How Effective Is Strategic Bombing? Lessons Learned from World War II to Kosovo

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By Gian P. Gentile. New York: New York University Press, 2001. 280 pages. $36.00.

Does one airplane, one bomb, one target represent strategic air power or tactical employment of aviation? One could argue that the Enola Gay with its atomic payload had a strategic effect. An F-16 Viper with a conventional 500-pound bomb "plinking" a tank on the plain of Kosovo is not an example of strategic air power, but rather tactical bombing. Ask yourself what you expect of strategic bombing, or more specifically, what is strategic bombing? Today the term strategic bombing is seemingly used as a reference for anything that flies in conflict. Get your frame of reference, and then …