Page 271 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo II

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aCta
direct attacks on popuLation
In the first part of the twentieth century, the lack of precision of bombing methods (aver-
age miss distance of about 1 000 m) did not allow precise targeting. Moreover, protection of
human rights did not yet have the central importance it has nowadays.

A few salient examples :

First World War
London 1915-1918 (raids on London by Zeppelin airships then Gotha long range bombers)
Germany (Royal Air Force and French Air Force : raids on cities (Karlsruhe 1915-1916;
Cologne)

Between World Wars
Air control : British bombing of rebellious tribes in Mesopotamia and Sudan

Second World War
“Blitz” on London (1940-1941), Bombing of Germany (Specially in 1942-1945, with the
bombings of Berlin and Dresden in 1945) and Japan (1944-1945, Tokyo March 1945, 100
000 deaths) culminating with atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

indirect attacks on popuLation

Here the idea is to destroy the means of existence of the population so as to make their
life more difficult or even unbearable. The effects realised are closed to the effects of a naval
blockade.
Vietnam war : operations Rolling Thunder (1965-1968) and Linebacker II (December
1972)
Gulf War (1991) : electricity, oil refineries, water treatment plants
Kosovo (1999) : electricity, oil refineries, bridges, TV centers

concLusion
Nowadays indirect attacks on the enemy population are preferred by political and military
leaders as most warring parties wants to be seen as respecting human rights, but the underly-
ing mechanism remains the same as the one that was contemplated by Douhet: enticing the
enemy population through hardship to rise against its own government and force it to con-
clude peace. From a historical point of view this approach has very rarely been successful,
except maybe for the precedent of Kosovo.