Poli419 10 janvier 2005

Poli419
10 janvier 2005

EARLY DETERRENCE & STRATEGIC WARFARE

Deterrence is a strategic posture : « If you do this I will hurt you ».

Deterrence & punishment in history
- The Roman legions as a strategic weapon : destroy urban centers, 90% success rate by treath of slaughter by legions
- Gen. William Sherman, March to the Sea (Sept. To Dec 1864) : infliction of punishment to civilians, burning down farms and towns to the ground.
- Naval blockade of Germany in WWI : intakes blocked by half by end of war, precipitated collapse of military-political hierarchy.

Advent of air power
- Ability to strike directly and rapidly urban populations
- Theory of urban mob raising against elites : Paris Commune of 1848, enemies lay in enemies themselves.
Use of balloon by Napoleon to help diirect artillery
Airship ban in the 1880s

Aircrafts : more stearable than Zeppelins
1911 : 1st use of A/C in warfare (Italy-Turkey)
1915 : German bombings of England

Assumption was that civilians would panic, as they did in Coventry, 1916.
(but NO use of gas)

First hints at knowledge and capacity for largescale destruction : accidental desctruction of port of Halifax, 1916, 1500 instantly killed

Interwar period and Guilio Douhet works on war with A/C : airdropping explosives, gases will make war last a few days, civilian panic and social collapse (assumption that social tissu of cities is less strong, decadent moral, ripe to collapse and government elites less ready to defend them)
- attempts to control or ban development of military aviation unsucesful. Coining term « Push-Button Warfare ».
- Biological warfare dev. : Brits develops Anthrax, Germans develops nerve gases : large deterrence B/W UK and Germany during WWII, Europe memory of largescale epidemics and diseases
Use of chemicals :
- Brits used it in Afghanistan B/W WWars
- Italians used it in Ethiopia (1935)
- Egyptians against Yemen (1960)
- Iraq + Iran (1980s)
Unit 100 &731 on Japanese Imperial Army in China
- Changchen Plague Experiment (Mandchuria/Mandchukuo being a large testing ground).
WWII Strategic Warfare
German raids over Rotterdam 1940, Yougoslavia, Stalingrad; Battle of England, V1-V2 attacks; Anglo-American bombings of Germany (specifically : Dresden, Hamburg) and Japan (night-time burning of Japan specifically designed to burn workers at their homes; night-time bombings killed more than nukes on Hiroshima & Nagasaki). Japan was about to collapse socially, as raise in crime rates indicates.

Tehran and Hanoi depopulated by 50% because of expectations of airstrikes.

Japanese attempts at balloon attacks over the Pacific Ocean into US territory

Weapon of Mass Destruction coined by the Soviets