Like sure, it is better than carpet bombing, but thats about all.It's nothing like sending in a SWAT team.
> The various howitzers, mortars, and rockets that make up both light and heavy artillery are known in military jargon as “indirect fire.” Though targeting systems have become much more advanced than the days of old — allowing for both greater precision against the enemy and more careful targeting to avoid killing civilians — these weapons unleash incredibly destructive power wherever their munitions land.
...
> The campaign to eject ISIS from Mosul and its surrounding towns was destructive — Iraqis are working to rebuild their homes as they continue to count their dead.
Nobody said it was. The US obviously has massive artillery firepower, both massed fires and precision fires, and using it is of course part of its doctrine. Who are you responding to that you think said it wasn't?
Both light artillery and precision fires were used in Iraq and Afghanistan, but not remotely like in Ukraine where they are using massed fires.
(By the way we can see you editing your comments after you post them.)
I can't see the flagged post you were responding to anymore, but for your post quoted below, the argument doesn't apply to Mosul (not that you were claiming it did, you were making a specific point not a general argument).
> The US was operating a counter-insurgency, so they didn't use major artillery bombardment, and used precision strike if anything but mostly used mechanised infantry and armour on the ground. It was still extremely destructive. Russia are conducting basically conventional warfare, so they're absolutely piling artillery rounds into these cities.
The US and Iraqi forces used conventional warfare and were piling artillery rounds into Mosul, in a similar way to how Russia is using it in Ukraine.
I think this is a little unfair - as far as I understand 'surgical strike' is not a reall military term, and the terminology was used by pundits and politicians to put a spin on current events.
I don't think anyone takes issue with generals using correct terminology, but usualy they aren't the ones giving interviews.
You're debating a term I never used. If you don't like how someone else uses it, then you'll have to ask them about what they mean, because I didn't use it.
Not sure what you mean - that's exactly what it is - do you think 'conventional' has some kind of ethical meaning? If so you're just mistaken about what the term means.
It means along the spectrum it's higher intensity than something like a counter-insurgency operation, or 'sub-threshold' we might say, but it's not as far gone as a nuclear engagement.
"Conventional" means all-out war, army vs army. The problem is that russia is carrying out conventional warfare tactics against a civilian population rather than an opposing army.
What does it do to the opposing army then? And what does that army do in the meantime?