the numbers of conscripts never bothered nato, it was the ideological republican guards who did. the fact they broke and ran probably surprised the allied command more than anything. now nato got it into their heads that's what conventional war should be, a relatively bloodless war (for them) that doesn't require lots of equipment. the entire success was built upon cold war doctrines all led by people who followed the school of "it's been two weeks and half my platoon still lives. success" there's an article from someone who got high up in the raf who participated, you can probably find it easily by searching up tornado gr1 pilot article 1991 or some shit. really shows the entire issue of what happened towards the end of it and explained everything after.
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