Strategic Bombing

(fm the BC thread "Droning on")

Bob Murphy,
First priority was to disrupt or bust their industrial capacity to destroy their ability to wage aggressive war.

We are far down in the weeds here. The semantic question is whether the civilian population are counted as an industrial asset and whether their morale, meaning their support for continued conflict, could be effectively targeted. I misspoke by saying we targeted their support for their armed forces. What I meant was their support for military policy. The goal was a repeat of 1918, when the German army walked off the battlefield. Interestingly the grandfathers of today's oh so sensitive English were conducting night time terror bombings of german cities while the American 8th Air Force was attempting suicidal daylight attacks on rail yards and manufacturing sites. Incredibly industrial production in Germany rose during the Winter and Spring of 1945.

Random bombardment of the civilian population to attack their support for a government can work. Morale in London, which had survived the terror of the Blitz, when defeat seemed probable, and endured the V-1 onslaught, cracked late in the war under the V-2. The defeat of Germany was already certain but one result was possibly the defeat of Churchill. More recently there is the case of Spain after 9-11.