The AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) is a glide bomb that resulted from a joint venture between the United States Navy and Air Force to deploy a standardized medium-range precision-guided weapon, especially for engagement of defended targets from outside the range of standard anti-aircraft defenses, thereby increasing aircraft survivability and minimizing friendly losses.

It is intended to be used against soft targets such as parked aircraft, trucks, armored personnel carriers (APCs), and surface-to-air missile sites (SAMs).

It glides, using two wings that pop out for added lift, to the marked destination and dispenses submunitions in a short, roughly linear pattern.

[2] The designation of the Joint Standoff Weapon as an "air-to-ground missile" is a misnomer, as it is an unpowered bomb with guidance avionics, similar to the older GBU-15.

The JSOW family is a 450-kilogram (1,000 lb) class weapon intended to provide a low cost, highly lethal air-to-surface glide bomb with standoff capabilities from 28 km (15 nmi) low altitude launch and up to 110 km (60 nmi)[5] high altitude launch.

After a competitive selection, the program staff was organized into integrated product teams with members from the government, the prime contractor Texas Instruments, and subcontractors.

In one case, the prime contractor determined that the best-in-class supplier for a design service was the government, and gave part of its funding back.

These bomblets have a shaped charge for armor defeating capability, a fragmenting case for material destruction, and a zirconium ring for incendiary effects.

When a submunition detects that it is aligned with a target, it fires, creating an explosively formed penetrator capable of defeating vehicle armor.

This ultimately resulted in the JSOW Block II weapon, incorporating multiple cost reduction initiatives in addition to the Selective Availability Anti-Spoofing Module (SAASM) capability.

Raytheon has placed a tremendous investment in the JSOW program and will certainly try to extend the Department of Defense contracts for as long as possible with system upgrades and repackagings for new missions and targets.

[10] On 11 October 2017 the Department of the Navy declared the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) C-1 ready for full operational capability.

[12][13][14] In February, 2019, the US Navy announced that it would issue a sole-source contract to Raytheon to build an improved JSOW-ER to be placed in service by the end of FY2023.

The first combat deployment of the JSOW occurred over southern Iraq on December 17, 1998, when launched by a single F/A-18C from the "Checkerboards" of VMFA-312, Carrier Air Wing Three embarked aboard USS Enterprise during Operation Desert Fox.

One adverse event occurred in February 2001, when a strike of F/A-18s from the USS Harry S. Truman battle group launched a massive attack on Iraqi air-defense sites, nearly every weapon missed the target.