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As we feared at the time, the Gulf conflict is rapidly entering the
history books as a ‘clean’ war. Last week, it was the turn of Alan Clark,
the minister for defence procurement, to add to this myth. Speaking at a
meeting of the World Economic Forum in London, Clark praised the effectiveness
of high-technology weapons during the conflict. And he used their achievements
to claim that, although detente has reduced demands for massive arms stockpiles,
the need for long-term military research and development has never been
greater.

In terms of cost-effectiveness, Clark is probably right. Remember that
it was the peace-loving Jimmy Carter who cut the US military research budget
in the early 1980s while at the same time giving the green light to work
on ‘Stealth’ technology. Indeed whether one approves or not, the market
for high-technology weapons is likely to increase in future years – an added
incentive to arms manufacturers to help cover the cost of development programmes
(as the government would like).

What is disturbing, however, is the way that a sanitised view of warfare
is being used to legitimate these goals. No mention, for example, was made
of the hundreds of thousands killed in carpet-bombing whose ‘softening up’
greatly increased the effectiveness of the allies’ strategy. Clark claimed
that ‘public opinion’ would not permit ‘a return to old-style mass warfare’.
But it should not be allowed to permit new-style mass warfare either.