The problem is that the Russians have a different force structure than the west.
The west uses its military in very much a policing role, and certainly in interventions that have a much lower threshold than Russia has.
In many ways NATO is becoming a diplomatic tool to force opposing parties to capitulate so there is less need for discussion and compromise. Nothing more persuasive than the threat... do it or we will bomb you.
The Russians on the other hand have the MVD for internal security problems and the FSB for external security problems.
The real question is why does the west use military force in situations where it is really a police matter, and what business do they have dropping Hellfire missiles into civilian communities to murder people? With no state of war it would be like the local police force barricading themselves in large buildings and setting up sniper positions where anybody walking past they suspect of criminal activity they shoot on sight. Who do you call when it is the police that is the problem?
Precision attack capability =/= Collateral damage control ; in particular i am interested to point out that ,to the contrary of common opinions on the subject Russian armed forces don't lack absolutely high precision weapons , but it strongly lack precision guided munitions that can be safely employed in a regional conflicts under the eyes of international institutions and foreign media coverage, in areas with middle to high density of civil infrastructures and peoples (as well highlighted ,in 2008, in the South Ossetia War against Georgia).
I disagree. There is no credible evidence that the Russian military forces killed a large number of innocent civilians in that conflict. Even with all their problems and shortcomings indiscriminate use of artillery and firepower on innocent civilians was not an issue for the Russian forces. The Georgians on the other hand happily rained Grads on the capital or SO and also reportedly attacked columns of fleeing civilians... the negative media coverage the Russians got in the western press was coming from the press offices in Tiblisi written by people who never went anywhere near the front lines and was probably largely written weeks before the conflict even started.
1) 99% of precision guided munitions DON'T HAVE (and ,up to a certain point, will never get for unavoidable and incomputable aerodynamics variables ) a level of precision even only near to those present in collective imaginary - often influenced and deceived by images or video representing the usual "bull's yes" hits by part of those type of weapons and that in reality represent ,instead, cases attentively chosen among an high number of attempts .
When you reduce the payload of a shell to a fraction of what it can carry then absolute precision does become critical.
When the target is an enemy ATGM position landing a 40kg 152mm HE Frag shell within 10m and air bursting 3m in the air then a direct hit is not necessary or possible, but the effect is the same as if it was a direct hit.
It is like the footage from the NATO campaign in Kosovo when NATO was showing footage of a train passing over a bridge and then half a second later the bridge is obliterated... at the press conference the NATO official joked at how lucky those on the train were for their lucky escape, but the size and proximity of the explosion it is very unlikely the passengers got away unscathed.
When the target is a bridge then a 17kg HE bomb just wont cut it... how innocent are the civilians that are within 50m of enemy forces setting up a roadside bomb and an ambush? There are civilians and there are innocent civilians. We have all seen the Libyan civilians armed with AKs and RPGs.
Having said all that the Soviets were using ATGMs launched from Hinds to hit point targets from a distance since the 1980s.
The parameter used in the West to define the degree of precision of those type of weapons is the CEP - Circular Error Probability- ,a circle with the intended target to the centre and within the radius of which will fall ,on average , 50% of the weapons delivered .
A typical JDAM has a CEP of about 13 meters - therefore delivering 10 JDAMS of 1000lb each ,only 5 will come on average within 13 meters radius from aimed point and ,of those, only about two will land within kill radius of its warhead for a small, lightly armoured, target -.
Naturally anyone is perfectly capable to realize as those type of weapons represent surely an enormous improvement in respect to legacy unguided ammunitions, but the return offered is directly proportional to the size of the fixed target attacked (a typical not hardened building with a side of 24 meters will be hit and destroyed 93-94 % of the times by a similar 1000 lb JDAM ) and inversely proportional to target resilience to overpressure solicitations.
You also need to keep in mind that CEP is a mathematical measure and applies in all weathers and conditions. A CEP of 13m might actually be much worse with high winds at ground level, and as it is GPS guided in certain locations and latitudes it might not even be usable. CEP is normally given as the worst possible result.
Iskander was given a CEP of 20m with optical guidance, yet during actual testing was found to have a CEP of more like 7m.
Against most targets such a CEP will be effective.
In fact the Vikhr-M ATGM has a CEP of 80cm at 8km.
Multiply the CEP by 4... it is all based on a bell curve so CEP = 50% of the possible results... the centre of the bell curve, multiply by 4 and you get the 99% area under the curve. In other words draw a circle that is 2.4m and 99% of all shots from a Vikhr should land within that circle.
Of course the problem with mathematical models is that they don't always follow reality.
What happens if your batch of missiles was damaged in transport or were not assembled properly and 99% of the missiles don't even reach the target?
Precision guided munitions can offer ,therefore, only an assisting effect in reducing collateral damages, the main factor instead become obviously management of detonation power for the desired effect and control of damage potential delivered in the target area (not forgetting that in a detonation radial distance of a peak overpressure variate in the space with the cube root of the explosive energy release)
Generally in combat collateral damage is not a huge concern except if what you are doing is more of a police action than a military one.
Truly innocent civilians rarely stand next to enemy air defence radars, or enemy military units.
2) From what said in point 1 result absolutely evident that in the optic of the design of a weapon optimized for reduction of collateral damages in low intensity conflicts ,reduction at minimum of the detonation potential become a key feature.
The staple weapon in this class is surely GBU-39 SDB, a weapon purposely conceived for low intensity conflicts where its very small (....only 17 kg of explosive filler !!) detonation power (which would render its employment against even moderately armoured targets like SAM TELARS very inefficient with its 8-13 m. of CEP), its JDAM-class CEP, its moderate penetration capability and its relative small volume allow not only to attack, in the same sortie, with each aircraft several of the "soft"/not hardened targets characteristic of low intensity conflicts ,but also to enormously reduce chances of collateral damages ; is important to remark that the penetration capability of GBU-39 greatly contribute to this purpose , in fact typical misses by part of this weapon usually cause its 17 kg of explosive to detonate usually some meters under the level of soil.
You are contradicting yourself... in your first point you suggest that CEPs of 10m or more are not accurate enough to pick out point targets so presumably the goal should be tiny CEPs measured in cms or mms, and in this point above you say they reduce the HE weight to reduce the effective radius of the weapon to reduce the effective radius of damage... the clear problem is that to effectively use it you would need very precise information about the exact location of the target along with the location of targets that are to be spared so you know when to release the weapon. Targets underground would make such a determination impossible... how can you tell who is in that bunker? Is it an Al Quada meeting of high level officials or is it the community air raid shelter full of women and children?
The problem you have identified... lack of being useful as a world police force, or should I say a vigilante force that murders suspects without trial, is not a problem in my opinion. The Russian military should never find itself with such a role I hope.
If they did then there are plenty of ATGMs that would be ideal to be released from UCAVs to hit point targets from a decent stand off distance and lots of similar long range options.
They have the precision strike weapons... it wouldn't be that hard to scale them down to make smaller lighter weapons... I just hope they realise what a slippery slope that would be if they choose to follow it.
Now GarryB do you know what is the most common air delivered PGM (its amount in Russian stock is simply impressive) in Russian armed forces ?
KAB-1500L (followed by KAB-1500Kr); now those high precision weapons show a CEP even significantly better than satellite guided ammunitions like JDAM ; the little problem is that those weapons (in 3300 lb class, when the maximum for western-made guided bombs is 2000 lb ) instead of the 17 kg of HE of GBU-39 have a filler of .....460 and 440 Kg of HE !!! moreover with an energetic yield superior of 18% to that employed in GBU-39 !!!
I think we both know the reason for that... up until recently the only Russian or Soviet aircraft that actually regularly carried guided weapons was the Su-24 and its targets were bridges and HQs and similar key targets deep behind enemy lines in a WWIII scenario where collateral damage was simply not an issue.
The new weapons they are buying include smaller weapons like the KAB-250 etc and missiles like Kh-29 and Kh-38 which will likely replace the Kh-29 as a heavy precision missile. (Export models of the Kh-38 are supposed to reach 40km targets and the domestic model is supposed to double that range with a variety of seekers for different targets under different conditions.)
I think that anyone can now realize why ,in spite of the immense amount of this type of weapons, neither KAB-500 or ,even worse, KAB-1500 bombs has been ever employed in Georgia.
Technically they have used 500kg weapons in the form of the Iskander and Tochka missile launches, but most of the support needed was provided by Su-25s with rocket and cannon and light bombs. If they adopt a guidance kit for unguided weapons like Ugroza then they will be even better equipped to deal with such problems... one 80mm rocket will deal with most light vehicles it can hit directly and the laser guidance kit would ensure a high hit rate even from ballistic distances.
Similar reasoning is true ,naturally, also other heavy Russian PGM weapons such as the "Smel’chak" round for 2S4 super heavy mortar or majority of Russian guided missile both ground and air delivered.
The vast majority of the Russian weapons are designed for real war, and as such do the job they are designed for while not being suitable for lynch mob duty. The branches of the Russian forces that would be assigned roles in COIN operations would need Tulip or TOS to do their job, but that is not to say the Russian Army doesn't need them either.
When Russia needs to murder someone I am sure they have plenty of methods and no reason to create SDBs. Of course for the purpose of maximising the internal payload of stealth aircraft a small compact bomb design would be useful but its warhead should be sufficient to make it actually effective.
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) And for that same reason, nukes are hardly a factor when considering such a small (and in a sense) insignificant country like Georgia.