Includes maps of: Iraq; [Allied Imposed No-fly Zone, Main Operating Bases, and Air Bases]; [Allied Advances]; [Fire Support Coordination Line, 26-27 February].

Preface -- Acknowledgments -- The challenge -- Raising the shield -- Iraqi "saber-rattling" -- Building the forces: Operation Desert Shield -- Intelligence preparation of the battlefield -- Knowing the enemy -- Defense-in-depth: Iraqi land-warfare capabilities -- "Kari": Iraq's integrated air-defense system -- Iraq's long-range strike capabilities -- Cold warriors in the desert -- Forging the sword -- Initial planning -- Role of air power in offensive planning -- Audacious plan -- Desert Storm -- Strategic attack -- Iraqi withholding of strategic air-defense efforts -- Empty battlefield: Scud-hunting in 1991 -- Costs and benefits of broader strategic targeting -- On balance: the strategic air campaign -- Desert Saber -- Air-land battle -- Cluttered battlefield -- "Plinking" tanks and other targets in the KTO -- Bomb-damage assessment in Desert Storm -- Assessing and controlling the preparation of the battlefield -- Ground war begins -- Failure to trap the Republican Guard -- Postwar characterization of Desert Storm -- The war between the wars -- After the storm -- U.S. responses to ongoing Iraqi resistance -- Failure of the 1991 uprisings against Saddam -- Postwar resistance to the cease-fire terms -- Creation of a southern no-fly zone -- Building to crisis -- January 1993 strikes on Iraq -- "Tomahawk diplomacy" -- June 1993 cruise-missile strike -- "Basra breakout" -- Iraq's October 1994 feint toward Kuwait -- Struggle to maintain containment -- Saddam's invasion of Kurdistan -- Operation Desert Strike -- Fallout from the era of "tomahawk diplomacy" -- "Cheat and retreat" Iraq's resistance to U.N. inspections -- Protecting the U-2 flights over Iraq -- Development of enlarged coercive options -- "Cheat-and-retreat" crises -- Disarming Iraq -- Striking the concealment mechanism -- Bulking out the target sets -- On regime change -- Last "cheat-and-retreat" episode -- Operation Desert Fox -- Reflections on Desert Fox -- Prelude to war -- The no-fly zones after Desert Fox -- Centralized execution in Operation Southern Watch -- Decentralized rollback in Operation Northern Watch -- Putting the brakes on Northern Watch -- Devolution and evolution of Iraqi air defenses by 2001 -- February 2001 strike -- Trying to back off in Operation Southern Watch -- Ending resistance -- Transitioning to war -- Planning operation Iraqi Freedom -- Operation Southern Focus and the slide to war -- Failure of "cheat and retreat" in 2003 -- Start of Operation Iraqi Freedom -- Ground before air -- Reordering Operation Iraqi Freedom -- "Shock and awe?" -- Neutering the strategic air campaign -- March on Baghdad -- Lunge northward -- Running into quicksand -- Failed deep strike against the Medina division -- "Smackdown": bombing through the sandstorm -- Entering the cities -- Shaping the coming battle for Baghdad -- End of Saddam Hussein's regime -- Ending resistance -- Challenge project -- Broader insurgency -- Defensive and offensive coalition responses -- Calibrating force -- "No-go" zones and Iraq's season of battles -- Securing the elections -- Epilog: America's fifteen-year war in Iraq -- Analyzing Iraqi resistance -- Exploitation of U.S. military weaknesses -- Challenge of ending resistance -- Endnotes -- Bibliography -- Index.