Book Review: ‘Heart of the Storm: The Genesis of the Air Campaign Against Iraq’ by Richard T Reynolds

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Reynolds’ Heart of the Storm is a narrative of the first twenty days of DESERT SHIELD in August 1990 and the struggle to design an air campaign. Air power’s flexibility and reach, two of its defining attributes, have led to perennial arguments over whether its use should be strategic or tactical in focus and therefore what targets air power should attack. This argument resurfaced within hours of Saddam Hussein’s forces’ invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990 when an unready US Administration, Pentagon and Central Command struggled to work out how to stop Saddam’s forces if they invaded Saudi Arabia, as was feared. The USAF Air University commissioned the research for this short book immediately after the Gulf War to tell the story of this struggle. Its author was a historian and serving colonel who had access to the USAF participants.

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