The war in Ukraine shows how technology is changing the battlefield

IN THE 1970s Soviet generals realised that America, with its lead in microelectronics, was racing ahead in the development of long-range precision weapons, sensors (such as satellites) to spot targets, and networks to connect the two. They gave this a grand name: the “reconnaissance-strike complex”. Operation Desert Storm, America’s swift and easy triumph over Iraq in 1991, seemed to offer further proof of the concept. Why duke it out over trenches when you could paralyse the enemy with pinpoint strikes on command posts and logistics deep behind the front lines? American thinkers hailed a “revolution in military affairs”, or RMA.