Strategic Bombing - Technological Advances

Technological Advances

With the advent of precision-guided munitions, many feel that strategic bombing has once again become a viable military strategy. Exactly how precise precision munitions are is still open to question. However, others predict that 21st century warfare will more often be asymmetrical, and therefore viable strategic bombing options may not exist.

A further question is raised when some see the blurring of strategic and tactical targets and missions, particularly when tactical aircraft are frequently used to carry out strikes on targets with significant strategic importance as a result of technological advances in aircraft design and munition guidance and penetration. For example, tactical strike aircraft such as F-16s were frequently used to destroy command and communications bunkers during Operation Iraqi Freedom while large "strategic" bombers such as the B-1 and B-52 were frequently used to provide sustained close air support at high altitude during Operation Enduring Freedom.

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