Missiles In The Middle East
Devastation in inaccuracy
TERRY WUERZ
Recent events in the Middle East have led to an explosion of warfare in the region. There is little doubt that the area is becoming increasingly embattled as the decade trundles onward; some, including Newt Gingrich, have called for widespread recognition by the public and U.S. administration that we are experiencing conflict on the scale of World War III. By all estimations, efforts to bring non-military solutions to the fore have been met with dismal success. Iran and Syria stand poised to enter the fray. How long the recent ceasefire agreement will last remains a matter of good behaviour from two sides devoted to the annihilation of each other.
Conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon has garnished much of the world’s attention since July 12, 2006. Israeli air forces have carried out nearly 2,000 bombing runs across Lebanon, barraging air- and sea-ports, and commenced their ground invasion into Southern Lebanon on July 23. Before the caesefire, Hezbollah fired an average of 100 missiles per day, mostly at northern Israel. Rockets have landed in all major Israeli cities, and the majority are suspected of being the Russian-designed Katyusha rockets, which have a range of around 30 miles and are commonly mounted on trucks. Civilian casualties were been extremely high on both sides, raising international alarms.
Throughout history, mankind has invested surprisingly large resources into the development of weapons and artillery, an axiom which shamefully continues unabashed today. Presently, the use of long-range tactics is commonly employed to inflict damage. In the 1980s, the United States and Soviet Union underwent broad-sweeping missile disarmament of many intermediate- to long-range missiles. Despite this, missiles remain an easy way of causing destruction from afar — compared with aircraft, many are relatively cheap.
For our discussion, then, a missile is a weapon which is propelled in flight at its target. Missiles can be either steered, steer themselves (guided missiles), or simply follow a trajectory unchanged from the time of launching (ballistic missiles). Most today are conventional, meaning they are designed to explode on target. Unconventional missiles include those that deliver a different type of weapon, which could be biological, chemical, or nuclear.
Ballistic missiles, the simplest, were first designed in the 1930s and ’40s by Nazi Germany. These were first successfully used in combat against Paris on September 6, 1943. Since then, they have played a major role in nearly every major conflict across the globe. Guided missiles were also first launched during the Second Word War, again by Germany in 1944. The United States and Soviet Union further refined this technology to modern levels of precision, including the design of the hugely expensive and destructive Tomahawk cruise missile during the Cold War.
Ballistic missile accuracy, termed Circular Error Probability (CEP), is measured in terms of the radius of a circle around which a missile will fall, 50 per cent of the time. In general, the longer the range of the technology being used, the less accurate the missile will be. Because of the long ranges involved, and the inability to significantly alter their flight path once launched, this technology is generally less accurate than either guided missiles or strategic air bombing. The future is likely to see more accurate missiles over longer ranges. Yet, cost and missile design play a large role, too. The Iraqi Al-Hussein short range ballistic missile has a CEP of as high as 3,000 meters, making any target smaller than a city unrealistic. While the sophisticated short-range ballistic and cruise missiles used by the more advanced militaries in the world will have relatively small CEPs, those used by groups such as Hezbollah are likely to be much cheaper, cruder, and less accurate.
Israel is touted to have the fifth largest military capacity in the world. It might thus be expected that Hezbollah, using less accurate technology, would have the higher military death count. In fact, the opposite is true. As of August 11, 2006, a rough estimate of the casualty numbers (taken from the running tally at wikipedia.com) saw 500-800 civilians dead in Lebanon,
With the high number of civilian casualties on both the Israeli and Hezbollah sides, the question of whether this has been collateral damage or a calculated tactic is foremost in many minds. Israeli forces have claimed that the high civilian casualty count is due to inaccuracies inherent in the technology. Certainly, these flaws in modern machinery are a macabre reminder of how brutal war in the 21st century can be. Yet how does a country with what is widely regarded to have a larger and more sophisticated military prowess end up killing so many more civilians than their opponent?
Given the current political winds in the Middle East, not to mention the rest of the world, the future of missile production looks very bright. While future technology may lead to smaller CEPs, these will likely be offset by increased destructive capacity. Universal missile disarmament, while perhaps a practical impossibility, looks better and better all the time.
Terry Wuerz is a fourth-year medical student
