Word: battlefield
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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George Bush proved last week that he's not reluctant to press an advantage on the battlefield -- and the same is true in the domestic political arena. With Bush's public approval rating having soared to around 90% since he declared victory, his handlers are already working to sustain that support into 1992 and translate it into Republican gains across the board. Their battle plan calls for at least three aggressive thrusts...
Each of these estimates is based on the same raw intelligence: the flood of pictures and streams of computer data gathered by orbiting satellites and photo-reconnaissance aircraft soaring high over the battlefield. But the information must be interpreted by human analysts hunched over fuzzy photos and computer screens. Identifying tanks and soldiers in pictures beamed back from a KH-11 Keyhole satellite is often a matter of counting dots on a computer monitor. "With 6-in. resolution you get a pixel for each shoulder and one for the head," says John Pike, space intelligence expert at the Federation...
...only one sure way to find out how badly damaged an enemy's forces are, and that is to inspect them after the war is over. "Every country that attempted bomb-damage assessment in modern history has been proved wrong once analysts had a chance to visit the battlefield," says Anthony Cordesman, a Washington-based expert on Iraq's military. But Saddam Hussein probably has a pretty good idea what condition his troops are in. His last-minute attempts to strike a deal last week may be the best bomb-damage assessment of them...
These fears are natural and healthy. Battle plans do go awry, and tens of thousands of lives are at stake. There are parts of the AirLand doctrine -- the full-fledged combined-arms ground offensive in particular -- that have never been tested on a battlefield. But the allied command has been running an AirLand battle by the book for more than four weeks now, demonstrating that it can coordinate large, mobile forces with the requisite precision and skill. If the next phase of the battle goes as smoothly, a strategy designed for the plains of Central Europe will have been validated...
Fighter-bomber pilots have divided the battlefield into small, lettered squares on the map called "killing zones." Working their way across the desert, sector by sector, spotters direct strike planes onto specific targets on the ground. Electronic-warfare planes black out ground-based Iraqi radar, as airborne tankers circle lazily to refuel the fighters that line up behind them. The whole armada is choreographed by controllers in AWACs radar planes, who see everything in the air for more than 200 miles in any direction. The Iraqis in Kuwait, says Captain Jessie Morimoto, a U.S. Air Force intelligence officer, have "stopped...