IN THE north, an advancing army replete with artillery and tanks faces an enemy that has dug itself in. In the south, troops fight running battles with groups of enemy soldiers to defend their supply lines and wrest control of towns and cities. This is, of course, a description of the battle for Iraq. Yet it could apply just as well to the allied advance across France nearly 60 years ago. The US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld promised "a war like no other", but 12 days into this campaign things look miserably familiar. No matter how high-tech the weaponry or smart the strategy, there is no new form of warfare here.

Rumsfeld has made much of his dislike of conventional military tactics. So instead of large armies, he readied massive stocks of laser-guided bombs and other high-tech weaponry which were to be deployed using superior information, also gathered by high-tech ...