Bombing, Ethics of
Bombing, Ethics of.Debate over the ethics of bombing focuses largely on strategic bombing: attacks carried out by strikes into the enemy nation for such purposes as impeding production, disrupting transportation and communications, and lowering civilian support for the war effort. Strategic bombing is morally problematic because by its nature it involves harm (intentional or not) to nonmilitary targets, while tactical bombing aims only at military targets. As originally conceived by Giulio Douhet and Billy Mitchell in the 1920s, strategic bombing was intended to target population centers so as to disrupt the social fabric of the enemy nation and thereby destroy its ability to wage war effectively. Less extreme advocates of airpower, beginning in the 1930s, argued for a conception of strategic bombing by which the actual targets were...
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