Aerospace

Beware: America's Lethal Precision Strike Advantage Is Slipping Away

On average, it took 1,000 sorties of B-17 bombers dropping nearly two-and-a-half million pounds of “dumb” bombs to successfully knock out a significant Nazi target in 1944. By contrast, during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a B-2 bomber could reliably achieve the same result with a single 2,000 pound “smart” bomb—and then go on to strike up to fifteen more targets in a single mission.

This level of accuracy proved to be an unprecedented and powerful force multiplier and was a central component of the so-called “second offset” strategy in the closing stages of the Cold War. By pushing the technological envelope, the U.S. and its allies could equalize the odds in any defense against the numerically superior Warsaw Pact in a hypothetical conflict.