Does Coercive Bombing Work?
An evaluation of the ethical arguments in favor and in opposition to coercive bombing is only complete when the effectiveness of the strategy is also considered. As demonstrated by Thomas, the effectiveness of coercive bombing at ending conflict has not been clearly established. A 1996 study by Robert Pape found that aerial attacks are more likely to succeed at changing the target state’s behavior when they exploit military vulnerabilities (destroying the enemy’s ability to retaliate) rather than civilian vulnerabilities (targeting civilian industrial assets to undermine support for the war effort). Pape’s survey of air power from 1917 to 1991 was expanded by Horowitz and Reiter in 2001. The 2001 study used multivariate probit analysis on 53 cases of air power coercion occurring between 1917 and 1999, and confirmed Pape’s finding that at-tacks on the enemy’s military capacity are more effective at coercing the target state to change its behavior. If, as these findings indicate, bombing
