Arab only Gulf War

how would the Gulf War have differed if the US & other non Arab coalition forces hadn't came to Saudi Arabia when Iraq invaded Kuwait leaving only Arab countries to go up agianst Iraq? Would Iraq have won? How long would the war have lasted & what type of casualties would there have been? thanks for anyones input
 
Frankly I'm not sure they could dislodge Iraq from Kuwait. The RSAF was competent enough to seriously degrade any Iraqi attempt to invade Saudi, and I'm sure that a combined Gulf/Saudi/Egyptian/Syrian(??) force could stop the Iraqis inside the Saudi border, but anything past that....


I hate to bring out the old stereotypes, but the classic Arab disunity and military disorganization would come out in force. Even OTL organizing a multinational force to re-take Kuwait was a colossal undertaking, and that was with a majority NATO force which had been training together for years. Remember, 1991 is when "friendly fire" entered popular vernacular. Now imagine it with Saudis, Omanis, Bahrainis, Emiratis, and who knows what other Arab forces, all speaking ostensibly the same language in mutually unintelligible dialects, all somewhat resentfully under, say, a Saudi command which has never run or even thought of an operation this big.....

The Gulf States would be comfortable being under Saudi command, but there would be huge rivalries in any larger Arab coalition....either Egypt or Syria would be in it, but probably not both, and Egypt would probably view itself as rightful head of the coalition. The most competent army in the Arab world- the Jordanian- would sit out the war for political reasons, and I think it would wind up being a Saudi+Gulf state+ token other Arab effort...which doesn't bode well for it's military effectiveness. Several of the Gulf state forces are essentially mercenary armies staffed by Pakistani soldiers from the Punjab. The most effective gulf force, Oman, is too small to make a dent in the Iraqi army. The Saudi land forces are judged by outside observers to be essentially a military non-entity despite their equipment.

That being said, an ATL battle of Kafji with an Iraqi probe repulsed by Gulf troops, followed by a pan-Arab bombing campaign led by the competent RSAF against (southern) Iraq and occupied Kuwait would probably be the extent of things before a political solution was found.

Now, get ready for that battalion-sized ATL Kafji action to become the next battle of Badr after the war......
 
Remember, 1991 is when "friendly fire" entered popular vernacular.


How old are you?

1991 may have been when the term "friendly fire" entered your consciousness, but it has been part of the popular vernacular for far longer than that.
 
How old are you?

1991 may have been when the term "friendly fire" entered your consciousness, but it has been part of the popular vernacular for far longer than that.

Haha, well, I was about five or six in 1991 but it became quite the pop cultural term around Desert Storm, correct?
 
Haha, well, I was about five or six in 1991 but it became quite the pop cultural term around Desert Storm, correct?

No, not correct.

The term "friendly fire" has been part of the popular vernacular for many decades.

Check out this link and note the dates of both the movie and the events which the movie was based on. That example was just the quickest one I could find.
 
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Cook

Banned
If Saddam’s taking of Kuwait had elicited no response from The West he would not have stopped. There would have been a short pause to consolidate in Kuwait while he waited for world reaction, then he’d have rolled south into the Saudi Oil fields of The Gulf. The Saudi Army was tiny and while the Royal Saudi Air Force was well equipped and trained, they would simply have been far too small to significantly interdict Saddam’s army.

He’d have taken the northern oil fields and then paused again to assess the world response and either dug in threatening to set entire The Gulf on fire if attacked or he’d keep moving south as long as no serious opposition presented itself; all the while his propaganda machine would be presenting him as the uniter of the Arab peninsular and the saviour of the wider Arab world, new guardian of Mecca and Medina and the future liberator of Jerusalem.
 

Cook

Banned
The most competent army in the Arab world- the Jordanian- would sit out the war for political reasons…

The political reason being that Jordan was Iraq’s ally. As to Jordan’s army being the most competent in the Arab World; that is entirely without basis. Besides which, aside from being an ally of Iraq and even if they were reasonably competent, the Jordanian army was far too small to play any significant role.

The only large, well equipped, well trained and well led army in the Arab world in 1991 was Egypt’s.

1991 is when "friendly fire"

The only reason ‘Friendly Fire’ has any significance in the 1991 Gulf War is because it was the first war in which allied casualties from ‘friendly fire’ exceeded those caused by enemy forces.
 
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