Co-location is almost always a problem with strategic attacks, as experiences with the use of aerial bombing from World War II to Vietnam and the Gulf War have repeatedly shown. The dilemmas of targeting in small countries are especially aggravated by co-location issues because of the narrow geography of these states; military, civilian, and infrastructure assets are close to each other because literally everything is close to everything else.

An additional problem is that small nations are situated in crowded neighborhoods, and the effects of a nuclear exchange would be traumatic on nearby states. Not only can rogue regimes hold their own populations as human shields against nuclear attack, but they are also protected by the many innocent people who live near them—or more precisely, by the unwillingness of more civilized nations to kill or injure those innocent populations.

These geographic problems have already frustrated American planners in previous conflicts and crises.