Is the 'strategic/terror bombing never worked' argument true?

chankljp

Donor
I know that this is not strictly speaking 'alternate history', but thought that this will be the best place to have this discussion....

As a military strategy, strategic/terror bombing is when one side deliberately targeting civilians and economic infrastructure, often even those without direct military value, with the end goal of breaking the population's morale at the home-front, so that the people will turn against their own government, and create the political pressure forcing the enemy state to sue for peace at all cost, and bring the conflict to a rapid conclusion.

Recently, I have been hearing a lot of people making the argument that this simply does not work. Citing examples such as the Blitz against the UK during WW2, the firebombing of Japanese cities in Pacific Theater, Operation Rolling Thunder during the Vietnam War, etc, etc, showing that far from pressuring their governments int surrendering or suing for peace, it simply result in hardening the population's resolve in a 'rally round the flag' effect.

When I hear this, however, one counter example came to find right away: The 2004 Madrid train bombings carried out by Al-Qaeda, which was widely seen retaliation against the Spanish government's participation in the US' invasion of Iraq. And far from causing a 'rally around the flag' moment, it did succeeded in Al-Qaeda's geopolitical goal of pressuring Spain into withdrawing from Iraq by causing about 1 million voters switched their vote to an anti-war party in the next election.

Obviously, a terrorists bombing that killed less then 200 people cannot be compared to the Blitz or the firebombing of Tokyo. And the Spanish involvement in Iraq cannot be compared to WW2.... But it does seem to challenge the 'pragmatic' against strategic/terror bombing of 'killing innocent civilians will never break their morale, or make them turn against their own government and sue for peace'. Instead, the case seems to be that 'deliberately killing innocent civilians CAN make them turn against their own government and help you achieve your geopolitical goals.... But only if the war was never popular to start with, and population was convinced they their homeland was never in any actual danger until now'.

I am of course not justifying strategic/terror bombing, terrorists attacks, or the killing of innocent civilians. But I just wanted to discuss the truism of 'You cannot bomb a people into submission' that seems to be accepted everywhere. Thoughts?
 

CiH

chankljp said:
When I hear this, however, one counter example came to find right away:
Click to expand...
There may be a difference between an existential threat, especially at WW 2 levels and what might be considered as a neo-colonial misadventure in a faraway hot and sandy place.

There was not a lot of popular support for the Iraq intervention generally.
 

TDM

The problem is there is a big difference between:

"Strategic bombing ended a war or by itself forced a nation to negotiate" or even "Strategic bombing was the dominant factor that ended the war or forced a nation to negotiate"

and

"strategic bombing had no significant negative effect on a country it was done to, even in it's own right, or by making other bad situations worse"


That's a point aimed more at the classic conventional strategic bombing campaigns during war.



I'd make another point about conventional vs. terrorism and bombing a people into submission, a big factor there is the people's commitment to the cause

or to be blunt The Spanish people's commitment to the coalition fighting in Iraq was likely not as great as the British or German people's commitment to WW2 for all sorts of reasons before we try and compare like for like effects on national morale of bombing done on vastly different scales. (edit: which to be fair to the OP they explicitly don't do making the same point)
 
Last edited:

walmart

chankljp said:
But I just wanted to discuss the truism of 'You cannot bomb a people into submission' that seems to be accepted everywhere. Thoughts?
Click to expand...
It works well if the target is both a minority and willing/able to leave the country. This was the case in both Algeria and Rhodesia with the European populations leaving during the wars.
 
RedSword12

RedSword12

In a conventional war, yes, terror bombing does not work in making a civilian population lose the will to fight. The only time it ever worked somewhat was when it convinced political leaders that it was not worth inviting more suffering amongst the populace; the people themselves do not break; they just get angry and eventually used to it. That's why the Rotterdam Bombing and Atomic Bombs succeeded in bringing about capitulation while countless terror bombings against Poland, Britain, Germany, Italy, North Vietnam, etc. never broke the concerned population's morale. TLDR if terror bombing doesn't succeed first try in bringing a civilian government to the table, it won't work at all.
 
Last edited:

PecuTheGreat

Aside from the obvious non-state actors against a state whose Metropole is at peace vs 2 state actors.

It would seem that Spain during the Gulf war and France during the occupation of Algeria were largely peaceful metropoles invading someone else(without a good ideology of glorifying war I might add).

Vs states being invaded/fighting defensively. Which is more the Ukraine vs Russia situation.
 

Strategos' Risk

chankljp

Donor
So, summarising everyone's thoughts on this matter, would it be fair to say that instead of 'Attacks against the civilian population with the goal of breaking their morale in order to make them pressure their own government to end the war', it should instead be: 'Attacks against the civilian population with the goal of breaking their morale in order to make them pressure their own government to end the war DOES work, but only under very specific circumstances and context. Such as when performed by a non-state actor, that the targeted civilian population does not view the conflict as the existential threat, and that the conflict is considered to be removed from the concerns of the metropole'?
 

DougM

It can EASILY be argued that the OPs original statement is demonstrably false. When using the word “Never” it only takes ONE example to disprove. And it can easily be argued that the US forced Japan to surrender by bombing it from the air. They ultimately used Nukes but NUKES are part of a bombing campaign, Just the. extreme edge of it. So it can easily be argued that the answer to OPs question is no it is not true.
Also it can be demonstrated that large scale bombing does reduce the capacity of a county to fight. Both sides suffered decreased prodction from being bombed.
NOTE this does mot mean t he country produced less then they did when the war started this just means. that they produced less then if they had not been bombed. Looking at London or other bombed cities it is readily evident that these cities lost some functionality to the effects of being bombed. And while war production was built up in small shops/garages/under ground etc this has nothing to do with the question. If i blow you existing factory up you HAVE lost potential production. If you build a NEW factory that does not change the fact that your old factory is no longer building things. 1) you lost production for the time it took to build the new factory, 2) you lost the materials and man power it took you to build the new factory. These are loses. You can compensate for the loses (maybe) but they. are STILL loses to production. Imagine whatGermany could have. done if
1) they didnt have to use the meterials they used rebuilding infrastructure.
2) they didnt have interruptions in transportation or production while they rebuild bomb damage
3) they had the man power used to rebuild things to do something else with
4) they had all the aircraft shot down defending against the bombing raids.
5) they could use the air defence (guns etc) for something other then protecting cities/factories etcl
6) the work force was not losing sleep/time sitting in bomb shelters,
These factors did reduce the production capacity of a bombed country. How much? That is open for depate, But the amount is irrelevant to the original question. The question of strategic bombing be worth the cost is complete different then if said bombing had an affect. We have had many conversations on this site discussing if bombing was worth it. And they alwas end with the two sides not changing thier point of views. But that is not the OPs question.
 

chankljp

Donor
DougM said:
It can EASILY be argued that the OPs original statement is demonstrably false. When using the word “Never” it only takes ONE example to disprove. And it can easily be argued that the US forced Japan to surrender by bombing it from the air. They ultimately used Nukes but NUKES are part of a bombing campaign, Just the. extreme edge of it. So it can easily be argued that the answer to OPs question is no it is not true.
Click to expand...
In retrospect, I think I might have worded my original post poorly. In that instead of just 'strategic/terror bombing', my question was more about 'attacks targeting defenseless civilian targets not directly linked to the conflict' (Which covers both strategic bombing, AND terrorists attacks).

And what made me post this question was that, without getting into current politics, I have been hearing a lot about commentators using historical examples to show that attacks against the civilian population with the goal of turning them against their government and pressuring them into suing for peace does not work even on a practical level, regardless of morality... Since all it accomplishes would be rallying the people behind their government, and become even more determined then before, while doing nothing for your side besides wasting resources, and making peace negotiations even more unlikely/difficult'.

With my post questioning if this 'Do not target civilians because it does not work' argument is actually valid.
 

bigbenis21

I wouldn’t go so far as to call it terrorism because it objectively wasn’t, but the riots after MLK’s death very much sped up Civil Rights legislation in 1968.
 

Jürgen

chankljp said:
When I hear this, however, one counter example came to find right away: The 2004 Madrid train bombings carried out by Al-Qaeda, which was widely seen retaliation against the Spanish government's participation in the US' invasion of Iraq. And far from causing a 'rally around the flag' moment, it did succeeded in Al-Qaeda's geopolitical goal of pressuring Spain into withdrawing from Iraq by causing about 1 million voters switched their vote to an anti-war party in the next election.
Click to expand...

The 2004 Madrid bombing was handled in worst possible manner by the Spanish government at the time, wrongly blaming it on Basque separatists (if I remember correctly) for political reasons. So yes, terror bombing can work as a tactic, if you target a deeply divided country and the government decided to put their collective dick into a blender while shooting both their feet.

If the government had not tried to use the bombing against the opposition the Spanish government would likely have won the election.
 

vizzer

chankljp said:
In retrospect, I think I might have worded my original post poorly. In that instead of just 'strategic/terror bombing', my question was more about 'attacks targeting defenseless civilian targets not directly linked to the conflict' (Which covers both strategic bombing, AND terrorists attacks).
Click to expand...
I don't think this does cover strategic bombing as there doesn't seem to be any occasion in which civilian targets not directly linked to the conflict were ever attacked.
Mainly because it would be a stupid waste of resources and likely to bring whichever nation's civilian population was attacked into the conflict against the attacker.

Although in terms of the effectiveness of strategic bombing causing a nation to surrender there is the bombing of Rotterdam and subsequent threat against Utrecht which again was not against "uninvolved" civilians.
 
Last edited:

lionhead

chankljp said:
As a military strategy, strategic/terror bombing is when one side deliberately targeting civilians and economic infrastructure, often even those without direct military value, with the end goal of breaking the population's morale at the home-front, so that the people will turn against their own government, and create the political pressure forcing the enemy state to sue for peace at all cost, and bring the conflict to a rapid conclusion.
Click to expand...
In my eyes a terror bombing campaign or attack has another nature/goal. It is to causes fear and shock, making the population unable to continue even their every day activities as effectively and assertive as they used to, lowering more than just morale. They become more cautious, call in sick more often, seek mental support, they become paranoid even. The movie "The Siege"(1998) really shows this well.

That can cripple a country.
 

TDM

lionhead said:
In my eyes a terror bombing campaign or attack has another nature/goal. It is to causes fear and shock, making the population unable to continue even their every day activities as effectively and assertive as they used to, lowering more than just morale. They become more cautious, call in sick more often, seek mental support, they become paranoid even. The movie "The Siege"(1998) really shows this well.

That can cripple a country.
Click to expand...
Thing is while I like the film, is there many or any real life examples of that?

I guess I can see it more the smaller the community being targeted and the campaign being proportionally greater. Partly due to the risk assessment we all individually make in those situations

For instance the far more frequent bombings and killing in N. Ireland by both sides vs. the far smaller number of bombings and killings by one side in the conflict occurring in the larger British mainland
 
Last edited:

Sekhmet_D

chankljp said:
Recently, I have been hearing a lot of people making the argument that this simply does not work. Citing examples such as the Blitz against the UK during WW2, the firebombing of Japanese cities in Pacific Theater, Operation Rolling Thunder during the Vietnam War, etc, etc, showing that far from pressuring their governments int surrendering or suing for peace, it simply result in hardening the population's resolve in a 'rally round the flag' effect.
Click to expand...
Many people completely underestimate just how demoralised the Japanese civilian population was after Operation Meetinghouse. In the weeks and months before the surrender, acts of civil disobedience (lese majeste, workers going on strike, etc), something completely unheard of in, say, 1944 and earlier, were occurring on an increasing scale.
 
RedSword12

RedSword12

Sekhmet_D said:
Many people completely underestimate just how demoralised the Japanese civilian population was after Operation Meetinghouse. In the weeks and months before the surrender, acts of civil disobedience (lese majeste, workers going on strike, etc), something completely unheard of in, say, 1944 and earlier, were occurring on an increasing scale.
Click to expand...
This can be also interpreted in the light of the comprehensive defeat of the Japanese armed forces in the Pacific.
 
RedSword12

RedSword12

lionhead said:
In my eyes a terror bombing campaign or attack has another nature/goal. It is to causes fear and shock, making the population unable to continue even their every day activities as effectively and assertive as they used to, lowering more than just morale. They become more cautious, call in sick more often, seek mental support, they become paranoid even. The movie "The Siege"(1998) really shows this well.

That can cripple a country.
Click to expand...
And yet that never happened. The British, Vietnamese, and Germans were on the receiving end of multiple comprehensive bombing campaigns and this never even came close to happening. Bombings just became another daily hazard, and life went on. Things became more difficult, but terror bombings consistently failed to produce the desired result.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top