Word: exocet
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...technology, as well as its "pivotal political role" in Western Europe. Mitterrand last month was shown a report prepared by the DST that claimed that the KGB has penetrated an estimated 30% of classified French military and industrial technology. Among prime espionage targets: advanced French aircraft carriers and the Exocet air-to-surface missile. Soviet agents have been prowling naval bases like Toulon, on the Mediterranean, which houses two carriers and the nuclear submarine Rubis...
...example, is being tested by pilots who know both the terrain and target locations ahead of time. The expensive ($1 billion apiece) Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers equipped with the AEGIS air-defense system have never been pitted in simulated combat situations against low-flying missiles like the Exocet. When the Army's new DIVAD-system air-defense gun, called the Sergeant York, was unable to hit maneuvering planes, it was tested instead on hovering helicopters. The Army says that is now the gun's main function, even though it does not fulfill that task particularly well...
...practically everyone's life for the past quarter-century. It predicts the weather, processes checks, scrutinizes tax returns, guides intercontinental missiles and performs innumerable other operations for governments and corporations. The computer has made possible the exploration of space. It has changed the way wars are fought, as the Exocet missile proved in the South Atlantic and Israel's electronically sophisticated forces did in Lebanon...
Catastrophe was always only an Exocet missile away, but Thatcher never wavered. "Failure?" she once asked derisively. "The possibilities do not exist." Seventy-four days later, the white flags of surrender were fluttering over the Falklands and victory belonged to Her Majesty's forces. Never mind that 255 British lives had been lost (750 to 1,000 for Argentina) or that six British navy ships and a merchant vessel had been destroyed. The triumph upheld both pride and principle, and with it came the so-called "Falklands factor" that lifted British spirits as well as Mrs. Thatcher's standing...
...Falklands, Argentine forces used their small but sophisticated electronic arsenal--most notably, the Exocet missile with its 45-mile range--to make England's victory a more narrow one than Israel's. Observers noted that the Falklands war was an old-style "slugfest," in which the British relied on sheer determination; but by contrast, Israel relied on its electronic weapons. Retired British Air Vice-Admiral Stewart Menaul summarized the difference between the conflicts: "We fought yesterday's war. The Israelis fought tomorrow...