RUSTLINGS

The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was the fulcrum that moved GORBACHEV to agreement with President RONALD REAGAN and started the reduction of NUCLEAR weapons.

The Mutual Assured Destruction Defense (MADD) ... (if you destroy me, we'll destroy you) approach, was unacceptable to Reagan and to anyone threatened with attack.

The basic argument against the SDI, was 1) "the cost will be too high" and 2) "we don't think it will work". These are the same arguments that were made about the STEALTH bomber; the cruise missiles; the sophisticated night flying technologically equipped airplanes; etc. now in USE in the Middle East.

The early reports are they are performing BETTER than expected, and made a major difference in the initial success (at little loss of life) in the initial clearing efforts of Iraqi missiles, airplanes, communication systems, etc.

Now ... Iraq's missile threats (and lack of defense systems) adds to a push in Congress for the U.S. missile defense system (some called it Star Wars decisively) SDI to strike down short and long range missiles.

Henry Kendall, a Nobel Prize winning physicists who approved funding to develop a system against a massive Soviet threat backs such a defense system.

Recent tests show the SDI "brilliant pebbles" system can work. If we can put a man on the moon ... why not develop a defense that could stop a nuclear bomb (or a scud rocket)?

"Civilian leadership is also needed to overcome the military's bureaucratic instincts. The Tomahawk cruise missiles that silently struck Iraqi targets were once actually opposed by the Navy brass. Cruise missiles also nearly died in the SALT "arms control process" of the 1970s.

But in actually fighting a war, the Bush administration has learned the lesson of Vietnam, too. As one source describes Secretary Cheney's view, "his doctrine of war is, don't screw around." For 20 years, says another administration official, two "lessons" of Vietnam have competed for dominance in the public mind. One still prominent among Democrats is that U.S. military intervention carries the seeds of its own failure.

The competing lesson is that military force can well serve U.S. purposes if political leaders provide clear goals and don't obstruct the mission. What a splendid irony it will be if Colin Powell buries not only Saddam Hussein, but also once and for all the false lessons of Vietnam.

Paul Gigot

Wall St. Journal

Use steamroller strategy; that is, make up your mind on the course and direction of action, and stick to it. But in tactics, do not steamroller. Attack weakness. Hold them by the nose and kick them in the pants.

George S. Patton

The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike at him as hard as you can, and keep moving on.

Ulysses S. Grant

High-Tech Weapons

Show Their Smarts

They were conceived in World War II. By Vietnam, they were beginning to grow up. In the Gulf War, they have come of age and proved deadly.

They are the "smart" weapons high-tech aerial ordnance, laser-, radar- or television-guided.

As videos from the Gulf War have shown, these weapons can literally fly down a building's airshaft or through the door of a bunker.

Many can be launched from planes a dozen or more miles away, allowing the planes to evade enemy anti-aircraft fire. ...

The Navy's Tomahawk cruise missile has received the most attention in the initial air attacks. But other, lesser-known smart weapons have proven critical.

These include two anti-radar missiles, the Shrike and the Harm. They can lock onto an Iraqi radar beam and ride it down to the target.

Two other smart weapons, in particular, play a major role:

*The Paveway glide bomb. These bombs can be released more than 11 miles from their target, though they are usually released closer.

A weapons officer aboard the fighter-bomber points a laser beam at the target, and the bombs fall (or, more precisely, glide) down a laser beam to impact. These bombs come in several sizes, ranging from 500 to 2,000 pounds.

These were the weapons that scored the remarkable hits shown Friday in videotapes.

The JP233. Aviation writer Alfred Price calls this British device "a fiendish weapon, designed to put a runway out of action for as long as possible and to make repair as difficult and dangerous as human ingenuity and low cunning can make it."

A Royal Air Force Tornado fighter-bomber armed with two JP233s and moving at 600 mph only 100 feet off the ground can sow an instant mine-field of 430 five-pound minelets.

Just the vibration of walking will set them off.

Also released in the two-second pass are 60 runway-cratering bombs swinging under parachutes. The bombs are the size of jackhammers and, with their double punch, act like jackhammers.

The bomb's first part punches a small hole in the runway. The second then explodes under the runway, forming an upside-down crater.

The first enemy airplane that taxis over the harmless-looking hole will crack through the runway, breaking its landing gear.

William Flannery