogant, and it had a million veteran troops, and it did not compromise with the United States in the slightest, refused to give up this fat meat to the mouth, and shouted: "The Iraqi army is ready for battle, if the two armies go to war, Iraq will definitely make the US army bleed into a river!" ”
These actions completely infuriated the United States, seeing that the shock of force was useless, and the United States decided that it must launch military operations against Iraq, teaching the arrogant Saddam Hussein government a lesson. On January 17, 1991, the Gulf War officially began, in the early morning of this day, thousands of bombers of the US military took the lead in launching indiscriminate bombing of iraq's important headquarters and strategic locations, and all military facilities, communication facilities, and television stations were destroyed. Iraq's air supremacy was quickly seized in a very short period of time, the Iraqi army's command system was rapidly paralyzed in many places, and the Iraqi army suffered heavy casualties without even seeing the Americans.
This made the Iraqi army feel very strange, these missiles are like eyes, chasing people! What's going on here? Originally, the United States integrated all the breakthrough research progress it had made in microelectronics technology, high-energy fuel technology, and stealth technology against the enemy into the "Tomahawk" cruise missile, so that it had the characteristics of long range, high strike accuracy, and strong stealth. After the blows of the US army, the Iraqi troops could not get effective command at all, and could only fight for themselves, and the veterans of the hundred wars were equivalent to scattered soldiers, and the entire army was chaotic into a pot of porridge, and half of them had already lost before the battle.
After completely paralyzing Iraq's air defense forces, in order to completely destroy Iraq's resistance forces, the US military carried out a 38-day bombing campaign against Iraq, the US military dispatched 110,000 aircraft, dropped 90,000 tons of bombs, and Iraq's strongholds, weapons and equipment were almost completely lost under the indiscriminate bombardment, and these bombs completely destroyed the iraqi army's will to resist. After the bombing, when the US military carried out ground combat, the Iraqi side did not even have a large-caliber artillery, and could only let the US tanks wantonly ravage, only 100 hours later, Iraq could no longer withstand the US fire, Saddam Hussein announced a ceasefire, and withdrew its troops from Kuwait, and Iraq was completely defeated.
Why is Iraq, which was originally on its toes, so vulnerable? Originally, Iraq thought that it had absolute superiority in the number of troops, thinking that even if it lost the war, it would certainly make the United States pay a heavy price, whether in ground combat or in air force confrontation, Iraq had a proud force, and The Saddam government believed that the Americans were very afraid of death, even if the United States paid a smaller price, but as long as the death toll exceeded expectations, it would also affect the international prestige of the United States, which was equivalent to the defeat of the United States. That is why Iraq is unscrupulous and arrogant.
However, this kind of thinking has undoubtedly become obsolete, and the United States has completely shattered Iraq's pride with new weapons, and has also used this war to tell the world that modern warfare is not about fighting spirit and the number of troops, but about national science and technology and strategic layout.
Under the united states' information-based high-tech equipment and advanced tactical thinking, the Iraqi army can be described as having no ability to fight back, as if a punch hit the cotton, and Iraq's proud air force was blown up by the United States before it had time to start the plane. This makes the Iraqi army completely dumbfounded, how to fight this battle?
According to post-war statistics, in just 42 days, the casualties of Iraqi soldiers stationed in Kuwait reached more than 100,000, and almost all of the equipment was lost, and almost all of the infrastructure construction used to extract oil in Iraq was blown up by the US military, and the economic loss was as high as two trillion US dollars. The United States only lost less than 200 people, lost 2 ships and more than 30 aircraft, and the battle loss ratio reached 3:1000, and almost did not cost a single soldier to hang the Iraqi army! The US military used this war to tell the world that this is completely different from the era of traditional warfare of "killing a thousand enemies and inflicting eight hundred self-inflicted losses"!
This war not only defended the economic interests of the United States in the Middle East and consolidated the status of the United States as the big brother in the Middle East, but also had epoch-making significance in the global military community. It was this war that ushered in the era of modern warfare and awakened many countries in the world, including China. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, it is precisely by relying on its strong will to fight that our country has defeated the fully mechanized troops and the US army armed to the teeth with rudimentary weapons in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.
However, the Gulf War shocked China, realizing that the traditional mode of war was completely ineffective, and electromagnetic superiority and air superiority played a decisive role in the course and outcome of the war. It was precisely by using its own information superiority and the precision-guided weapons it used to defeat the Iraqi army effortlessly. It was after this war that China began to think bitterly, opened up more modern military reforms, and improved in the direction of information-based operations.