Communicating in classical contexts: The centrality of delivery

During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the apparent success of the Patriot missile defense system served as the official centerpiece of a rhetorical campaign to portray Operation Desert Storm as an unprecedented mission ushering in a new era of American military dominance based on technological superiority. Post‐war disclosures have not only cast serious doubt on Patriot's wartime performance, but have also exposed a widespread program of strategic deception employed by Pentagon officials to protect the fiction of Patriot's Gulf War wizardry. This essay explains how Gulf War audiences were misled, assesses the rhetorical windfall flowing from perceived Patriot effectiveness, and criticizes the Pentagon's campaign of strategic deception as normatively bankrupt.