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Originally posted by Sidd Finch
As you noted, Dyson was talking about the costs of the bombing campaign, particularly in terms of lost planes and pilots. That was hardly the case in Iraq. You are trying to equate two things that are not nearly equal.
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I'm sorry if my point is obscure. I was posting about strategic bombing because in a conversation that grew out of discussing torture several days ago, we found ourselves talking about the effectiveness -- or relative lack thereof -- of strategic bombing during WWII. Dyson was speaking directly to that point.
Another point that I've made before is that its proponents have always oversold the impact of strategic bombing, both because they expect civilian populations to give up when bombed -- but see London during The Blitz, or Germany during WWII, per Dyson, or the Vietnamese, etc. -- and because the military results are oversold.
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I believe that the bombing campaign in Iraq was very effective, and a big part of why the Iraqi army collapsed. The "shock and awe" campaign was not, but attacks on the infrastructure and military targets were. Unfortunately that conventional war was never the real challenge -- the post-war insurgency was. But I don't believe that insurgency was made any worse by the bombing; I think the invasion alone was enough to guarantee an insurgency and that the bombing campaign didn't make much difference. (Or maybe an errant cruise missle blew up the stockpiles of flowers and candy that Rumsfeld was anticipating?)
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Let's distinguish between tactical and strategic bombing. The former has been very, very useful, in WWII and in Iraq. The latter, not so much. Unfortunately, the Air Force does not like bombing tanks in support of the Army -- it would much rather win the war on its own -- and so it seeks to defund planes like the A-10 in favor of bigger, faster, long-range equipment.
The bombing probably has made the insurgency worse, for the reason that civilians who get bombed tend to hold it against the bombers.
