[monday]

"But when we fought him in Gulf War 1, we were fighting Warsaw Pact weapons and doctrine. Our rapid victory was a final humiliation of the crumbling Soviet Union."

It might have been if the Soviet Union hadn't ceased to exist two years before. Let me refresh your memory. The Soviet Union breathed it's last in 1989 during Reagans second term. Gulf War 1 was in 1991 during G Bushes term.

[derlauerer]

"But when we fought him in Gulf War 1, we were fighting Warsaw Pact weapons and doctrine. Our rapid victory was a final humiliation of the crumbling Soviet Union."

It might have been if the Soviet Union hadn't ceased to exist two years before. Let me refresh your memory. The Soviet Union breathed it's last in 1989 during Reagans second term. Gulf War 1 was in 1991 during G Bushes term.

Let me refresh your memory: The Soviet Union officially ceased to exist on January 1st, 1992, some nine months after Desert Storm, and less than six months after the attempted removal of Gorbachev in a failed coup.

It was during the chaos following the coup attempt that Boris Yeltsin, then Mayor of Moscow, rose to prominence by defying the plotters and standing on a tank defending the Russian Parliament.

I think you have confused the fall of the Soviet Union with the fall of its empire, which did indeed occur in 1989 (although even that was a few months after Ronaldus Maximus had left office).

[marron]

No need to refresh my memory. The Soviet Union fell two years before. The Soviet equipment in Iraq's inventory did not cease to exist, nor did direct ties between Moscow's intel services and Saddam's, nor did direct ties between the Russian military and Saddam's.

We are probably fortunate that Gorbachev did not offer any direct support to Baghdad, but his officers remained there during the war. Gorbachev's withholding of help may be a part of the reason Bush Senior later was so quick to support him when he was taken prisoner in the coup-attempt.

I will reword the sentence in question, however: "Our rapid victory was a final humiliation of the [crumbled] Soviet Union."