Articles

The False Promises of technology in an urban fight.
"The battle, in which Iraqi security forces and the U.S.-led coalition defeated the Islamic State group, raged for nine months (October 2016–July 2017). The employment of precision strike in Mosul has been well documented. In fact, many outlets, including Defense One and the Mosul Study Group from the U.S. Army’s Center for Lessons Learned, were quick to praise its employment in Mosul. These outlets posited that the U.S. employment of precision strike yielded proportionality and discriminate targeting, and limited civilian casualties and collateral damage. However, reality illustrates that Mosul is yet another example of the false promises of precision weaponry.

In urban combat, against an enemy that is great in size and possesses indomitable will, like the Islamic State group in Mosul, precision weapons present a paradox. The judicious use of destructive force is fundamentally irrelevant if it does not eliminate the threat within the first strike or two. When precision strikes do not achieve their desired effect within the first strike and threats reposition to another structure, they expand the potential for collateral damage and civilian casualties. As a result, precision strikes’ ineffectiveness of eliminating the threat creates the conditions in which residual threats move from structure to structure, trailed by precision strikes, leaving a swath of death and destruction in their wake."