This is why the Gulf Coalition and the way it was formed and maintained is so important. The cause was noble—to free Kuwait. The Americans were needed, because of their military power and leadership roles in organizations such as the United Nations. But the Americans needed the other Coalition partners: to provide bases and ports for access; to provide soldiers, sailors, and airmen to confront a huge Iraqi military machine fighting on their own soil; but most of all, to provide counsel and legitimacy for a superpower that, left to its own devices, could fall into a pit of quicksand like Vietnam.

Because of the divergent cultures, self-interests, and experiences of its partners, the Coalition was hugely difficult to form and maintain. The biggest divergence was between Americans and Arabs.

The four-decade-plus existence of NATO provided common experience for American, Canadian, French, Italian, and English members of the Coalition. And for airmen, integration was further eased because they all spoke English and (as noted earlier) flight operations are task-organized. Thus, they could fight in the same piece of sky and work as one, using the common Air Tasking Order as guidance while retaining prerogatives appropriate to their national identities.

By way of contrast, the Gulf Cooperation Council nations did not share an experience like those from NATO. More important, they did not have the combat experience of Korea, Vietnam, and the Cold War. Thus, they entered the fight as an equal partner who did not feel equal. More important still, their air forces were young. If it was troubling to a young USAF pilot to wonder how he would do his first time in combat, consider how troubling it must have been to an Arab fighter pilot to wonder how he would do his first time in combat.

In fact, the Arabs had nothing to worry about on that score.

Let’s look at the record.

In their brief combat in a life-or-death losing cause, the Kuwaiti Air Force did very well. When the Iraqis came across the border that night long ago in August, the air force of Kuwait rose to meet them.

A key ingredient of the Iraqi plan had been to capture the emir of Kuwait and his family, so the invaders could establish a puppet government and legitimize their theft of the nation and its people. In advance of the attacking tanks, Iraqi special forces, some of Saddam’s best-trained, best-equipped, and most loyal troops, were flying in helicopters to Kuwait City to surround the royal palace, overwhelm the royal guard, and capture the emir.

It didn’t happen. KAF fighter aircraft and surface-to-air missiles shot down thirty-three of the Iraqi vanguard.