SyriaCruise missile-only strikes have mixed record of success

Published 28 August 2013

If the United States limits its operation in Syria to cruise missile strikes, the operation will resemble similar attacks in the past – for example, cruise missile attacks in Afghanistan, Sudan, and Iraq in 1998. Cruise missile-only operations have had at best a mixed record of success. Experts note that Tomahawk missile strikes are politically and psychologically significant, but typically have a limited tactical effect.

The four destroyers the U.S. Navy now deploys off the coast of Syria carry about two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles each. The weapons can be launched from a distances of up to about 1,000 miles.

The New York Times notes that attack submarines also carrying Tomahawks are on station in the Mediterranean as well.

The missiles carry relatively small high-explosive warheads. One conventional version contains about 260 pounds of explosives, the other carries about 370 pounds. This is less than the explosive power of a single 1,000-pound air-dropped bomb.

In addition to the relatively small warhead, there are other problems with cruise missiles:

The missiles are not entirely controllable for elevation near the target, so if they arrive on target slightly high, there is a risk that the blast will affect structures and people behind or near the targets.

There is also difficulty in the exact timing the strikes: the missiles fly from different release points and use different routes, guided by GPS way points. This means that they do not always arrive at their targets simultaneously, thus allowing the first strikes to alert troops at follow-up targets that attacks are coming. This makes cruise missile attacks more effective against fixed targets, and less effective  against military units or commanders.

If the United States limits its operation in Syria to cruise missile strikes, the operation will resemble similar attacks in the past: The Washington Post notes that these cruise missile-only operations have had at best a mixed record of success. Experts note that Tomahawk missile strikes are politically and psychologically significant, but typically have a limited tactical effect.

  • In late August 1998, the Pentagon launched cruise missiles at terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and the pharmaceutical factory in Sudan which was suspected to be producing chemical weapons. The operation, codenamed Operation Infinite Reach, was in response to the bombings on 7 August 1998 of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which were the first al Qaeda attacks on U.S. targets.
    The strikes in Afghanistan did not kill al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden or his top lieutenants. The attack in in Sudan became an embarrassment because the intelligence the Pentagon based its decision on was ound out to be inaccurate, and no chemical weapons were produced in the bombed factory.
  • In December 1998, the United States launched cruise missiles at military targets in Iraq in response to Hussein’s decision to kick out the UN weapon inspectors who were in Iraq to monitor the regime’s compliance with UN resolutions about Iraq’s WMD program.

“We didn’t really gain anything,” U.S. diplomat Ryan Crocker, who was the ambassador in Damascus at the time, told the Post. “The behavior of our adversaries did not change. A couple of cruise missiles are not going to change their way of thinking.”