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1 September 2017

TAKING AIRPOWER FOR GRANTED: A SMART BOMB STORY

MIKE BENITEZ

I recently heard about a one-star general from a support career field who remarked, “In this day and age, thanks to smart bombs, putting a bomb on target is easy now.” Remarks like this are becoming more common, and they stem largely from an illusion that as technology makes warfighting more effective and efficient, it must also make it easier and require less expertise.

In fact, dropping a smart bomb is a bit more complicated than strapping an iPhone to an explosive, using the Maps app to plug in the bad guy’s address, and tapping the Easy button to generate airpower.

Like many things in life, you don’t get something for nothing. For new technology to achieve its claims, the operator’s mastery of one set of skills must generally be supplanted by another equally demanding set.

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