The Issue of Strategic Bombing

by Philippa Noble

Bombing campaigns have been used in wars frequently, since World War I, and continue to be governments’ first port of call for decisive action. Strategic bombings are often used to wear down the opposition and not-so-gently persuade them to surrender. But how often does this actually work? What happens when you can’t reliably find the target? What happens when fighting styles are so different that modern technology doesn’t affect the enemy? I’m not here to pass judgement on whether or not bombings in wartime are moral or justified (I’m sure you all have strong views on that matter), just to evaluate how effective strategic bombings actually are.

My first example is likely viewed as a matter of national pride. Bombings of this type were prevalent in WWII with instances occurring in Hamburg, Berlin, and London, to name a few. For example, during 1940 and 1941 London suffered under the Blitz, the most severe period involving 76 consecutive nights of German Luftwaffe strikes on the city, resulting in over 20,000 deaths. In Hamburg, the city was bombed beyond recognition in the last week of July 1943. 42,600 people died and 37,000 were injured because of this. Both events appear suitably atrocious that any country suffering at the hand of this would surrender immediately, no? Yet both Britain and Germany persevered through bombings like these and the war continued for another two years. Here, bombings were ineffective as both sides used them against each other, which limited the extreme effects on the other as it became normal and a fact of war. Nevertheless, another example from WWII shows how bombings can be successful at attaining a victory. Campaigns against Japan led by US aircraft eventually led to Japan’s surrender and exit of the war. The most deadly bombings of WWII targeted Tokyo over the span of a year, killing more than 100,000 civilians. Despite this, Japan continued fighting the war. However, the final hits against Japan were in Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 6th and 9th August 1945. The use of nuclear weapons and the sheer scale of horror and destruction seen in only a span of four days caused a near immediate surrender from Japan on the 15th August 1945 – aiding the allied war effort in winning WWII. So while regular bombings with varying levels of casualties soon became the norm and ineffective, the horror of the nuclear option (that has never been used since) was extremely effective due to the shock and loss of life it caused.

Whilst looking at stationary targets may be easier from the perspective of those who use bombing campaigns, many such campaigns nowadays are focused on mobile, integrated targets. For instance: Syria. US campaigns began in September 2014, with Russia and the UK joining a year later in 2015. Despite the pretence of an allied force, only 10% of Russian airstrikes were against ISIS targets, with the majority falling on anti-Assad groups. This created a confused message that only helped to complicate the web of the Syrian Civil War further. Coalition airstrikes have been described as key in preventing ISIS from taking strategic points (such as the retaking of Kobani in January 2015), yet their success has been limited as their targets are often living amongst civilians. Between July and December in 2015, 692 raids were related to Syria with land only gained in Hasakah and Kobani (not in Deir Ez-Zor or Raqqa). Unfortunately, as targets are often hidden or in civilian areas, effective bombing campaigns rely heavily on good intelligence, which is difficult to get. When this goes wrong, civilian casualties can be high and ultimately pointless with no “greater good” outcome. This may remind you all of 2015, yet, as I type, the civil war that started in 2011 continues, having surpassed an estimate of 321,000 civilian deaths in March this year. Airstrikes carry on from Russia, the US, and the UK with no signs of the war being won by any side. Syria stands to prove that even years of strategic bombings can be deemed useless in complicated situations with multiple sides and no clear targets.

Finally, a war to bridge the timespan: the Vietnam War. US intervention, spanning 1964 to 1973, brought years of bombing campaigns to Vietnam in an attempt to render the North Vietnamese leadership ineffective. Operation Rolling Thunder (originally intended to last just 8 weeks) saw 643,000 tonnes of bombs fall on North Vietnam between February 1965 and October 1968. On top of this, US aircraft dropped Agent Orange and napalm throughout Vietnam, completely destroying the ecosystems and agriculture that the Vietnamese relied on to live. This series of chemical warfare attacks and strategic bombings led to huge numbers of civilian deaths, caused a distrust of American troops within South Vietnam, and created a wall of opposition in the US and many Western countries. To add to all this, more than three years of intense bombing did little to hurt the Viet Cong and North Vietnam as many used a system of tunnels that remained mostly intact. Meanwhile, the US attempted to destroy the Ho Chi Minh Trail (a passage through Laos and Cambodia that allowed vital supplies to reach the Viet Cong in South Vietnam). During 1964 to 1966, there was a series of ineffective bombings against the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which eventually led to Laos and Cambodia falling to communism (due to their inclusion in the war and the destruction they faced after the airstrikes). 

After all that, the Vietnam War came to an end because of US submission to North Vietnamese terms – despite heavy bombing to pressure North Vietnam into changing the terms to suit the US. What all governments could learn from Vietnam is that whilst airstrikes may have worked with more built up areas, when there is such a difference in technology and tactics there is often a reason why the war has continued for so long. For Vietnam, it was the tunnels and infiltration skills that the US couldn’t hope to beat with their training in pitched battles. Furthermore, the unintended consequences of strategic bombings can go against the primary goals of the campaigns. Here, the destruction of ancestral homes and livelihoods caused the South Vietnamese to resent US troops and pushed other nearby countries into communism – which was the real enemy in this war.

In conclusion, airstrikes must always be taken on a case-by-case basis. Familiarity, complicated situations, and unintended consequences can render expensive military actions useless. The only major case of bombing campaigns being effective was in Nagasaki and Hiroshima as the utter devastation and inhumanity of it was ultimately the last straw for Japan. Perhaps the nuclear option is the only type of strategic bombing that would ensure success, but with the prevalence of Mutually Assured Destruction and the danger of a loss of life that we have never seen before, hopefully this will remain a mere speculation for the future.