Iran’s attack on Iraq shows how precise missiles have become

SATELLITE PHOTOGRAPHS of Ain al-Asad, an air base in western Iraq currently used by American forces, showed the aftermath of an Iranian ballistic-missile strike on January 8th. They were pictures of precision. Iran had struck at the heart of the sprawling base, in an area packed with planes, helicopters and buildings. The precision, however, was paradoxical. The missiles scored six direct hits, but against evacuated aircraft hangars. This, presumably, was enough retaliation for honour’s sake after an American air-to-surface missile had killed Qassem Suleimani, a prominent Iranian general, five days earlier, without being sufficient to provoke counter-retaliation. “The most important takeaway from Iran’s strike is just how precise their short-range ballistic missiles were,” says Vipin Narang of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “The accuracy revolution is real and no longer a monopoly of the United States. This has huge implications for modern conflict.”

A missile’s accuracy is measured by its circular error probable (CEP), a radius within which half of all launches will fall. The lower the CEP, the more precise the missile. When Saddam Hussein chose to lash out during the Gulf war of 1991 he sprayed scores of Scud missiles at Israel and Saudi Arabia. His rockets had a CEP of more than two kilometres. That is fine for terrorising cities, but useless for hitting—or avoiding—specific buildings. More Israelis died from heart attacks and stress than from blasts. Though one Iraqi Scud killed 28 American soldiers in Saudi Arabia, it did so not by hitting its target but by breaking up and showering debris over their barracks.