Page 268 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo II

770 XXXIV Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

Strategic bombing: civilian population as a target

SErGE GADAL

My field of research concerns strategic bombing in the American strategic thinking be-
tween 1917 and 1943. So many books have already been written on the subject of strategic
bombing in practice, such as the bombing of England by the Germans during the Second
world war, of Germany and Japan by the Allies during the same war, that I did not consider
necessary to add another research on the same line. Instead very little information is known
by the public on the motivations of strategic bombing, on the effects that were sought by its
promoters and on the various theories that were developed by these promoters. This is the rea-
son why I decided to concentrate on these theories, from the illustrious Italian thinker Giulio
Douhet in the 1920s until the developers of the blueprint for the allied bombing of Germany,
the AWPD (for the Air War Plan Division of the US Army Air Corps) in 1941-1943.
Today, in compliance with the subject of this Congress, I will focus on the aspects of
strategic bombing concerning civilians.
This Congress has shown remarquably how civilians are almost invariably victims of
wars, and this at all times in our history. Very seldom indeed do wars leave civilians un-
touched. Strategic bombing is another example of this sad reality.

what is strategic bombing?

Strategic bombing could be defined, if we follow contemporary military doctrine, as “the
direct attack of the centers of power of the adverse state in order to destroy its military capa-
bility or undermine its will to continue the war”. The effects sought by political leaders by
employing strategic bombing are therefore situated at the strategic level of war, and not at the
tactical level as could be some missions of interdiction or close air support.
Throughout the history of strategic bombing, we find a duality of purpose. Strategic
bombing is supposed to accomplish two different kinds of strategic aims depending on its
proponents : for some writers the goal of strategic bombing is to destroy the military potential
of the enemy (the focus is here on the destruction of means of transportation, war factories,
oil refineries, etc.), in order to render physically impossible the continuation of war; for some
others, the idea is to undermine the will and the morale of the enemy population, by direct or
indirect attacks on this population. One of the key elements of strategic bombing is that its
qualification does not depend on the weapons or military platforms used but on the intention
sought by the party employing it.
The “centers of power” which we mentioned before, have also been called “vital centers”
or “nerve centers” by the theoreticians of strategic bombing. Today, instead we are often talk-
ing of “centers of gravity” following the idea expressed in the early nineteenth century by the
Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz in his book Vom Kriege.
The modern airpower strategist John Warden classified centers of gravity in five concen-
tric circles. At the center, we find COGs relating to the leadership of the enemy state, then