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If you shoot a missile costing millions to hundreds of millions at everything, your country will be bankrupt very quickly.

Long range missiles roughly do work the way you described, but if you press the "erase this spot" button and then the tank or soldier moves, you just wasted a missile. You also first need to find the tank, and your missile can be shot down.

Of course there are missiles that are able to track moving targets, but that gets even more expensive, less reliable, etc.

Missiles also have a hard time dealing with heavily reinforced/underground targets, and missiles can't occupy territory.

Who will win: a country that has 100 long range missiles, or a country that has 10000 soldiers spread out in more than 100 groups, with rifles and a couple hundred short range missiles (think Javelin) for good measure?

Because anti-air deletes missiles. Also you can't hold territory with just missiles. You need land presence, and for that you need soldiers. And since soldiers are more useful alive than dead, we built thick metal boxes that can roll around the battlefield so they can be protected while being transported to important locations. The metal boxes themselves also have big ass cannons attached that will utterly destroy any other vehicle or building an enemy might be using as cover. These are just some of the reasons soldiers and tanks are still used.

1. Because missiles cost $1+ million each.

2. Because long-range missiles flying at 500mph will take 3 or 4 minutes to hit their target. The target can move, hide, or otherwise escape the missile

3. Because bullets near instantly hit their target (within 5 seconds) in battlefield conditions. Tanks in particular fire hypersonic 3000mph shells, you're dead in 2 seconds (at 3000m range), though the soundwave hits you at the 10-second mark.

4. Because bullets are extremely cheap. Artillery shells, such as the 155m are famously like ~$500

5. Tank shells are likely under $2000 IIRC. So you can fire lots of tank-bullet for the same price as missile. More accurately (due to speed an information). And firepower: 40 shots of a tank can affect a battlefield more immediately than a missile. A tank can fire and near instantly kill targets it can see out to 3km ranges (~2 second travel time). A missile or rocket taking 60, 90, 120+ seconds to reach long-range targets just cannot affect the battlefield in the same manner.> How do armies still march and drive around in tanks when the enemy can just push a button on their phone and cause explosions where they are?

How do armies still march and drive around in tanks when the enemy can just push a button on their phone and cause explosions where they are?

Because missiles take a long time to fly. Even at modest 50km ranges, you ain't affecting the battlefield in time (~500mph missile will take over 3 minutes to reach 50km).

Because military people got really good at not dying unless they are hit directly. You can nuclear nuke an entrenched frontline and you and you only create a couple of kilometers of breach in the front. You advance and very angry mobile reserves cut you off and destroy your ass.

That's one of the reasons tactical nukes are no longer a thing.

That and the fact that AA systems got really good - even against hypersonic maneuvering missiles.

So you realistically you now only use them on poorly protected targets of strategic importants (open air weapons stockpiles, command centers, troop concentrations, ...). But you still need infantry and tanks to take and hold terrain.