What Soviet Commanders Said When They Watched the U.S. Destroy the Iraqi Army in 100 Hours

“Like Watching Our Own Funeral”: When Soviet Generals Saw the US Destroy the Iraqi Army in 100 Hours

February 24, 1991.
The General Staff building on the Frunzenskaya Embankment, Moscow.

The operations room was thick with cigarette smoke and tension.
Outside, Moscow was locked in a brutal winter. Inside, more than two dozen of the Soviet Union’s most senior officers sat in silence, their eyes fixed on large screens showing CNN’s live coverage of Operation Desert Storm.

General Mikhail Moiseev, Chief of the General Staff, sat in the front row, his face lit by the blue glow of the monitors. At 52, he was one of the youngest men ever to hold the position, a veteran of Afghanistan who had risen during the final years of the Cold War.

Now, watching American forces systematically dismantle the Iraqi army—an army trained, equipped, and organized according to Soviet doctrine—he felt something close to nausea.

“Rewind that,” he said quietly. “Show the Apache strike again.”

The tape rolled back, then forward.
Grainy green night‑vision footage showed AH‑64 Apache helicopters sweeping in against Iraqi positions. The Iraqis never saw them coming. Laser‑guided Hellfire missiles streaked across the screen, and one by one, Iraqi tanks—Soviet‑made T‑72s, the pride of Soviet armor—erupted in brilliant white flashes.

“Thirty‑four tanks destroyed in the first ninety seconds,” said Colonel General Makhmut Gareev, military theorist, historian, veteran of World War II. His voice was hollow. “They didn’t get off a single shot.”

Behind him, younger officers muttered in disbelief. Some scribbled frantic notes. Others simply stared, faces pale.

They were watching the future of war. It looked nothing like what they had prepared for.

“This Is Propaganda” – The First Line of Defense: Denial

General Valentin Varennikov, Commander of Soviet Ground Forces, abruptly stood and walked to the window, turning his back to the screens.

At 64, he was old‑school Soviet: a Great Patriotic War veteran, a man of mass mobilization and belief in the superiority of Soviet arms and the inevitability of socialist victory. What he was seeing struck at everything he’d built his life on.

“This is propaganda,” he said, still facing away. “American propaganda. They’re exaggerating success, making it look easy. The Iraqis will counterattack. They have a million men under arms. They have—”

“Valentin Ivanovich,” Moiseev interrupted gently. “We have our own intelligence. Our satellites. Our observers in Baghdad. This is not propaganda. This is what is actually happening.”

Varennikov turned, his face flushed.

“Then the Iraqis are cowards. They’re not fighting. A real army, a Soviet army, would never—”

“A Soviet army would be destroyed just as quickly,” said General Makashov, commander of the Volga–Urals Military District.

The room went dead silent.

Thinking that was one thing. Saying it in front of the Chief of the General Staff was something else.

“You can’t know that,” Varennikov snapped.

“We’re watching it,” Makashov replied, voice hard. “The Iraqis are using our tactics, our equipment, our doctrine—everything we taught them. And they’re being slaughtered. Not defeated—slaughtered. There’s a difference.”

On the screen, CNN cut to the Highway of Death: the road from Kuwait to Basra where retreating Iraqi columns had been caught in the open by American aircraft.

The images were apocalyptic: hundreds of burned, twisted vehicles; bodies scattered among the wreckage; the desert turned into a graveyard.

“How many aircraft did they lose doing that?” asked Air Force Commander Yevgeny Shaposhnikov.

The intelligence officer checked his notes.

“In that particular attack, none, Comrade General. In the entire campaign so far, the Americans have lost 38 aircraft. The Iraqis have lost over 300, plus their entire integrated air defense system.”

Shaposhnikov closed his eyes.

He had spent his career designing doctrine meant to give the Soviets parity—if not superiority—in the air against NATO. Now he was watching that doctrine, exported wholesale to Iraq, torn apart by American technology and tactics he barely understood.

“Stealth aircraft,” he said quietly. “That’s the key. Their F‑117s took down the air defense network in the opening hours. Without air defense, everything else collapses.”

“We have nothing to match stealth,” his deputy, General Dondukov, said. “Nothing even close. Our best radars can’t see them. Our missiles can’t hit them. They can strike anywhere, anytime, and we can’t stop them.”

“They’re Fighting a 21st‑Century War. We’re Ready for the 20th.”

Moiseev rose and walked to the front of the room.

He looked exhausted. It wasn’t just the late hour. For three days—since the ground war began—he had barely slept, buried in reports and data, trying to understand what they were witnessing.

“Comrades,” he began, “we need to face reality. What we’re watching is not just the defeat of Iraq. It is the obsolescence of Soviet military doctrine.”

“That’s defeatist talk,” Varennikov said angrily. “We are the Soviet Army. We defeated Nazi Germany—”

“We defeated Nazi Germany with mass mobilization and massive casualties,” Moiseev cut in. “Twenty‑seven million dead. We won by sheer numbers and a willingness to sacrifice.”

He pointed to the screens.

“But this is a different kind of war. Precision weapons. Stealth. Real‑time intelligence. Network‑centric warfare. We have none of these things.”

He paused, letting it sink in.

“The Americans are fighting a 21st‑century war. We are still prepared to fight a 20th‑century war. And if we ever face them in actual combat, we would lose—badly.”

The meeting broke up near midnight. Moiseev asked a handful to stay: Gareev, Shaposhnikov, and General Vladimir Lobov, First Deputy Chief of the General Staff.

They moved to a smaller conference room, away from junior officers and the ever‑present political officers who reported to the Communist Party.

Moiseev poured vodka into five glasses and passed them around. For a moment, they just sat in silence, the weight of what they had seen pressing down on them.

“How did this happen?” Shaposhnikov finally asked. “How did they get so far ahead?”

Gareev, the historian, answered.

“It’s been building for twenty years. After Vietnam, the Americans completely reformed their military. They studied their failures. They rewrote doctrine. They poured money into technology—precision weapons, stealth, satellites, computers.”

He stopped, shaking his head.

“And we…,” he left it hanging.

“We stagnated,” Lobov finished. “We kept building the same tanks, the same aircraft, using the same doctrine. We assumed what worked in 1945 would work forever. We were wrong.”

“It’s not just technology,” Moiseev said. “Did you see how they operated? The coordination between air and ground, the speed of decision‑making, the initiative given to junior officers. That’s not just equipment. That’s culture. That’s a different way of thinking about war.”

He pulled out a folder.

“I’ve been reading American military journals. After Vietnam they built something called ‘AirLand Battle.’ The idea is to use deep strikes and maneuver to destroy the enemy’s ability to fight, not just take territory. They integrate everything—air, ground, naval, space‑based assets—into a single system.”

“We have integrated operations,” Varennikov protested.

“We have coordination,” Moiseev corrected. “That’s different. The Americans have true integration. Every soldier, every tank, every aircraft is tied into one system. They share information in real time. A pilot can see what a ground commander sees. A tank crew can call for air support and have it arrive in minutes. That’s not coordination. That’s a system.”

Shaposhnikov nodded slowly.

“And we have nothing like it. Our communications are decades behind. Our computers are primitive. Our doctrine still assumes we’ll fight the way we did in World War II—mass formations, breakthrough, exploitation.”

“Which is exactly what the Iraqis tried to do,” Gareev said. “They massed in Kuwait, dug in, prepared for a frontal assault. The Americans went around them, cut them off, and destroyed them piecemeal.”

Lobov poured himself another vodka.

“So what do we do? How do we close the gap?”

Silence. They all knew the answer.

“We can’t,” Moiseev said at last. “Not with this economy. Not with this technology base. The Americans spend three times what we do on defense, with an economy four times larger. They can afford stealth aircraft, precision weapons, satellite networks. We can barely afford to maintain what we have.”

He walked to the window and looked out into the Moscow night.

“The Soviet Union is collapsing, comrades. We all know it. The economy is in free‑fall. The republics want independence. The Party is losing control. And our military—the great Soviet Army that defeated Hitler—is obsolete.”

“So we just surrender?” Varennikov said bitterly. “Accept American hegemony?”

“We accept reality,” Moiseev replied. “And reality is that we cannot compete militarily with the United States. Not now. Maybe not ever.”

“We Only Have Nukes Left” – GRU’s Verdict

Across Moscow, near Lubyanka Square, another group of officers was watching the same war.

These were not General Staff planners. They were GRU—Soviet military intelligence—and their assessment was even darker.

Colonel General Ivan Tatarinov, head of GRU, sat with senior analysts, reviewing classified reports from Soviet observers in Iraq. Unlike the sanitized CNN feed, these reports detailed:

unit‑by‑unit Iraqi casualties,
exact equipment losses,
the near‑total collapse of command and control.

“The Republican Guard divisions have ceased to exist as fighting formations,” one analyst reported. “The Tawakalna Division, their best unit, was destroyed in under six hours. The Americans lost 12 men. The Iraqis lost an estimated 3,000, with another 5,000 captured.”

“Six hours,” Tatarinov repeated. “Tawakalna was equipped with our best export kit—T‑72s, BMPs, SA‑6s—and wiped out in six hours.”

“Not just destroyed,” the analyst said. “Annihilated. There’s a difference. ‘Destroyed’ means they fought and lost. ‘Annihilated’ means they barely had a chance to fight.”

Another analyst spoke.

“Sir, we need to address implications for our own forces. The Americans demonstrated capabilities we didn’t know they had. Their intelligence was nearly perfect—they knew where every Iraqi unit was, down to battalions. Their precision weapons hit with meter‑level accuracy. Their stealth aircraft operated almost with impunity.”

“And their logistics,” another added. “They moved half a million troops and all their equipment halfway around the world in six months, then sustained them in combat without visible supply problems. We struggled to supply Afghanistan—right across our border.”

Tatarinov nodded grimly. He had been warning for years that the Soviets were falling behind. Nobody wanted to hear it. Politicians wanted reassurance the Red Army was invincible. The General Staff wanted to believe Soviet doctrine was superior. Industry wanted to keep building the same weapons.

“I’m preparing a report for the President,” Tatarinov said. “I’m going to tell him that if we ever fight a conventional war with NATO, we will lose decisively. The only thing that keeps us safe is our nuclear arsenal.”

“They’ll call it defeatism,” one deputy warned.

“They’ll call it telling the truth,” Tatarinov replied. “And right now, that’s more important than my career.”

Losing the War You Never Fought

On February 28, 1991, one hundred hours after the ground war began, President George H. W. Bush ordered a ceasefire. The Iraqi army was routed. Kuwait was liberated. The war was over.

In Moscow, Soviet military leaders gathered one last time to assess what had just happened.

The mood was funereal.

Moiseev briefed a small group including Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov and several Politburo members. His report was blunt to the point of brutality.

“The Gulf War has demonstrated that Soviet military doctrine is obsolete,” he began. “Our equipment, our tactics, our training, our organization—all are a generation behind the Americans. If we faced NATO in a conventional war, we would lose.”

Yazov, a hardliner who opposed Gorbachev’s reforms, bristled.

“That is unacceptable. We must modernize—”

“With what?” Moiseev cut in. He put up comparative spending.

“The Americans spend about $300 billion a year on defense. We spend about $150 billion. Most of that goes to maintaining our nuclear forces and paying personnel. Almost nothing is left for modernization. We’re running out of hard currency. Our factories are outdated. Our tech base is decades behind. Even with unlimited money, we couldn’t catch up quickly. They’re too far ahead.”

A Politburo member suggested increasing defense spending.

“With what?” Moiseev repeated. “We’re broke.”

Gareev added another layer.

“The Gulf War wasn’t just a military victory. It was a political one. The Americans assembled a coalition of 30 nations, got UN backing, and persuaded Arab states to fight another Arab state. That’s unprecedented.”

“And it means,” Moiseev said, “that the Americans have won the ideological war. Countries want to align with them, not with us. Our model is seen as a failure. After what the world just watched in Iraq, our military model is seen as a failure too.”

Silence.

These were truths no one wanted to say aloud. They could no longer be denied.

“So what do you recommend?” Yazov finally asked.

Moiseev took a breath.

“I recommend we fundamentally rethink our defense posture. We cannot compete with the United States in conventional forces. Our security will have to rest on nuclear deterrence and diplomacy—not on the ability to win a conventional war.”

“That’s surrender,” Varennikov said bitterly.

“That’s reality,” Moiseev replied. “If we don’t accept it, we’ll bankrupt ourselves chasing an arms race we cannot win.”

“Like Watching Our Own Funeral”

In the months that followed, the implications of the Gulf War rippled through the Soviet military.

Officers who had spent their lives preparing to fight NATO realized their plans were worthless.
Defense industries that had produced thousands of tanks and aircraft realized their products were obsolete.
Military academies that had taught Soviet doctrine for decades realized they needed to tear up their syllabi.

There was no money to do any of it. The Soviet economy was in terminal decline.

In August 1991, hardliners staged a coup against Gorbachev, partly out of fear he was letting the state and its military collapse. The coup failed—and accelerated the very collapse it was meant to prevent.

By December 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

The army that had watched the Americans dismantle Iraq no longer had a country.

Some, like Moiseev, tried to reform the new Russian military. Without money, technology, or political will, most efforts failed. The Russian armed forces of the 1990s became a shadow of the Soviet host: underfunded, demoralized, corrupt.

Others, like Varennikov, never accepted what they’d seen. They continued to insist Soviet doctrine was sound, Soviet equipment adequate, that the Gulf War was an aberration. They blamed Iraqi incompetence, Gorbachev’s betrayal—everyone but themselves.

But a few younger officers—colonels and majors who had watched Desert Storm closely—began to think differently. They studied American doctrine, dissected what worked and what didn’t, and started crafting new ideas about how to fight modern wars on limited resources.

One of them was a young colonel named Valery Gerasimov, who would later become Chief of the Russian General Staff. Another was a KGB officer named Vladimir Putin, who drew his own conclusions about American power and Russian weakness.

Years later, Moiseev would say:

“We knew we were behind the Americans, but we didn’t know how far until we watched them destroy an army trained and equipped exactly like ours. It was like watching our own funeral.”

Gareev wrote:

“The Gulf War marked the end of the Soviet military era. Everything we had built since 1945—our doctrine, our equipment, our way of thinking about war—was proven obsolete in a hundred hours.”

And Shaposhnikov, briefly the last Defense Minister of the USSR, reflected:

“The tragedy wasn’t that we lost the Cold War. The tragedy was that we lost it and didn’t realize it until we watched the Americans destroy Iraq. By then, it was too late to do anything.”

What Soviet commanders said, in essence, as they watched the US destroy the Iraqi army in 100 hours, was this:

“We are finished.”

Not defeated in battle—they never fought that battle.
But rendered obsolete by technology, doctrine, and economics they could not match.

That realization, more than any political decree or economic chart, marked the true end of the Soviet Union as a superpower.

Because a state that can no longer defend itself, project power, or compete militarily with its chief rival is no longer a superpower.

It is just another country, struggling to survive in a world that has passed it by.