Digital Soldiers: The Evolution of High-Tech Weaponry and Tomorrow's Brave New Battlefield.

• Author: Evans, David

By James F. Dunnigan St. Martin's Press, $25.95

In taking aim at the evolution of high-technology weaponry, James Dunnigan has produced a book analogous to the uneven performance of a beginning shooter in military marksmanship: He makes a few 10-point hits inside the bull's eye, but a depressing number of shots land out in the boundaries of the target sheet.

Pity. Dunnigan begins sensibly enough, asserting what many weapons experts in America's defense establishment know but rarely say publicly: "High tech does not always equal performance, or even minimal effectiveness" From the Gulf War, we now know that some of the most sophisticated tactical fighter-bombers ever fielded by the U.S. military failed to destroy a single Iraqi Scud missile launcher, while the unheralded success story was that of the A-10 "Warthog" attack jet, which cost a fraction of its faster, sleeker brethren, yet, according to Iraqi prisoners, was among the most feared of the Allied jets.

Dunnigan is also right on his second point that, despite mixed results, there is a "continuing rush to automate" the battlefield with a panoply of even more complex weapons. "Digitize is the buzzword du jour," he claims. In the digital promised land, all sensors and weapons are linked in a vast network enabling American soldiers to concentrate their firepower on a hapless foe.

Dunnigan cautions that "training is the key," and one wishes he had spent more time illustrating how Congress remains brain-locked on buying more weapons rather than ensuring that troops are trained in their use. In a February 1996 study of the Gulf War, Stephen Biddle of the Institute for Defense Analysis rediscovered proof of the old aphorism about fighting skills counting more than technology. Biddle found that the lopsided results suffered by the Iraqis could not be explained entirely by American technological superiority, but by the fact that the skills of our troops enabled them to exploit the Iraqis' tactical blunders. Biddle observed, "A less-skilled (U.S.) military is more dangerous than a less-advanced technology"

Yet the exact opposite priorities are reflected in the 1997 budget, where for every dollar added to operations and maintenance, Congress added roughly $6 to buy weapons. If the same approach is taken to a shrinking defense budget in coming years, the decay in combat skills will erode our troops' ability to exploit their technological advantage.

Dunnigan frets about cuts to the training budget...