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Re:Deliberately optimizing for harm by tshaddox on Wednesday March 16, 2022 @05:05PM (#30704089)
The comparison we're making is whether precision attacks, presumably on roughly building-sized targets, would be cheaper to do from long range via ICBMs (with conventional warheads), or via much cheaper but shorter-range missiles. My guess is that neither ICBMs nor shorter-range missiles could have accomplished what the U.S. military accomplished in Iraq. Presumably missiles alone were responsible for a small portion of that $54 billion.
Re:Deliberately optimizing for harm by bzbarsky on Thursday March 17, 2022 @12:29AM (#30707684)
If I can trust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGM-30_Minuteman a Minuteman III (which is the current ICBM design used by the US) will land within 800ft (240m) of its intended target 50% of the time. And outside that circle the other 50%.

In other words, you can't really target a "building-size" target with these (with maybe exceptions like the Pentagon).

For nuclear payloads, a few hundred meters of error is much less of an issue, of course.

Re:Deliberately optimizing for harm by BlueTemplar on Thursday March 17, 2022 @03:51AM (#30708623)
In the first Iraq war, "surgical strike" was euphemism for undiscriminate carpet bombing. Was the second Iraq war any different ?