The superlative that's being thrown around is that the JDAM-ER can hit Damascus without leaving Israeli territory.

Not bad for a design that was done in the late 70's and then parked until recently.  Kudos to DSTO.  I attended a conf  recently where DARPAs Dr Tether said that nearly every major tech development by DARPA in the last 20 years started out as an inhouse theory and development  and them ended up being wanted by the customer...

Clarity point - the reason for the DARPA reference was because Kerkanya was another orphaned stepchild until recently....

(...or just abandoned at birth due to the costs involved in raising said children?)

 

I wonder just how many programs over the ages (past, present, future) conceived in the minds of the US defense industry eggheads get dropped from US interest, only to be rekindled by another who sees merit in the capabilities that brought forth the idea?

 

Makes one wonder if the US might make some money selling those ideas to our allies who would be more serious about developing them, taking ideas to fruition that we (US)  either only left on the drawing board, lost interest in altogether, or took to almost production-ready status but abandoned them do to budgetary constraints.