By the time of Desert Storm, a small group of Wass de Czege's students had been promoted to high-level posts on the staff of Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf's Central Command. This group of officers, who self-consciously referred to themselves as the "Jedi Knights," designed the ground-war strategy of the first Gulf War, and it was straight out of Wass de Czege's book—the feinted assault up the middle, the simultaneous sweep of armored forces up to the Iraqi army's western flank, the multiple thrusts that surrounded the Iraqis from all sides, hurling them into disarray before their final envelopment and destruction.

The Marines, meanwhile, were going through a similar transformation. Col. Mike Wiley, vice president of the Marine Corps University at Quantico, revised his branch's war doctrine on the basis of a 1979 briefing called "Patterns of Conflict" by a retired Air Force colonel named John Boyd. Boyd too had concluded that successful warfare involves surprise, deception, sweeping quickly around flanks, and creating confusion and disorder in the enemy's ranks. The Marine Corps commandant at the time, Gen. Alfred Gray, considered himself a Boyd disciple and ordered his officers, who led the assault into Kuwait, to avoid frontal assaults and to maneuver around the Iraqis and attack their flanks.
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The Jedi Knights (gotta love the name) and Boyd's Acolytes have finally succeeded in reforming the post Vietnam military. Sec Def Cheney was a Boyd disciple in Gulf War I. He was bullshit when one of the "conventional" Army Generals (a slow learner who interestingly predicted dire disaster for this campaign) arbitrally stopped his advance for 3 days to re-group. A big no-no for this doctrine and in retrospect unnecessary. But now with the success of this campaign, consider the old guard Army Generals as having permanently lost the doctrine wars.
In contrast, Boyd's approach was adopted wholeheartedly and quickly by the Marines. Interestingly, Boyd was despised by the Pentagon and his Air Force.

-phil