The need to avoid, at almost any cost, the risk to inflict unwanted damages to the civilian population emerged during the many Peace Support Operations to which the Alliance Air Forces were called in the years following carpet bombings of World War II, and B52's dropping "dumb bombs" in the Vietnam war and during Operation "Desert Storm." Minor conflicts and Peace Support Operations have an inherent requirement to avoid collateral damages, in order not to loose the vital "hearts and minds" war. Also a massive use of precision guided munitions had obvious benefits: lesser sorties were needed to destroy a target, causing also lesser risks to the aviators. In 1997, a NATO study group released a study called "Minimizing Collateral damage during Peace Support Operations" (AGARD-AR-347), highlighting the need to develop precise-guided munitions (PGM) and low-lethality weapons to solve, once and for all, the problem of collateral damage.
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