TV REVIEW : ‘Nova’ Uncovers the Doubts About U.S. ‘Smart’ Weapons

With the Bush Administration’s new strategy of doubling U.S. military forces in the Persian Gulf in order to display an offensive stance toward Iraq, fresh attention is being focused on the heart of U.S. military might: The high-tech, “smart” weapons that were so much a part of the expensive military build-up during the ‘80s.

Many Pentagon strategists consider this computerized arsenal the ace-in-the-hole against a less-developed power like Iraq, but as the ultimate test for these weapons may be fast approaching, doubts are emerging about them as well.

The KCET/Nova co-production, “Killing Machines,” (tonight at 8 on Channels 28 and 15 and at 9 on Channel 50) raises the most sobering questions yet.

During the height of the Cold War, tank-heavy Warsaw Pact armies compelled outmanned American-led NATO forces to digitize the battlefield, ushering in high-precision missiles, planes and tanks. Quality over quantity, as the military mantra went.

But as with every technological development in weaponry (the report shows author Tom Clancy comparing the new machines to the repeater rifle of the 19th Century), arms trade expands, and your customer today may be your enemy tomorrow.

Nowhere is this more stark than with Iraq, although “Machines” fails to track how Western Europe and the United States helped feed Saddam Hussein’s own machine. It does, though, show how a Third World guerrilla force in Afghanistan, using a basic smart weapon like the Stinger anti-aircraft gun, blew the Soviet superpower out of the sky. Smarter, cheaper, more compact weapons have democratized military power: A superpower may no longer be so super.

Producer Mitchell Koss strives for balance, but somehow the several critics of smart weapons--including Adm. Eugene Carroll and defense consultant Donald Mayes--come through louder, for several reasons.

The weapons remain untested in a real war and may not work. Mock U.S.-Iraq battles staged in the Mojave Desert have Iraq winning. Footage shot on-board the high-tech U.S.S. Vincennes when it accidentally shot down an Iranian passenger plane dramatize the danger of looking at an enemy on a radar screen rather than with your own eyes. The human factor behind the machine may be our own worst enemy.