"THIS is a huge gamble for the US administration. Politically, war is going to change US-Europe relations, it's going to change the Middle East, it's certainly going to change Iraq. You wouldn't think they'd have a military gamble going on at the same time."

Harvey Sapolsky, director of the Defense and Arms Control Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is referring to the almost total reliance that the US military now has on precision weapons - "smart" bombs that can be guided accurately to their intended targets and, just as importantly, away from others.

The outcome of the Gulf conflict will depend to an unprecedented degree on the success of this technology. And with it, the political ambitions of the US and Britain after the war, when they attempt to rebuild a nation and garner world support for their actions.

During the Gulf war of 1991 the smart ...