On Sex, Intel and Air Power

(fm the BC thread "Firestorm")

Habu
Once I met Admiral Bobby Ray Inman whose career took him from ONI to DIA to CIA to NSA. He confirmed for me the story that he once had a report of a young analyst who engaged in activities that were deemed incompatible with a security clearance. The Admiral had the person in question called into his office, handed him a telephone, and said, "Call your mother and tell her what you are." The call completed the Admiral said, "Good, now you can't be a blackmailed. Now get back to work."

Teresita,
Your refusal to acknowledge the reality of our tactical victories in Vietnam and the role of John Kerry and media practitioners of sedition in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, in a campaign that set the pattern for the installation of Obama, puzzles.

Can the strategic targeting of population centers induce a change in the morale and change the culture to effect a political goal desired by the attacker? Clearly yes, al-Qeada did that in Madrid, the Mongols did that with massive demonstrations like in Baghdad, the Romans practiced targeted brutality, as with Carthage, to enable a generally light hand over compliant local subject communities. The Allied air campaign against Germany did result in a desired shift of the German nation towards pacifism. Unfortunately that did not effect the fighting in 1945 in the Ardennes but it did effect the performance of the Germans in Nato towards Poland and Russia and Afghanistan in 2009.

JMH,
There have been arguments made, forgive the passive voice as I do not have the sources, that Hitler's no retreat order was not irrational in all cases. Given the logistics of the time retreating may have been a riskier strategy. The failure to establish and hold a second line was a fatal error on their part.