The Ethics of Bombing Civilians after WWII...
By Sahr Conway-Lanz
The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 11, Issue 35, No. 2, September 1, 2014
...Although the norm against targeting civilians (click here) remained robust in the face of the technological transformations surrounding air power, the new bombing capabilities did foster several related changes in thinking about war’s harm to civilians and in international humanitarian law. One of the most significant was the increased importance of intention in rationalizing harm to noncombatants. For Americans, the crucial dividing line between justifiable and unjustifiable violence increasingly became whether their armed forces intentionally harmed civilians. With this reasoning, unintended harm—what later would be called “collateral damage”—became a tragic but acceptable cost of war. The difficulties of controlling the violence of air power made common and widespread unintended harm plausible....
By Sahr Conway-Lanz
The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 11, Issue 35, No. 2, September 1, 2014
...Although the norm against targeting civilians (click here) remained robust in the face of the technological transformations surrounding air power, the new bombing capabilities did foster several related changes in thinking about war’s harm to civilians and in international humanitarian law. One of the most significant was the increased importance of intention in rationalizing harm to noncombatants. For Americans, the crucial dividing line between justifiable and unjustifiable violence increasingly became whether their armed forces intentionally harmed civilians. With this reasoning, unintended harm—what later would be called “collateral damage”—became a tragic but acceptable cost of war. The difficulties of controlling the violence of air power made common and widespread unintended harm plausible....
