Technology marches on. An article on Rapid Response in Av Week describes one of those epiphanies in tactical and strategic planning.

For years we have had missiles capable of dropping a nuke anywhere on Earth within thirty minutes. The nuclear warhead was the only thing capable of taking out a target given the lousy targeting capacity of early missile guidance systems.

Targeting systems improved over the years, and accordingly, warheads got smaller and smaller.

Now, given the amazing capacity of targeting systems for bombs dropped from high altitudes and other new technologies, the missile guys have looked at each other and suddenly realized that if they stuck one of these near-magical guided weapons on a missile as its warhead, they could hit a building with a conventional warhead from the other side of the planet on very short notice--less than an hour. Or, given the tremendous velocity of a streamlined object dropped from space, maybe no explosives at all.

This is an amazing capability. There are limited uses for such things...missiles cost a lot of money to use them for heavy conventional bombing missions.

But if you know someone is about to do something real bad, real soon, it may be just what the doctor ordered.

No aircraft carrier deployment. No troops overseas. Just the Big Surprise from Outer Space.

Not a bad idea at all.

The article points out serious problems, not least of which is how the hell do the nuclear-armed countries distinguish the launch of a non-nuclear missile from a nuclear one? If we were going to hit, for example, a terrorist weapons factory in Iraq, we would have to clear the launch with a number of nations, which, if they then blow the operation wide open, kind of wrecks the element of surprise.