Review: The Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell -- The Morality of Bombing

I don’t want to be overly controversial, but I think war is a bad thing. But once you’ve reached the conclusion that it has to happen anyway you have a problem. That problem is how to conduct yourself in that war. And it’s a problem that is explored well in The Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell.

And that question is whether it’s better to limit your targets to military targets and try to avoid hurting civilians or if you simply do as much damage as possible.

What is The Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell about?

The story starts in the middle of World War 2 as general Hansell is being replaced by Curtis LeMay. It then explains the different philosophies of war in regards to bombing and the general misunderstanding of what was happening.

As I stated, the question is whether you should do strategic bombing or bomb everything. And it’s not as easy a question as it may seem. First, it goes into the technology and the difficulty of strategic bombing. It also explains several failed attempts at strategic bombings during world war 2. Ideas that sound great on paper, but just didn’t work.

But it’s not just that it’s harder. By the end of the war, they had begun to solve that problem and we have done even more to do that in the sixty years since. It is also a question of how to save the most lives.

The basic idea is this. Strategic bombing kills more people short term, but if it cannot end the war, then people continue to die in the fighting. On the other hand, firebombing a city will kill many people quickly, but potentially cause the war to end faster and so save more lives in the long term.

What did I think of The Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell

This book differs from Gladwell’s other books, but it was still gripping and powerful from the beginning and still touched on some of the themes of those other books. It created interesting characters, told a story about something I knew from a completely different perspective, got me into the minds of people of the time and even now and overall was a brilliant book, best summed up by the idea at the end. Carpet bombing won the war, but precision bombing has won the battle.

And now we just have to decide if that’s a good thing. Because as much as I don’t want to see children blown up in their homes or cities set on fire, there is something to be said for making war so horrific that we decide to stop doing it.

Five Stars *****