The Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell **** (of 4)

 In this tight little book (originally a 6-hour podcast) Gladwell lays out the question of whether warfare is best fought to minimize collateral damage to civilians and fundamental infrastructure, or, on the other hand, ended most expediently by maximizing an opponent's losses with the intention of bringing about a speedy end to the conflict. 

In World War I, airplanes were used for the first time, but mostly to fight other airplanes. As WW II approached, an elite group of pilots wondered if the advent of precision bombing could not only alter the outcome of the war, but transform warfare altogether. In theory the Norden bombsight, an analog computer, contained enough calculations and adjustables that a bomber could finally land a bomb on a strategic target like a fuel depot, transport junction, or a factory that made spare parts for the enemy's planes. Precision bombing could, in theory, end the enemy's ability to fight. In practice, however, the bombsight was less than successful and to nail a factory with enough bombs to do it damage often required dispensing scores of aircraft bearing hundreds of bombs. Even then the success rate was never close to assured.

Norden Bombsight

The fist problem to overcome is the difficulty of launching a bomb from a vehicle moving hundreds of miles per hour, jostled in all quadrants and planes by unknowable wind speeds acting not only on the plane, but on the bomb itself while it fell through 30,000 feet of airspace. An error of one degree of aim five miles above the earth, or any deviation caused by unpredicted variations in air pressure, temperature, even curvature and rotation of the earth during the 20-30 seconds of free fall could mean a likelihood of a successful target strike of only a few percent.

And if precision bombing in practice was not proving effective, was the best way to bring WW II to a rapid close, and minimize civilian casualties, especially for our soldiers, to firebomb civilians so they would demand their governments sue for peace at any cost? Dresden (135,000 dead), Tokyo (100,000 dead), Hiroshima (70 - 100,00 dead), Nagasaki (70,000+ dead).