Kuwait Defense Environment. In the aftermath of the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and subsequent ouster of the Iraqis by the international coalition, the Kuwaitis began a major force structure revitalization under a $12 billion program. The Kuwaitis had little choice, as they suffered heavy materiel losses during the invasion, with the Iraqis looting much of the remaining equipment and bringing it back to Iraq. The Iraqis began returning much of the military equipment in late 1992 under U.N. supervision as part of the peace settlement that ended the Gulf War. However, the Kuwaitis were not happy with the condition of the equipment being returned, indicating that most of it had been militarily compromised; examples included helicopters returned without navigation equipment and tanks without fire control components. Kuwait understandably focused more on new procurements to enhance the sophistication of its military. Because of the size of both the country (affording limited maneuver room) and the military (only about 15,500 personnel), Kuwait is too small to realistically repel an invasion by a major military power on its own. The country receives some military support from the U.S., which has troops stationed there as part of U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM). In addition, Kuwait hosts prepositioned equipment for a U.S. Army divisional armored brigade task force consisting of two armored/infantry balanced task forces and one pure armor battalion.
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