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A major revision of our understanding of long-range bombing, this book examines how Anglo-American ideas about \"strategic\" bombing were formed and implemented. It argues that ideas about bombing civilian targets rested on--and gained validity from--widespread but substantially erroneous assumptions about the nature of modern industrial societies and their vulnerability to aerial bombardment. These assumptions were derived from the social and political context of the day and were maintained largely through cognitive error and bias. Tami Davis Biddle explains how air theorists, and those influenced by them, came to believe that strategic bombing would be an especially effective coercive tool and how they responded when their assumptions were challenged. Biddle analyzes how a particular interpretation of the World War I experience, together with airmen's organizational interests, shaped interwar debates about strategic bombing and preserved conceptions of its potentially revolutionary character. This flawed interpretation as well as a failure to anticipate implementation problems were revealed as World War II commenced. By then, the British and Americans had invested heavily in strategic bombing. They saw little choice but to try to solve the problems in real time and make long-range bombing as effective as possible. Combining narrative with analysis, this book presents the first-ever comparative history of British and American strategic bombing from its origins through 1945. In examining the ideas and rhetoric on which strategic bombing depended, it offers critical insights into the validity and robustness of those ideas--not only as they applied to World War II but as they apply to contemporary warfare.

Strategic leaders must possess a range of skills to work successfully in complex environments. To use those skills to best effect, they rely on character traits that enhance the likelihood of their effectiveness as leaders and maximize their success when working in teams. Certain elements of character facilitate work in demanding settings that rely heavily on communication, integration, and cooperation. Programs designed to educate senior leaders must help future national security professionals identify these traits and then practice and hone them. Highlighting individuals with challenging roles in World War II, this essay analyzes the qualities of character that enabled them to succeed in their work.

Most military institutions that experience success or failure in war will seek to understand their recent history so they can make sense of it, and learn intelligently from it. The process is never easy or straightforward; indeed, it is often fraught. Those inside the institution have positions and reputations to defend; those outside it may not have enough knowledge to offer sophisticated and informed analyses, or may be so determined to build a good story around goats and heroes they miscast the events and offer far more heat than light. Analyses of the long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have come in every possible form: journalists' accounts were first on the scene, but they were followed quickly by those of think-tank analysts, academics, defense intellectuals, official historians, and memoir writers. As an institution, the Army is not averse to introspection and self-analysis. But like all institutions, it is susceptible to the pathologies that stem from cognitive bias and sensitivity to criticism.

In his high profile book, Why We Lost, Lieutenant General (Retired) Daniel Bolger argues the US Army stayed too long in the Afghanistan and Iraq theaters, becoming mired in wars it was ill-equipped to fight. This commentary challenges Bolger's thesis, arguing different strategies could have produced better outcomes. The US Army will not, in the future, as in the past, be able to pick the kinds of wars it fights; it must be prepared to fight the wars that the President and Congress call on it to fight.

By focusing on literature that draws explicit connections between American military institutions and American society and culture, Lee has given us an excellent point of departure for an important and timely discussion.1 Americans seem to have a great appetite for history, and every year the sale of trade press books on military topics is brisk. It is incumbent on those who train our next generation of civilian leaders to address the civilian side of the equation-to teach today's college students about the role of the military in a democracy, the blunt character of military force, and the profound and tenacious consequences of the decision to wage war.

When senior Army officers encounter pathologies in this all-important relationship, they must re-double their efforts to communicate effectively while staying within the norms of appropriate civil-military discourse. Sometimes this requires raising hard questions repeatedly and through as many appropriate channels as possible. If the questions officers want to ask are central to the successful implementation of what the civilians desire, and if those questions are central to a stable resolution of the problem at hand, then officers have an obligation not to self-censor; however, they must work through channels that are within bounds, and that will not further exacerbate an already troubled interaction. If tenacious and good faith efforts on the military side will not resolve the problem, then officers must be prepared to do the best they can in the circumstances they face -- for this is the nature of a representative system that is (and must be) under civilian control.

The Anglo-American air attack on the city of Dresden, in February 1945, has become one of the most famous events of the Second World War. The word “Dresden” is typically one of the first uttered whenever the topic of strategic bombing is raised. And yet, like many other high-profile historical events, the Dresden raid is encrusted with myth and misunderstanding. This essay is an effort to make sense of a complicated and much misunderstood episode in the history of modern warfare—and to make sense of it in the context in which it occurred. The essay draws upon the rich recent literature on Dresden, earlier histories, and a wide array of primary sources in an effort to provide – for teachers, scholars, and general readers – a comprehensive but still concise overview of the air raid that has won such a central place in the history of the Second World War.

As Biddle discusses, in the early 1945, the German city of Dresden lay directly in the path of a great swell of refugees fleeing the advance of the Red Army along the eastern front. German authorities, their resources strained to the breaking point in World War II's final months, struggled to keep this river of wretched humanity moving so that it would not impair the mobility of the Wehrmacht. But before the city's 100,000 refugees could be moved, Dresden was attacked by waves of British and American heavy bombers over the course of nearly two days, igniting a firestorm that swept the heart of the city.