support, but found few tactical targets―the air campaign had worked. The greatest threat to ground troops that day was friendly fire. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme in World War I, British casualties amounted to 57,000, including 20,000 killed. On the first day of the Gulf War ground attack, Coalition casualties totaled 14, including 3 killed. Over the next several days the Air Force focused its attention on battering the Republican Guard divisions held in reserve in southern Iraq and interdicting the flood of Iraqi units retreating from Kuwait. The most visible of these efforts was the bottleneck created on the highway northwest out of Kuwait City, in what was called the "highway of death." The strategic bombing campaign continued through the one hundred hours of the ground offensive, including a last effort to destroy Saddam Hussein's bunker sanctuaries. Early in the morning of February 28 President Bush and the Coalition unilaterally declared a cease fire. Despite flying 37,567 combat sorties, the Air Force lost only 14 aircraft to hostile action (all from ground fire)―testimony to the professionalism, training, technology, leadership, and doctrine of the post-Vietnam U.S. Air Force.
The Future
With the end of the Cold War, the Air Force adopted a new doctrine―Global Reach-Global Power. Released in June 1990, it prompted the first major Air Force reorganization since March 1946. Under Chief of Staff General Merrill McPeak, Strategic Air Command and Tactical Air Command were deactivated on June 1, 1992. Many of their assets were incorporated into Air Combat Command, headquartered at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. The new organization represents the "global power" portion of the new Air Force, controlling ICBMs; command, control, communication, and intelligence functions; reconnaissance; tactical airlift and tankers; fighters; and bombers. Air Mobility Command and its in-flight refueling assets headquartered at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, replaced Military Airlift Command as the "global reach" portion of the Air Force, controlling strategic airlift and tanker forces.
Global Reach-Global Power and a new doctrinal manual issued in March 1992, AFM 1-1, Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the United States Air Force, represent an Air Force committed to matching aerial forces with changing circumstances, drawing on nearly 100 years of experience. The Gulf War, like previous wars, demonstrated that the technology, leadership, training, strategy, and tactics employed for a specific set of conditions and circumstances in one war will not necessarily guarantee success
