THE RAF AIR POWER REVIEW - Royal Air Force Centre for Air ...

simply hitting many targets quickly should not be mistaken for a sound military strategy. The value of those targets and whether
their destruction brings us closer to our political objectives are what matters.
Such an impressive capability has its challenges. Precision weapons need precision intelligence. If it is now possible to put a
weapon through a specific window of a specific building, then it is necessary to know if that is the correct window – the blunder
of hitting the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade is a particularly telling illustration. This greatly elevates the level of detail required
from the intelligence gathering agencies. These difficulties are magnified further by the proliferation of mobile military targets.
The most difficult tactical task facing airmen today is the ability to detect, track, and destroy mobile targets, especially in bad
weather, beneath a cloud deck, or when they are hidden under trees. Although a major effort was mounted in the Gulf War to
eradicate the Iraqi Scud menace – over fifteen hundred sorties flown – analysts were forced to conclude after the war that it is
possible no Scud mobile missiles were destroyed by air attack. 22 This problem reappeared in the Balkans. Despite a far more
capable reconnaissance effort that included advanced JSTARS aircraft, as well as an
increased use of UAV and space assets, airmen still had difficulty in finding and
destroying Serbian tanks, artillery pieces, and other vehicles. Moreover, Iraqi Scud
technology was rudimentary in many respects. More capable missiles and guidance
systems are now being developed by China, Iran, India, and North Korea that promise
greater range, payload and accuracy. 23 Cruise missiles, an equally dangerous threat, are
also expected to proliferate. There has been much talk since the Gulf War that the US
has acquired what the Soviets would have called a “reconnaissance-strike-complex”
(RSC). This would allow the ability to locate, identify, attack, assess damage, and reattack
(if necessary) a target in near real time. Although many of the surveillance and
command and control assets are in place to produce such an RSC, Kosovo illustrates
the difficulties still faced. 24 Until the mobile target problem is resolved, no such complete
or effective system as an RSC exists.
Although a major effort was
mounted in the Gulf War to
eradicate the Iraqi Scud menace
– over fifteen hundred sorties
flown – analysts were forced to
conclude after the war that it is
possible no Scud mobile missiles
were destroyed by air attack
● One of the great failures of the Gulf War was the coalition’s inability to find and destroy Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) research and production facilities, and weapon stockpiles. Although this was a stated goal of the coalition, accurate
intelligence was lacking to achieve it. It was disconcerting to discover that there were many nuclear research facilities in Iraq
that had not been identified either before or during the war. It was United Nations inspectors roaming Iraq afterwards that
discovered and then disabled such sites. 25 How many more exist that have not been discovered? Given that our technological
ability to monitor Iraq from the air, space, and on the ground has been far greater than is normally the case, such a poor track
record is not comforting when one thinks of other countries where our surveillance capability is far less.
61