conflicts. Vietnam was a conflict that did not directly involve the United States. Desert Storm did involve the United States by jeopardizing our oil supply from the Middle East. The military was also prepared and ready to fight during Desert Storm where as in Vietnam the draft was introduced due to the lack of volunteer soldiers. The military strategies used in each conflict were different. In Vietnam man-to-man combat was employed over a slow period of time and Desert Storm utilized a more rapid attack using ballistic missiles. Crowell says, “…military force should be applied without restrictions, reflects an assumption that the unsatisfactory Vietnam experience might have been satisfactory without gradualism… the war could have been ended quicker, perhaps even with victory” (234). These two wars were so different that Crowell should not have compared them and is ineffective in proving his points regarding the two conflicts.Another main issue that Crowell overlooks in the article is the problems in Desert Storm. The article mentions only the positive results in Iraq and ignores the mistakes made by the military. The main problem is that Saddam Hussein is still alive and dangerous. The threat of biological and chemical weapons that Iraq posses still lurks above our heads. Also the medical issues with exposures to the chemicals that Saddam Hussein used during the war will come up later as the soldiers’ age. Crowell was ineffective when presenting both sides of the issue of the outcome of Desert Storm.Crowell, however, nicely explains how the military had learned from the Vietnam conflict and applied a new approach for use in Desert Storm. During the Vietnam conflict the military strategy was gradual escalation, which caused many Americans to lose their lives. The military leaders of Operation Just Cause state, “gradualism and escalation as advocated by sophisticated analysts… simp...
