Computer chip: Bonafide hero of Gulf War

US F-117 bombers took off silently from an air base in Saudi Arabia at the dawn of January 17, 1991. The target was Baghdad.

The United States has not fought a war of such magnitude since the Vietnam War. This time they are fully prepared. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers are ready on the border of Saudi Arabia. Thousands of tanks are waiting to attack. Fleets, missiles, and ammunition are aimed at Baghdad at sea. General Norman Schwarzkopf, a veteran of the Vietnam War was leading the operation. But this time he did not send soldiers directly into battle. He relied on long-range, sophisticated weapons.

The most important target of the first strike was a 12-story telephone exchange building in Baghdad. Schwarzkopf's war plan was to destroy it and disrupt Iraq's communications system. Two F-117s dropped two thousand-pound Paveway laser-guided bombs which instantly pierced the building, and it caught fire. CNN's live broadcast in Baghdad was immediately interrupted. The target was successfully hit. At the same time, 116 Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched from the US fleet, which hit Baghdad and various surrounding areas. Thus began the Persian Gulf War.

The first strike destroyed communication towers, military headquarters, air force bases, power plants, and even Saddam Hussein's secret hideout. The goal was clear - to disable Iraq's top leadership by cutting off communication with their troops. The Iraqi military was in disarray within a very short time. On television, tanks were seen blowing one after another under bomb attacks, creating a scene like a video game play.

This technology was not so new for the USA. The Paveway bomb was actually introduced during the Vietnam War. In 1972, the first generation of Paveway bombs destroyed the Thanh Hoa Bridge in Vietnam. At the time, these bombs were very simple—a simple bomb made of a few transistors and a laser sensor. But they worked. Since then, a company called Texas Instruments, has been developing one improved version of this bomb after another. Each time, more advanced electronics were added, using fewer parts, which increased the bomb’s reliability and reduced its cost.

By the 1990s, the Paveway had become the most popular weapon of the US military, as well as become familiar and accessible to everyone. Everyone used it in training. It could hit any target with precision. By the end of the war, it was found that laser-guided aircraft had hit 13 times more targets than aircraft without lasers.

This is how US air power crushed the Iraqi army in the Gulf War, while US troops suffered very little damage. Texas Instruments engineer Weldon Ward received a national award for his work on the laser-guided pavement bomb and his commitment to keeping it cheap. At the award ceremony, an Air Force officer told him: “You saved at least 10,000 American lives.”

As former US Secretary of Defense Bill Perry watched the war on television, he realized that laser-guided bombs were just the beginning. Microchips were changing everything—surveillance, communications, computing. It was the first major test of his “offset strategy” since the Vietnam War. The main goal was to prioritize technological innovations—such as stealth technology, smart weapons, precision targeting systems, and GPS—to compensate for the Soviet numerical superiority. In the 1970s and 1980s, many dismissed the idea. Many doubted whether computer chips could really win wars.

But the Gulf War answered all those questions. Television footage showed Iraqi tanks, airfields, and buildings being destroyed one after another by precision weapons. Even the old Sidewinder missiles of the Vietnam War, which often missed their targets, were six times more accurate with the new semiconductor-controlled system. The new technology worked better than expected.

The Iraqi army had all the modern weapons of Soviet manufacture at its disposal, but they were helpless against American electronic warfare. One headline in the New York Times read: “Silicon triumphs over steel.” Another headline read: “Computer chip may be the hero of the war.”

The impact was felt not only in Baghdad but also in Moscow. Soviet military analysts acknowledged that this was a war entirely dependent on technology, a kind of “wave battle.” This rapid defeat of Iraq proved exactly what Soviet General Ogarkov had predicted long ago: “The war of the future will be decided by electronics.”

The real hero of this war was not just the general or the soldier, but the computer chip.

[Adapted and abridged from Chapter 27 (War Hero) of Chris Miller's acclaimed book 'Chip War']

Author: Mahmud Hossain, a BUET graduate, has over three decades of leadership experience in Bangladesh’s telecom and ICT sectors. He played a key role in introducing mobile technologies in the country. He now serves as a Commissioner at BTRC, following senior leadership roles in several national and multinational industry-leading companies.