AllMovie

The PBS special NOVA: Battle Plan Under Fire travels to the Iraqi battlefront, where Twenty-first century laser-driven technologies - from bombs, to auto-piloted planes, to AIS - go head to head in a thoroughly bizarre and impractical conflict with centuries-old middle eastern guerilla warfare techniques. Meanwhile, on the near side of the Atlantic, political journalists and war correspondents are vitriolically and wisely acknowledging the complete lack of common sense inherent in this match-up. Battle Plan Under Fire carries the viewer inside of government bodies, including the Pentagon and the CIA, for exclusive, one-on-one interviews with military brass. It then reveals how quickly (and, some would say, haphazardly) advanced weaponry gets designed and turned out within the United States. The film ultimately asks if our advanced technologies in the US might, in fact, not be able to propel us to victory when the other side is fighting a different brand of war - if our technologies might instead present a disadvantage against small-scale guerilla and terrorist strategies.