Carnegie Endowment 150d ago

The Paveway bomb, invented by Texas Instruments in the 1970s, was the first truly precise munition. It revolutionized America’s air campaign in Vietnam and allowed whole new kinds of “limited” U.S. wars in Libya, Iraq, Serbia, and beyond. But Paveway’s true legacy was psychological: it seduced generations of U.S. leaders into believing that tactical precision creates strategic victories with few costs. Jeffrey E. Stern, an intrepid chronicler of modern conflict, tells this story in his new book The Warhead: The Quest to Build the Perfect Weapon in the Age of Modern Warfare. He joins Jon Bateman on The World Unpacked to explore the past, present, and future of precision warfare. Find the episode transcript and streaming audio, and get the show direct to your inbox, here: http://carnegieendowment.org/podcasts/the-world-unpacked/how-smart-bombs-enable-dumb-wars? Follow Jon on X: https://x.com/JonKBateman Chapters 00:00 – When Bombs Got Accurate 00:27 – The Intelligence Problem 00:57 – Welcome Jeff Stern 01:00 – The Weapon That Changed War 01:52 – Yemen: The Beginning 03:08 – Touching Bomb Shrapnel 05:01 – What Is a Smart Bomb? 06:38 – Vietnam’s Impossible Bridge 08:54 – The Illusion of Precision 10:19 – Winning Battles, Losing Wars 12:24 – Presidents With More Options 14:29 – Can Precision Stop Iran? 15:56 – Precision Depends on Intel 17:11 – Gaza and Mass Destruction 18:28 – When Pilots Decide to Kill 20:41 – Serbia: Precision Success? 23:05 – Shock and Awe Culture 24:45 – Libya’s Cautionary Tale 26:43 – Breaking vs. Rebuilding States 28:42 – Killing Leaders to Win 31:23 – The Catharsis of Airstrikes 32:21 – “With Love From Manchester” 33:48 – Where Does This End? 39:19 – Should These Weapons Exist? 44:58 – Final Reflections Like and subscribe to our channel: https://bit.ly/38sljlH The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace generates strategic ideas and independent analysis, supports diplomacy, and trains the next generation of international scholar-practitioners to help countries and institutions take on the most difficult global problems and advance peace. Visit our website: https://carnegieendowment.org/ Follow us on X: https://x.com/CarnegieEndow Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carnegieendow/