Magical thinking also characterized the other side in the Gulf War: Saddam Hussein’s consistently faulty instinct told him that the world would not react to his invasion of Kuwait. Most armies are not as incompetent as Saddam's A tank destroyed by coalition air forces. Have they learned them better than others? Yes, mostly. Have they always learned the right lessons? No. The IDFs ability to learn lessons from 1948, 1967, 1973, and all the other wars before and since is probably un-matched anywhere else in the world. Israelis are sceptics and critics by nature. So strong was that belief, that by 2006 and the Second Lebanon War, serious men thought technology and air power would deliver success, because that was what they chose to learn from 1991. The problem was that a partial version of the truth was used to create a convenient story, one which even some in the Israeli Defence Forces came to believe. It was a short decisive war, and technology was important. What the public saw was quick decisive war, which delivered all the promises that mattered most, was the product of superior western technology.Īll of that is undeniably true. This was the case with the First Gulf War, as we have come to know it, or Operation Desert Storm: the campaign to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation. They trick people with illusions and tricks, and many governments and armies fall prey to those illusions. What is less obvious is that they also teach bad lessons to otherwise smart men. It is obvious to most that war and warfare are harsh and cruel teachers.

Desert storm wars code