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It is never moral to target civilians, nor is it effective in modern warfare given the precision strike and ISR capabilities of the US Military. Collateral damage is minimized, but is almost never avoidable. This was especially true in Iraq and Afghanistan given the urban/communal environments and because our enemy almost ubiquitously held civilians in positions where they would be secondary casualties or outright murdered them to make it appear U.S., ISAF or indigenous forces were responsible.
It is useful to study history and learn the deep lessons of the past, but in some ways the battlefield doctrine of the early 20th century is about as applicable as studying the Romans or Greeks.
I had not read this in may years... and confess to only getting through the European portion this time.
Google "Victor Davis Hansen" if you want a serious footing on the morality of bombing question. I am unaware of anyone his equal on the topic.
After reading widely on the topic my whole life, Hansen change my view of the war materially.
And yes, I was in error leaving Hungary out of the "Axis" countries. Hell, I knew that when the Russians surrounded Stalingrad, they did so by attacking Hungarian troops. Marking the Axis powers was an after thought, and Hungarian casualties were as likely as not from the "Allied" power Russia. Certainly in the decades of suffering that followed the war for Hungary, that was the case.
If we were really interested in a vexing moral issue, it would be our alliance with Russia.
There are no easy answers, only easy questions.
World War 2 Casual
World War II casualties - Wikipedia
China
Civilian Deaths due to Military Activity and Crimes Against Humanity
7,357,000 to 8,191,000
Civilian Deaths due to war related Famine and Disease
5,000,000 to 10,000,000
Russia was led with brutal stupidity, and China wasn't actually any more than a collection of states.
None of that excuses the country attacking from inflicting millions of civilian casualties.
Consider for a moment... what were the options, what were the costs and benefits of action and inaction.
Japan was expanding and creating a "co-prosperity sphere" (aka empire). So murdering almost 20M civilians is not a good look.
We dropped atomic bombs on lesser targets, when we could have just as easily hit BIG CITIES. We were determined to stop the murdering and conquest.
We were not "all knowing". All strategies involved risks. One could argue that we took a risk by not bombing Tokyo with one of our few and precious atomic bombs.
If we wanted to be punitive... we could have been considerably more punitive.
We did as little damage as we could, while still winning. That was not true of our adversaries.
GENEVA CONVENTION?
Ironic that you invoke the Geneva Convention which Japan openly disregarded, they never signed it.
READY TO SURRENDER?
Yet they declined when asked.
What were our options?
What were the costs of action and inaction?
In retrospect, what was done was reasonable and necessary.
We demonstrated that "we could kill everybody" without killing everybody.
It ran some danger not being enough, but it did, in fact, work.
BTW, our massive casualty estimates for the invasion were flawed because were were unaware of the massive number of "suicide boats" prepared for the invasion.
Inspired by the Kamikaze plane successes, these boat-bombs were to crash into landing craft. This, unaccounted for weapon system/defense plan could have wreaked havoc on our invasion plans.
We could not succeed if we lost a lot of landing craft. It is unknown how much damage they would have done before being countered by carrier aircraft.
Massive fire bombing campaigns were suggested using the newly available bombers stationed in Europe, coupled with closer islands captured with air strips.
In my opinion, had initial landings "struggled", the fire bombing would have begun in earnest. This counter-factual scenario is speculation on my part.
There’s a reason it’s called War instead of Club Med.
Interestingly, Operation Meetinghouse (firebombing Tokyo) was the single deadliest air raid of the war – greater than Dresden, Hiroshima, or Nagasaki (as single events)
Have never quite understood the hand-wringing over Hiroshima and Nagasaki – as has been mentioned already, a lot of us wouldn’t have been born if they hadn’t. Doubt if any survivors of the Bataan Death March or Pearl Harbor ever shed a tear – suspect the same for any other survivor of the Pacific campaign. My dad and all my uncles fought in the war – none ever expressed any guilt, remorse, or reluctance to send the Enola Gay if there was a do-over. They would be incapable of understanding today's apology tour.
Always a bit suspicious of surveys and polls, but this one seems fairly accurate:
In 1945, a Gallup poll immediately after the bombing found that 85% of Americans approved of using the new atomic weapon on Japanese cities. In 1991, according to a Detroit Free Press survey conducted in both Japan and the U.S., 63% of Americans said the atomic bomb attacks on Japan were a justified means of ending the war, while only 29% thought the action was unjustified. At the same time, only 29% of Japanese said the bombing was justified, while 64% thought it was unwarranted.
But a 2015 Pew Research Center survey finds that the share of Americans who believe the use of nuclear weapons was justified is now 56%, with 34% saying it was not. In Japan, only 14% say the bombing was justified, versus 79% who say it was not.
Not surprisingly, there is a large generation gap among Americans in attitudes toward the bombings of Hiroshima. Seven-in-ten Americans ages 65 and older say the use of atomic weapons was justified, but only 47% of 18- to 29-year-olds agree. There is a similar partisan divide: 74% of Republicans but only 52% of Democrats see the use of nuclear weapons at the end of World War II as warranted.
Am hardly a war monger, but think if Truman had listened to Patton and, later, MacArthur, we wouldn’t have near the geopolitical problems we have today.
LeMay later said "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals." But since there is no real morality to any war, arguing over it is a fool’s errand. Might as well be discussing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Came across an interesting website that gives a sense of the reality of firebombing 67 Japanese cities - it provides the Name of Japanese city firebombed, the Percentage of the city destroyed and how Equivalent in size to the an American city - the remarkable take away is that even after this, the Japanese did not want to surrender (it's also worth noting that about 50% of Japanese wartime manufacturing was in located in residential neighborhoods, so the theory of surgical airstrikes doesn't really apply)
===================
Yokohama 58 Cleveland
Tokyo 51 New York
Toyama 99 Chattanooga
Nagoya 40 Los Angeles
Osaka 35.1 Chicago
Nishinomiya 11.9 Cambridge
Siumonoseki 37.6 San Diego
Kure 41.9 Toledo
Kobe 55.7 Baltimore
Omuta 35.8 Miami
Wakayama 50 Salt Lake City
Kawasaki 36.2 Portland
Okayama 68.9 Long Beach
Yawata 21.2 San Antonio
Kagoshima 63.4 Richmond
Amagasaki 18.9 Jacksonville
Sasebo 41.4 Nashville
Moh 23.3 Spokane
Miyakonoio 26.5 Greensboro
Nobeoka 25.2 Augusta
Miyazaki 26.1 Davenport
Hbe 20.7 Utica
Saga 44.2 Waterloo
Imabari 63.9 Stockton
Matsuyama 64 Duluth
Fukui 86 Evansville
Tokushima 85.2 Ft. Wayne
Sakai 48.2 Forth Worth
Hachioji 65 Galveston
Kumamoto 31.2 Grand Rapids
Isezaki 56.7 Sioux Falls
Takamatsu 67.5 Knoxville
Akashi 50.2 Lexington
Fukuyama 80.9 Macon
Aomori 30 Montgomery
Okazaki 32.2 Lincoln
Oita 28.2 Saint Joseph
Hiratsuka 48.4 Battle Creek
Tokuyama 48.3 Butte
Yokkichi 33.6 Charlotte
Uhyamada 41.3 Columbus
Ogaki 39.5 Corpus Christi
Gifu 63.6 Des Moines
Shizuoka 66.1 Oklahoma City
Himeji 49.4 Peoria
Fukuoka 24.1 Rochester
Kochi 55.2 Sacramento
Shimizu 42 San Jose
Omura 33.1 Sante Fe
Chiba 41 Savannah
Ichinomiya 56.3 Sprinfield
Nara 69.3 Boston
Tsu 69.3 Topeka
Kuwana 75 Tucson
Toyohashi 61.9 Tulsa
Numazu 42.3 Waco
Chosi 44.2 Wheeling
Kofu 78.6 South Bend
Utsunomiya 43.7 Sioux City
Mito 68.9 Pontiac
Sendai 21.9 Omaha
Tsuruga 65.1 Middleton
Nagaoka 64.9 Madison
Hitachi 72 Little Rock
Kumagaya 55.1 Kenosha
Hamamatsu 60.3 Hartford
Maebashi 64.2 Wheeling
Two points of order: striking and targeting are two entirely different things, and yes - it would be moral. Also, what is moral and what is necessary are not always the same. We've clearly learned nothing from WWI, WWII, Korea or Vietnam with regards to moral intervention early and thoroughly. Reference the rise and continued presence of ISIS while the world clutched their pearls or demanded isolationism. It wasn't until Mattis, channeling Sherman and Pershing (and in my opinion the correct doctrine - if too late to still claim morality), waged a campaign of annihilation against our enemies that we were successful. How much better would it have been for everyone if we had annihilated them back before they slaughtered and raped the Yazidis?
No it doesn't. It means precisely what I said. I even put the reasoning in the answer. Hint: how many phalanxes do you think were employed by the time the Marian reforms were enacted? What do you suppose a 61mm mortar team would do to a Roman line? What do you suppose CAS with precision strike capabilities, electronic warfare, and night strike capabilities would have done when trying to take Iwo Jima? How about drones that can fly, and deliver strikes, globally?
As I read everyone's posts, I am not sure what type of world view lens they are looking through.
When we measure something, we measure against a standard. I may have missed it, but I haven't seen an agreed upon standard for morality to be measured. An unknown Diest god? The Christian God? The Muslim god? Various Hindu gods? Darwinian evolutionary thought? Zero god - the universe is a big accident? Something else?