There has never been a war without civilian casualties. There will never be a war without civilian casualties. The nature of war is such that it is impossible to completely eliminate civilian casualties, friendly fire, and all the other problems that are inherent in the concentrated use of force in an effort to change the policy of a nation.
In other words, war is hell.
With that said, I believe that war is sometimes necessary. And in a war, you shouldn’t need to worry about keeping the moral high ground, because you are already committed to the most final and most thorough method of convincing another of your means: killing them.
The US does not target civilians en masse. That’s regarded as barbaric, against the rules, all sorts of voodoo prohibitions. So we don’t. When (if) we go to war with Iraq, it is my understanding that 80% of the bombs dropped will be ‘smart.’ This means that the bomb goes exactly where it is aimed, to within a few feet. What does this mean? We know, with a high degree of accuracy, exactly what we will be targeting. We will be fighting the cleanest war possible. We are intentionally sparing the lives of as many civilians as possible.
Why do we choose this tactic? Because winning a war, in the end, is not about killing soldiers. It is about convincing a nation to surrender. In the past, this was most effectively accomplished by destroying their entire army, and stationing your troops on the streetcorners to quell any resistance on their part. This is known as conquering the nation, and it is no longer a viable tactic.
Instead, we convince the populace to cry out for peace so strongly that the nation is forced to surrender. The current US policy is to do so through awe: demonstrate such an incredible technological and military advantage that they have no choice but to surrender. This is the humane route. This is not the only possible route. In the past, when we did not possess such an advantage, we used another strategy.
In World War II, huge air raids were launched over cities. They were not targeting any specific factories or districts. The targets were the cities themselves. Through firebombing and destruction of the city’s most vital resources, the food and supplies that it needs to survive, the cities were, as effectively as we could manage, destroyed. Every resident that our munitions could reach was killed, and that’s the way we planned it.
If a population is injured and fears for its own survival, it will react exactly as an individual in the same situation would. It will capitulate. This is how we won in World War II. We demoralized the enemy population to the point where they feared for their survival as a nation. This is the other strategy for winning wars. This one is not so humane. And this option is not at all beyond our means.
This is why we used the atomic bomb at the end of the second World War, and that’s why it ended the war. We demonstrated that we could cause such massive destruction to the Japanese people that they feared for their nation’s survival.
I fully support the use of atomic weapons there, because they ended the war. And if we ever need to win a war again where we cannot finesse our way to victory by being humane, then I would fully support another nuclear strike.
The funny thing about that is that at this point, everybody has their own nuclear weapons. So a scenario could easily look like this. We get into a conventional war. It goes badly because the enemy shows resilience and strength and will not be awed into submission. So we switch strategies. And the same stealth aircraft that the day before were delivering precision munitions to carefully chosen targets would fan out over the enemy’s cities, and at approximately the same time over the entire nation, would deliver their nuclear payload. And with that, the war would be over. Because unless they had second-strike capabilities, which only the former USSR and the current USA (to my knowledge) actually have, there isn’t even any retaliation possible.
Would that be horrible in terms of civilian deaths? Yes. Would the world recoil in horror and turn as one against the United States? Possibly. It would be a very bad time. But it is easily conceivable. And it’s possible it would be put into action. Because it would win the war.
Do you see why I feel only contempt for those who cry out over each individual accidental casualty we inflict? Things could be ever so much worse.
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