Gulf War Air Power Survey. Volume 2. Operations and Effects and Effectiveness

摘要

From 16 January through 28 February 1991, the United States and it alliesconducted one of the most operationally successful wars in history, a conflict in which air operations played a preeminent role. The Gulf War Air Power Survey was commissioned on 22 August 1991 to review all aspects of air warfare in the Persian Gulf for use by the United States Air Force. The Survey has produced reports on planning, the conduct of operations, the effects of the air campaign, command and control, logistics, air base support, space, weapons and tactics, as well as a chronology and a compendium of statistics on the war. The Survey was just that, an attempt to provide a comprehensive and documented account of the war. It is not definitive history: that will await the passage of time and the opening of sources that were not available to Survey researchers. Nor is it a summary of lessons learned. It concentrates on an analysis of the operational level of war in the belief that this level of warfare is at once one of the most difficult to charcterize and one of the most important to understand. This volume consists of two reports. The first, Operations, focuses on the employment of air power as part of Coalition's military efforts to destroy Iraq's military forces and potential, and to liberate Kuwait; in this framework, it examines objectives and dissects problems associated with air operations. The second report, Effects and Effectiveness, surveys the accomplishments of Coalition air power at the operational level relative to the military and political objectives for which the war was fought.