The Chiefs of Staff, the ‘men on the spot’ and the Italo-Abyssinian emergency, 1935–36

Imagine the international uproar that would have erupted had the 1990-91 Gulf crisis ended with the massed United Nations forces returning home without firing a shot, leaving Saddam Hussein still in possession of Kuwait. The consequences of scrapping ‘Operation Desert Storm’ can easily be envisaged: the United Nations would have lost all credibility, its resolutions reduced to meaningless rhetoric; the aggressor could look forward to expanding his fledgling empire. Failure to rescue Kuwait then would almost certainly have ensured a greater conflagration later on.