Iran-Iraq Naval War Volume 1: Opening Blows, September-November 1980

Nominally at least, the bloody and ruinous eight-year war fought between Iran and Iraq was a confrontation dominated by operations on land. The traditional impression is that the resources devoted to naval warfare were minute in comparison to those of its major land battlefields. As so often, the reality is almost diametrically opposite. Sure enough, the horrendous casualties incurred in major land offensives make the Iran-Iraq War one of the bloodiest conflicts of the twentieth century. It escaped public attention that the mass of what was happening on these battlefields was decided by naval warfare and that indeed, the consequences of that naval warfare led Iraq to the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, and the country’s subsequent downfall into chaos and civil war.