A report published last year by Operation Inherent Resolve, the American-led coalition against Islamic State (is), which has been bombing Iraq and Syria for almost a decade, made the same argument in explaining why Iraq’s air force was using dumb bombs: “properly employing unguided bombs is cheaper than using bombs with costly guidance kits, and can achieve the same effect.” In that campaign, America occasionally dropped unguided bombs ostensibly to crater roads, to constrain the jihadists’ movements, but in practice to raise the morale of Iraqi soldiers who were cheered by evidence of air support, says Stacie Pettyjohn of the cnas think-tank in Washington.
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Author
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Stacie Pettyjohn
Senior Fellow and Director, Defense Program
Stacie Pettyjohn is a senior fellow and director of the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). Her areas of expertise include defense strategy, post...
