military. The sequence of events that brought about this change have forever affected the direction of development and engineering within the U.S. military’s air defense. Prior to the start of Desert Shield, Iraq was at war with Iran. Kuwait and United Arab Emirates (UAE) gave financial support to Saddam Hussein for his campaign against Iran. Once the conflict was over, the Iraqi government found itself in debt to Kuwait. Saddam Hussein mandated being free of all debts from UAE and Kuwait since he protected them from Iran. Kuwait refused to pardon his debts, so Saddam Hussein began accusing Kuwait of stealing oil on the Iraq and Kuwait border. Saddam Hussein also accused the United States and Israel of encouraging lowered prices on oil, which lessened revenue for the countries (Lange 2016). This dispute escalated to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, taking Kuwait by force instead of by negotiation. At the time of the invasion, Iraq’s military force was the fourth largest military force in the world, which was a great concern for neighboring countries. With the