Toward Defensive Restructuring in the Middle East Carl Conetta, Charles Knight, and Lutz Unterseher

These variables are: (1) the ratio of force to space in the theater, (2) the quality of the region's transportation networks, (3) the capacity of nations' military sustainment infrastructures, (4) the structure of their armed forces, and (5) the problems of national integration and the politicization of regional military establishments. [...] Although the 189 combat aircraft of the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) make it only 30 percent as large as the pre-war Iraqi air force, when the size of the two nations' armed forces is taken into account, the Saudis' distinctive emphasis on air power is clear.23 True to form, in the area of ground-based air defense, the Saudis have also sought to develop the most sophisticated system in the Gulf, i. [...] In the event of invasion, the area between the border and the strongholds would be the site of initial delaying actions. [...] This would speak to the security concerns of the arms importing nations and mitigate some of the objections of the producers, thus reducing the pressures for circumvention. [...] On the other hand, the construction of Iraqi defenses in Kuwait were transparent to the surveillance systems of the United States, which had been closely monitoring Iraqi activities since the beginning of the crisis.