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the U.S. military and its allies had won arguably the fastest and mostcomplete victory in American military history. Kuwait had been liberated.AnalysisOf the many successful aspects of Army operations during OperationDesert Storm, three stand out. First, Army units moved so fast thatthey found their enemy consistently out of position and oriented in thewrong direction. In one hundred hours of combat, the XVIII AirborneCorps moved its lead elements one hundred ninety miles north into Iraqand then seventy miles east. The armor-heavy VII Corps drove onehundred miles into Iraq and then fifty-five miles east. Iraqi units showedthemselves unable to reposition even short distances before U.S. Armyunits were upon them. This use of the element of surprise was largelypossible because of the total U.S. control of the air, which made anyIraqi reconnaissance flights impossible.Second, American forces enjoyed substantial technological advantages,most notably in night vision and electro-optics. Two types ofvision-enhancing technology had been incorporated into Army operationspreceding the deployment to the Persian Gulf. One of these aidsrepresented advanced development of a device first field-tested duringthe Vietnam War, the image intensification system known as Starlight.Gathering and concentrating the faint light of the moon and stars, Starlightoffered a view of terrain out to about one hundred yards in shades similarto a photographic negative. It did not depend on a transmitted beamthat an adversary could detect. Still, it had drawbacks, among them thesystem’s need for a clear night as well as its expense, weight, and size.So, the early Starlight scopes had been distributed only to specializedunits such as long-range patrol and sniper teams. Thermal-sight mountsin M1A1 tanks, M2/M3 Bradleys, and most helicopters were a generationnewer and more capable than the Starlight scopes. Picking up heatdifferentials within their field of view, they allowed trained operators tosee in darkness as if it were daylight. American troops in Desert Stormtruly “owned the night.”Other products of advanced technology contributed significantlyto success. A number of location and navigation devices, early globalpositioning systems (GPS), minimized disorientation on the ground, aperennially serious problem that was magnified by the featureless desertenvirons of Southwest Asia. They all had solid-state electronics thatread transmissions from orbiting satellites and gave their users precisecoordinate locations. Using these devices, the troops could determinefiring data for artillery units, correct azimuth bearings to objectives,64