"공화국수비대는 격파되었는가?"

Was the Republican Guard Destroyed?: A Study on the Coalition Forces' Joint and Combined Operations during Operation Desert Storm

This paper deals with the final stages of Operation Desert Storm during the Gulf War(1990~1991), focusing on the Coalition Forces' joint operations and combined operations. Since the early 1990s, Operation Desert Storm has been known as the most advanced and superbly organized military operation in the history of warfare. And military historians concluded that the success of Operation Desert Storm was the outcome of the accumulated efforts of US military in the pervious several decades. The actual outcomes of Operation Desert Storm, however, were quite different from what has been known since the war ended. According to various sources from the inside of each service and veterans who participated in the operations, there were lots of puzzles in the final stage of Operation Desert Storm, and the existed stories should be checked with reliable sources. And, more than anything else, two-thirds of the Republic Guard, Iraqi Army, escaped from Kuwait successfully before the coalition forces close the encirclement gap. They were able to survive from turmoils because of the unexpected problems in joint operations between US troops and Arab forces and troubled combined operations between air forces and ground troops. While tracing the detail stories of the final stage of the Gulf War, this paper tries to suggest a new perspective on what exactly happened and why the coalition forces were not able to destroy the Republican Guard successfully.