WW II bombing was mostly directed at military sites; the more recent bombings were more directed at civilian infrastructure. Vietnam and Korea were intermediate cases -- where irrigation systems were targeted.
I am not an expert on this subject; I don't even play one on tv.
Nathan Newman wrote:
> A few thoughts on weaponry and struggle... Galbraith is known best
> for his economic views, but his World War II studies that highlighted
> the ineffectiveness of strategic bombing became as much the "common
> sense" left over from his work as any other of his economic writing.
> Vietnam just served to reinforce the lesson, seemingly for all
> time. But in the wake of the Gulf War, Kosovo and Afghanistan, that
> common sense has to be unlearned - probably not completely but in
> large areas of our collective unconscious thinking. Modern weaponry
> backed by the money for sophisticated technology is a devastating
> weapon of war, allowing a great power like the US to conquer physical
> space without risking the death of hardly any of its own people in
> war, especially when it can use proxies to "mop up" after the bombing
> has done its work. That such bombing can be done in ways that
> significantly reduce opposition casualties just reinforces the
> political legitimacy for use of such weaponry. What flows from this is
> unclear in every instance, but an antiwar movement built around "body
> bag" numbers - either ours or "theirs" - will fall largely flat. It
> also makes the romance of military-based antiimperial war a nostalgic
> item of mid-20th century history, not a likely viable option for the
> next century. "Progressive nationalism" is pretty much history, since
> viable nationalism outside large power interests will likely not
> survive outside the shelter of such weaponry. A return to large power
> conflict may open up global political space for small acts of
> independence, but only so long as they don't threaten large power
> interests. Now, this basic rule of the power of air bombing only goes
> so far, since a state with a less reprehensible government than the
> Taliban would not fall so fast since there would be fewer proxies
> available to assume power easily on the ground. The US otherwise
> would have had to do its own work on the ground with greater cost and
> politically holding such a state might be nonviable over the longer
> term. But that is the longer term issue of political control that
> festers in war and peace-- the issue is what to make of the clear
> change in the nature of the power of air bombing in the modern era.
> On that issue, the game seems to have changed quite radically during
> the last decade. -- Nathan Newman
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Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901