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Smart Bombs vs Smart Bullets

© Dennis Morehouse

General war has many uses for the aerial bomb. Large armies opposing each other also make large targets, relatively easy to hit with 'dumb' or unguided bombs. Cities of the opposing powers are also large, potentially valuable targets, that don't take much accuracy to hit.

As wars got more expensive, weapons got more effective and accurate. This accuracy was desperately needed, because targets were getting relatively smaller than in the past. The citywide attacks during WW II were a thing of the past; nowadays, indiscriminate attacks against population centers are condemned by the world.

Cruise missiles and smart bombs seemed to be the answer to the accuracy problem. The need to avoid civilian casualties, both because it's the right thing to do and because it causes negative press, was part of the drive for smart weapons. Smart weapons can be much less expensive for the same effect because, in theory, it now only takes one to get a hit where before it might have taken dozens or even hundreds.

The drive for smart weapons is only partially valid. The concept got hyped in order to sell it to Congress and the military and now everyone believes the advertising, which is, of course, greatly exaggerated. The weapons are very accurate, though not quite as good as advertised before the Gulf War. A roughly 85% on target success rate is exponentially better than what we had before but this still isn't really the issue.

The real issue now is proper targeting. Remember the Chinese embassy in Belgrade? The weapon hit exactly where it was told to go. If the Chinese hadn't complained, we would never have known what we really hit. If you select the wrong target, all the accuracy in the world won't make things O.K. and you will be making new enemies hand over fist.

The problem becomes even more acute if you are targeting people instead of buildings. People not only do things that look suspicious from a distance; they also move around, in and out of the target zone. The attacks on friendly forces in Afghanistan are happening because of poor intelligence collection and an over reliance on using 'smart' weapons that really aren't smart at all.

The wedding party that was hit with JDAAM may or may not have been a wedding, or a Taliban gathering, or both, or neither. Since we had no one on the ground to actually see what was happening with people, as opposed to guessing what was happening based on pictures from a UAV or satellite, we may never know. Some of the attacks we've made may have been launched as the result of two neighbors feuding. If one of them happened to be a 'trusted source' it wouldn't take much for him to get rid of his troublesome neighbor.