This forum focused on what the United States has learned from the military and strategic issues of the Persian Gulf war. The war has implications for future war and how it is conducted. Ms. Kipper called it “somewhat of a video-tech, high-tech war without bodies.” Specific topics addressed included: arms control, weapons production in the Middle East, the cost of war, and how air strikes were an important strategy. Mr. Cordesman said in an after-war retrospective, “The politics of hope are what lead us to believe that the Gulf War should lead us to fundamental shifts in improved security in the region. The politics of reality are what lead us to believe that the Gulf War has dealt with one immediate problem, Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.”