Sanctions and Strategic Bombing

I disagree. First, the railroad already existed. You can argue its use in war was new. The Germans notably built railroads to the front at huge scale. But this presupposes a relatively static front, which was the reality of WWI. Probably the most important technological development was neither of these things: it was artillery.

I cannot recommend enough Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast. There is a 6 part series called A Blueprint for Armageddon [1] that is well worth the 30+ hours it'll take to listen to.

Additionally, the full power of railroads (in terms of logistics) wasn't unleashed until the 1920s. Why? The invention of the humble pallet. I highly recommend reading this [2].

> Today the closest analogue to the logic of the strategic bomber lies in the world of economics. I speak of sanctions.

I 100% agree: economic sanctions are violence and not that far removed from strategic bombing. It's honestly a little surprising to hear an American saying this.

Sanctions ultimately are a form of collective punishment and in many such circumstances we consider that a war crime for good reason. In the 1990s, then US Ambassador to the UN later Us Secretary of STate Madeleine Albright was quoted as saying [3]:

> "We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima," Stahl said. "And, you know, is the price worth it?"

> "I think that is a very hard choice," Albright answered, "but the price, we think, the price is worth it."

The author then goes on to argue (which again is surprising) that sanctions are largely ineffective and will continue to be so in the case of Russia. 100% agree, which is why that even though Putin was and is the bad guy for an unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine, US policy towards Ukraine was completely reckless because we have no effective way to counter an opponent with a nuclear arsenal in armed conflict.

All of this was warned about in 2015 [4].

[1]: https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-50-55-blu...

[2]: https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/52/hodes.php

[3]: https://www.newsweek.com/watch-madeleine-albright-saying-ira...

[4]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4

The crime and punishment issues are mostly solved for individuals and small groups. There is a good reason why in most societies the victim is not the one who decides the fate of the attacker — it is the job of the law. Sadly, this doesn't work at international scale. That is when large scale punitive operations take place. And then the other side responds with more violence.

In the end of this feedback loop we reach the point where 99% of the ones who suffer are collateral damage — from all sides. Is it inevitable? It seems so. No matter what happens next, someone has to pay, right?

First, as a German (!), I always have a hard time with articles that claim bombing Germany in WW2 somehow wasn’t justified. What would have been the alternative? Leave the regime in power? Concede half or more of Europe? Shrug your shoulders and accept the industrial scale genocide? Note that almost the entire population was part of this murderous machine in some capacity, and to some extent willingly so. To have any hope of democratizing Germany at all, the defeat had to be total. I haven’t seen very credible evidence that this could have been accomplished with milder measures.

Second, there’s an important ethical difference between sanctions and strategic bombing. The attacker chooses what to bomb. With sanctions, the target nation can choose which sectors of their economy their limited resources keep going into. Yes, autocracies will reliably loot and starve their population for the benefit of the military and their political friends. But that’s still their choice, not ours, and I think that’s an important distinction in terms of the moral implications.