The morality of city bombing vs. regular warfare in WWII

[Ideologue]

I was listening to a discussion today about how it was super-awful that millions of civilians were killed in WWII by air attack.  Undeniably, being burned alive, blown up, torn apart by exploding buildings, asphyxiated, etc., through aerial bombardment is pretty lousy.  However, what did not come up, and almost never comes up when the subject of air war is talked about, is how it compares, morally, to ordinary frontline warfare in World War II, to which even more fell victim, through equally terrifying means, such as artillery shells arriving from apparently nowhere and immolation by flamethrower.

Most people, it seems, distinguish between, say, the burning of Dresden and the destruction by firepower of, say, a German army, even though the number of dead and wounded may be the same.  I imagine it is a distinction made by most people here.

I'm curious as to what reasoning leads to this distinction, especially given that WWII armies were conscript armies, and most soliders in them were compelled to serve, therefore no more capable of opting out of the struggle than factory workers.  This invalidates the idea that holds once an enemy dons a uniform, they may be killed with whatever means available; at least, it does if also paired with the notion that the civilians supporting uniformed aggression are sacrosanct.

There's the argument, I suppose, that regular warfare permitted surrender, while aerial warfare did not, but as a practical matter individual surrender was a very risky proposition, involving much the same level of danger as seeking shelter from an air raid.  There's also the argument that civilians are not threats in the same way uniformed soldiers are, that they are not actively engaged in trying to kill their enemy.  This is pretty stupid, given that civilian labor makes the soldier's existence possible; whether building panzers or growing food, they are part of the common enterprise and they are trying to kill you, just not directly.

The only key difference I can see is that air war killed women and children as well as adult males.  Half of that is sexist, at least when considering the fact that women's contribution to the war effort during the Second World War was immense and vital.

At most, you could claim that women and children, being denied participation in the political process that led to war, escape collective responsibility.  But 1)collective responsibility or collective guilt is not the sole justification for city bombing, and is not being argued here; and 2)even if disengagement from the original sin that led to war were a defense, in the dictatorships which were the targets of city bombing, is this defense not shared amongst almost the entire population, including frontline soldiers whose lives can be claimed without moral reflection?

Tl;dr--is there a viable moral distinction between civilians and soldiers in the wars against Germany and Japan, and if so, what is your reasoning for valuing certain life more based on status, age and gender?

[Neil]

The soldier-civilian divide is probably the key.  Going into the Great War, there was the idea that you didn't slaughter civilians and that they were to be protected from the horrors of war.  Things changed, and now we live in an age where flying passenger aircraft full of people into a building with no military value is a completely legitimate tactic.  Sometimes, people like to pretend that the world hasn't changed, and that's when you get into those arguments.

[CountDeMoney]

The soldier-civilian divide is probably the key.

Historically, it's been the exception to the rule.

[Neil]

The soldier-civilian divide is probably the key.

Historically, it's been the exception to the rule.

Yeah, but modern morality is a very recent invention, as is weak, faggy sentiment.

[CountDeMoney]

I'm sure the Jews would've appreciated the effort.

[Valmy]

I was listening to a discussion today about how it was super-awful that millions of civilians were killed in WWII by air attack.

It was pretty super-awful.  But then most of the things that happened in WWII were pretty horrible.  It was just a time when firebombing a major urban area was considered a rational act.  Was it justified?  I think that is a question we can only answer in hindsight.  But I am not sure you can debate it was not horrible and shocking, it was designed to be horrible and shocking.

But it is pretty likely, as McNamara said, that if the Axis had won alot of our guys doing those air campaigns would have been hung as war criminals.

[Razgovory]

I imagine if I was given a rifle, a hole and a metal hat to protect me from artillery bombardments anything that brings that situation to an end even one day faster would be highly moral.

[dps]

I was listening to a discussion today about how it was super-awful that millions of civilians were killed in WWII by air attack.

It was pretty super-awful.  But then most of the things that happened in WWII were pretty horrible.  It was just a time when firebombing a major urban area was considered a rational act.  Was it justified?  I think that is a question we can only answer in hindsight.  But I am not sure you can debate it was not horrible and shocking, it was designed to be horrible and shocking.

But it is pretty likely, as McNamara said, that if the Axis had won alot of our guys doing those air campaigns would have been hung as war criminals.

I kind of doubt that.  Mostly they would have just been slaughtered out of hand as subhumans or undesirables.

[Lettow77]

 Is that really in line with your expectations of treatment western allies could expect from axis postwar?

[Razgovory]

Oh God.

[Lettow77]

 It is a little absurd to say the English or French were going to be "..slaughtered out of hand", is all, to say nothing of Americans.

[Viking]

I was listening to a discussion today about how it was super-awful that millions of civilians were killed in WWII by air attack.

It was pretty super-awful.  But then most of the things that happened in WWII were pretty horrible.  It was just a time when firebombing a major urban area was considered a rational act.  Was it justified?  I think that is a question we can only answer in hindsight.  But I am not sure you can debate it was not horrible and shocking, it was designed to be horrible and shocking.

But it is pretty likely, as McNamara said, that if the Axis had won alot of our guys doing those air campaigns would have been hung as war criminals.

Both Harris and LeMay speculated on the issue. Perhaps this is why the allies did not prosecute anybody for area bombing of cities (to the best of my knowledge). Dönitz was found guilting of waging unrestricted submarine war including neutral vessels, but was found innocent of war crimes related to sinking british and allied ships. Harris, LeMay and Nimitz may have been tried for war crimes by the nazis and japanese but they would not have been found innocent of the bombing and sinking of ships like Sperrle, Kesselring and Dönitz, the three germans were not found guilty of bombing or sinking ships of belligerents; they were found guilty of planning and waging an illegal war and brutalizing and murdering occupied civilians and pows.

In my mind the morality of means of war are set by either universal standards or bilateral behaviour. Ultimately the moral obligation to protect the german and japanese civilians killed in area bombing of cities during the war falls on the German and Japanese governments. In each case they initiated area bombing of cities unprovoked as a means of war. Japan even used biological agents in it's terror bombing in china; which is one of the reasons atomic, biological and chemical weapons keep getting classified together despite having little in common other than their usefulness against untrained civilians; justifying the nuclear bombing of japan post-haste.

However the argument that moral standards apply to the good guy regardless of how the bad guys behave still has merit. Comparing cops to the 8th army air force can be done. I tend, however, to agree that there is an us/them distinction here. What I said in the paragraph above and the fact that policing is constant is enough for me to disregard this. Cops don't exist in conflicts between states, while the do exist in conflicts between citizens.

Deontology and vitue ethics might suggest that bombing cities is wrong because it kills civilians. The same goes for utilitarianism and consequentialist ethics given how many civilians were killed. However in all cases it falls to defining the scope of the effects. Military ethics does open the issue in it's view of proportionality (is the civilian death toll proportional to the military effect of the operation). Ultimately this boils down to did the men involved think that strategic warfare helped achieve military goals and were the civilian casualties proportionate to those objectives.

The strategic bombing campaign destroyed the luftwaffe and crippled german production during the last year of the war. The atom bombs were the reason japan surrendered. There are a lot of historical what ifs, but these are facts.

A personal story of relevance is when I was in japan with a group of japanese friends they looked up to see a four engine propeller plane flying across the sky. This disturbed them, they wondered if it was a B-29. I could see it was a C-130 Hercules and probably Japanese SDF and told them so. This relieved them clearly. Having live for over a year i german in many stages in multiple cities I also know. Both societies still have a visceral memory of the bombing. The bombing of cities is what war is to these people and both people are pacifists to the core. The horror of WWII ended fascism, nationalism and militarism as viable ideas for civilized thinking men and the world is better for that horror.

[Camerus]

In total war with unlimited objectives, the civilian-soldier line is blurred. In the context of total war, where every citizen is contributing to the war effort, I don't see how the lives of civilians should warrant any more protection than those of soldiers, apart from practical considerations of realpolitik.... e.g. will it undermine our ability to work with that population later? Will it invite reprisals we can't deal with on our population? etc.

[Razgovory]

It is a little absurd to say the English or French were going to be "..slaughtered out of hand", is all, to say nothing of Americans.

I had a neighbor who was a Bataan.  Spent the rest of the war as a guests of the Japanese.  Hear him talk, they got off to easy.

[grumbler]

Ide, the distinction is one of "necessary force to accomplish the military objective."  Neither civilians nor wounded-hors-de-combat/surrendered soldiers can lawfully be targeted by military force, since force used against them cannot accomplish any military objectives and is thus perforce excessive.  Such "protected persons' are subject to collateral attack, so long as the primary attack is one that is reasonable to accomplish a military objective.

That WW2 saw more collateral attacks on civilians than WW1 was a matter of changing technology, not changing morality.  I don't think the moral reasoning has changed since WW2, either, except for those bizarroids like Neil that believe that "flying passenger aircraft full of people into a building with no military value is a completely legitimate tactic."  But nobody ever confused Neil with an adult human being.