The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, unleashed a conflict that had both diplomatic and military fronts. Using contemporary accounts and recently released military documents, Col. Arthur H. Blair, USA (Ret.), traces both fronts as they developed day by day. Efforts to avoid war, coalition formation, mobilization of public support, military build-up in a foreign desert—all of these aspects of Desert Shield are presented in clear detail. Then, from the beginning of the air war through the final ground assault, Blair recounts troop movements, tactics, munitions, and casualties leading to the unconditional surrender of Saddam Hussein on February 8, 1991.

With military maps of principal troop movements and photographs of many of the stunningly accurate aircraft and tanks involved, this chronology puts into sequence and perspective the dramatic events that reshaped global alliances, revitalized the United Nations, and brought victory to the American military. Blair, a twenty-seven-year veteran of the U.S. Army, with combat experience in Korea and Vietnam, is now deputy director of the Mosher Institute for Defense Studies at Texas A&M University and served as a media analyst and commentator during the Gulf crisis. His clear and concise description will provide context and a starting point for scholars, students, and analysts of the war and of the U.S. military. For those who cared about and tried to follow this first technological war as it happened, it brings order and sense to what was at the time a desert whirlwind.