The versatility of cruise missiles should not be underestimated. Once a military ascertains the position of its target and is able to leverage an overarching infrastructure of location, communication and navigation assets, there is little to stop it from attacking. Furthermore, if long-range submarines and aircraft are available, then that military force could even begin projecting power in relatively distant areas.
In a defensive context, a country such as Pakistan could (especially if it has access to a military-grade satellite guidance and communications network such as China’s BeiDou) distribute its LACM inventory (e.g. the 700km Babur) across a large number of light and affordable assets. This is basically the concept of ‘distributed lethality’ whereby relatively more affordable aerial, sea and land could effectively engage in offensive operations against a close proximity foe. The advantage of this approach was summarized by Bryan Clark, a naval analyst with the Center of Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, to
Defense News:
“The arguments made for distributed lethality are to put firepower on a bunch of smaller ships, have them disperse, in turn increase targeting problems for the enemy, and you may be able to generate the same kind of firepower if you concentrate the platforms.
“With the Russians, these 900-ton corvettes are harder to find than a [4,000-ton US] littoral combat ship. You can buy them in larger numbers, and they also carry land-attack weapons,” unlike LCS. “It would seem to give you a much more effective land-attack lethality than what the US Navy is pursuing.”
