Required Readings

• James Digby, Precision Guided Weapons, Adelphi Paper no. 118 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1975). 
• Scott Sagan and Gina Sinclair, “What do Americans really think about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?” The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, August 5, 2024.
• Henry Sokolski, City Busting, the Nuclear Weapons Revolution, and Precision Guidance Lecture Notes, Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. September 2022.
• Henry Sokolski and Kate Harrison, Two Modern Military Revolutions: Dramatic Increases in Explosive Yields and Aiming Accuracies, Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, October 4, 2013.

Recommended Readings

The Importance of Reading History

• Richard Fontaine and Vance Serchuck, “The Uses and Misuses of Historical Analogy for North Korea,” The Atlantic, October 3, 2017.

• Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest May, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decisions Makers (New York: The Free Press, 1986).

• Roger C. Schank, Tell Me a Story: Narrative and Intelligence (Branston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1990).

Targeting Innocents before World War II: Theories and Practice

• A. J. Barker, The Civilizing Mission: A History of the Italo-Ethiopian War of 1935-1936 (New York: Dial Press, 1968), 231-244. Password protected PDF

• Thomas M. Coffey, Lion by the Tail: The Story of the Italian-Ethiopian War (New York: Viking Press, 1974), 262-282. Password protected PDF

• Erik J. Dahl, “Net-Centric Before Its Time: The Jeune Ecole and Its Lessons for Today,” Naval War College Review 58, no. 4 (Autumn 2005): 109-125.

• Giulio Douhet, Command of the Air, trans. Dino Ferrari (Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museum Programs, 1998).

• William Mitchell, Winged Defense: The Development and Possibilities of Modern Air Power—Economic and Military (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1925).

• Hugh Trenchard, “The War Object of an Air Force,” in The Art of War in World History: From Antiquity to the Nuclear Age, ed. Gérard Chaliand (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 905-910.

Strategic Bombing: World War II

• “Battle of Britain,” Wikipedia, last modified August 4, 2021.

• “Battle of the Netherlands,” Wikipedia, last modified August 8, 2021.

• “Bombing of Cologne in World War II,” Wikipedia, last modified June 14, 2021.

• “Bombing of Dresden in World War II,” Wikipedia, last modified August 2, 2021.

• “Rotterdam Blitz,” Wikipedia, last modified July 17, 2021.

• Tami Davis Biddle, “Dresden 1945: Reality, History, and Memory,” Journal of Military History 72 (April 2008): 413-449. Password protected PDF

• Sebastian Cox, ed. The Strategic Air War against Germany, 1939-1945: The Official Report of the British Bombing Survey Unit (London: Frank Cass Publishers, 1998).

              First Half: Password protected PDF

              Second Half: Password protected PDF

• Colin Fraser, “Taranto Raid: Bi planes smash Italian Fleet at Taranto – The Inspiration For Pearl Harbor,” War History Online, February 15, 2018.

• Daniel Gelernter, “Was Dropping the Atomic Bomb Necessary?” Washington Examiner, August 27, 2015.

• B. H. Liddell Hart, “The Crescendo of Bombing: The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany,” in History of the Second World War (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1970), 589-612. Password protected PDF

• Alexander McKee, Dresden 1945: The Devil’s Tinderbox (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1984), 46-68. Password protected PDF

• Richard Overy, The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945 (New York: Penguin Books, 2013).

• Robert A. Pape, “Japan, 1944-1945” and “Germany, 1942—1945,” in Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), 87-136; 254-313. Password protected PDF

• U.S. Department of War,U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey: European War (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, September 30, 1945).

• U.S. Department of War, U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey: Pacific War (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, July 1, 1946).

• Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death (New York: Delacorte, 1969).

The Nuclear Revolution and Weapons Effects

• Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett, Fear, War and the Bomb: Military and Political Consequences of Atomic Energy (New York: Whittlesey House, 1949), 39-73. Password protected PDF

• Ed Browne, “How to Survive a Nuclear Bomb,” Newsweek, September 16, 2022.

• Tom Demerly, “80 Years Ago Today: The Japanese Secret Weapons Used at Pearl Harbor,” The Aviationist, December 7, 2021.

• Lawrence Freedman, “The Strategy of Hiroshima,” Journal of Strategic Studies 1, no. 1 (May 1978): 76-97.

• Alexander Glaser, “Effects of Nuclear Weapons” (lecture slides, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, February 12, 2009).

• Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan, “The Effects of Nuclear Weapons. Third edition,” U.S. Department of Defense, 1977.

• John Hersey, “Hiroshima,” New Yorker 22, no. 29 (August 31, 1946).

• Eva Lisowski, “Grim Prospect: Low-Yield Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East,” Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, May 27, 2021.

• John Mueller, Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al-Qaeda (New York:  Oxford University Press, 2010), 29-53. Password protected PDF

• Richard Muller, “The Origins of MAD: A Short History of City-Busting,” in Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice, ed. Henry Sokolski (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2004), 15-50.

• Keiji Nakazawa, Barefoot Gen, directed by Mori Masaki, July 21, 1983, 85 min, DVD. See especially the clip, “Hiroshima Destroyed.

• David Alan Rosenberg, “The Origins of Overkill: Nuclear Weapons and American Strategy 1945-1960.” International Security 7, no. 4 (Spring 1983): 3-71. Password protected PDF

• Eric Schlosser, Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety (New York: Penguin Press, 2013), 83-88, 119-144. Password protected PDF

• Harry S. Truman, “Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union,” January 7, 1953.

• Alex Wellerstein, “Counting the dead at Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, August 4, 2020.

• Alex Wellerstein, “The First Atomic Stockpile Requirements (September 1945),” Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog, May 9, 2012.

• Alex Wellerstein, “NUKEMAP,” Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog, 2013.

• Ward Wilson, “The Bomb Didn’t Beat Japan…Stalin Did,” Foreign Policy, May 29, 2013.

Civil Defense

• Atomic Theater, “Civil Defense Films,” accessed May 30, 2013. 

• Garrett Graff, Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government’s Secret Plan to Save Itself–While the Rest of Us Die, Simon and Schuster, May 22, 2018.

• Fred Charles Iklé, The Social Impact of Bomb Destruction (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1958).

• National Security Resources Board, Civil Defense Office, Survival Under Atomic Attack, NSRB Doc. 130 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1950).

• National Security Resources Board, United States Civil Defense (Blue Book), NSRB Doc. 128. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1950).

• War Department Civil Defense Board, A Study of Civil Defense (Bull Board Report) (Washington, DC, National Military Establishment, Office of the Secretary of Defense, February 1948).

Precision Guidance

• James Digby, Precision Guided Weapons, Adelphi Paper no. 118 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1975). Password protected PDF

• Mark Gunzinger and Bryan Clark, Maintaining the U.S. Military’s Advantage in Precision Strike, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2015.

• Michael Peck, “The Nazi Smart Bombs that Inspired China’s ship-killing Missiles,” War is Boring (blog), February 19, 2014.

• Henry Sokolski, “Dr. Strangelove’s New Passion: Precision-Guided Mayhem,” American Purpose, March 17, 2021.

• Jim Thomas, “A Blueprint for Rebuilding America’s Military After the Coronavirus,” The National Interest, March 28, 2020.

• U.S. Department of Defense, Discriminate Deterrence: Report of the Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy (Washington, DC:  Government Printing Office, 1988).

• Uzi Rubin, “Israel and the Precision-Guided Missile Threat,” The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, June 16, 2020.

The Morality of City Busting

• Justin Anderson, “Law of War Considerations in Fielding Nuclear Forces,” Arms Control Today Vol. 46, September 2016.

• Barton J. Bernstein, “American Conservatives Are the Forgotten Critics of the Atomic Bombing of Japan,” San Jose Mercury News, August 2, 2014.

• William Burr, ed., “U.S. Cold War Nuclear Target Lists Declassified for First Time,” The National Security Archive, December 22, 2015.

• Richard P. DiMeglio, et al., Law of Armed Conflict Deskbook  ed. William J. Johnson and Andrew D. Gillman (Charlottesville, VA: United States Army Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School, 2012).

• Simon Denyer, One-third of Americans would support a preemptive nuclear strike on North Korea, researchers say, Washington Post. June 25, 2019. (Last Accessed August 26, 2019)

• Alexander B. Downes, Targeting Civilians in War, Cornell Studies in Security Affairs (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008), 1-12, 83-155.

Introduction: Password protected PDF

Chapter 3: Password protected PDF

Chapter 4: Password protected PDF

• Freeman Dyson, Weapons and Hope (New York: Harper and Row, 1984), 3-15, 286-295. Password protected PDF

• A. C. Grayling, Among the Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan (New York: Walker and Company, 2006), 209-281. Password protected PDF

• Richard Gunderman, “H.G. Wells vs. George Orwell: Their debate whether science is humanity’s best hope continues today,” The Conversation, December 21, 2017.

• Max Hastings, Retribution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008).

• Zachary Keck, “How Hiroshima and Nagasaki Saved Millions of Lives,” The Diplomat, August 7, 2014.

• Steven P. Lee, Morality, Morality Prudence, and Nuclear Weapons, Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Public Policy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

• Jeffrey G. Lewis and Scott D. Sagan, “The Common-Sense Fix that American Nuclear Policy Needs,” The Washington Post, August 24, 2016/.

• Matthew G. McKenzie, Thomas B. Cochran, Robert S. Norris, and William M. Arkin, “Attacking Russian Cities: Two Countervalue Scenarios” in The U.S. Nuclear War Plan: A Time for Change (Washington, DC, National Resources Defense Council, June 2001), 113-128.

• Katherine McKinney, Scott D. Sagan, “Why the atomic bombing of Hiroshima would be illegal today,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 76, July 20, 2020.

• Wilson Miscamble, The Most Controversial Decision (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

• Richard Overy, The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe, 1940-1945 (New York: Viking, 2013).

• Daryl G. Press, Scott D. Sagan and Benjamin A. Valentino, “Atomic Aversion: Experimental Evidence on Taboos, Traditions, and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons,” American Political Science Review 107, no. 1 (February 2013).

• Richard Price and Nina Tannenwald, “Norms and Deterrence: The Nuclear and Chemical Weapons Taboos,” in The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics, ed. Peter J. Katzenstein (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 114-152. Password protected PDF

• Scott Sagan and Benjamin Valentino, “Revisiting Hiroshima in Iran,” International Security 42, no. 1 (Summer 2017): 41-79.

• Ronald Schaffer, “American Military Ethics in World War II: The Bombing of German Civilians,” Journal of American History 67, no. 2 (September 1980): 318-324. Password protected PDF

• Joseph Trevithick, “America Nearly Attacked Japan with Chemical Weapons in 1945,” War is Boring, June 10, 2016.

• Alex Wellerstein, “A “purely military” target? Truman’s changing language about Hiroshima,” Restricted Data: The Nuclear Security Blog, January 19, 2018.

• H.G. Wells, The World Set Free: A Story of Mankind (London: Macmillan & Co., 1914).

• Ward Wilson, “Did bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki save lives?” Beyond Nuclear International, August 13, 2018.

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