Pengeboman strategis itu apa sih?

Pengeboman strategis adalah strategi militer dalam perang total yang bertujuan untuk mengalahkan musuh dengan cara melumpuhkan perekonomian dan mematahkan keinginan publik untuk berperang, bukannya dengan melumpuhkan angkatan perang mereka. Serangan ini adalah serangan sistematis yang terorganisir dari udara dengan menggunakan bom strategis, rudal jarak panjang dan menengah, atau senjata nuklir untuk menyerang target-target yang dianggap penting bagi kepentingan perang musuh.

Salah satu tujuan perang adalah untuk melumpuhkan musuh, sehingga mereka lebih memilih untuk berdamai atau menyerah ketimbang melanjutkan peperangan. Pengeboman strategis dimanfaatkan untuk mewujudkan kondisi ini. Istilah lainnya yang digunakan adalah "teror bom", yang mulai populer menjelang akhir Perang Dunia II di saat banyaknya kampanye pengeboman strategis yang dilakukan oleh pihak yang berperang, misalnya pengeboman Hiroshima dan Nagasaki, pengeboman Berlin, pengeboman London, dan sebagainya.

Biddle, Tami Davis. Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and American Ideas about Strategic Bombing, 1914–1945 (Princeton Studies in International History and Politics) (2004)

Boog, Horst, ed. The Conduct of the Air War in the Second World War (1992)

Boog, Horst, ed. Germany and the Second World War: Volume VII: The Strategic Air War in Europe and the War in the West and East Asia, 1943–1944/5 (Oxford UP, 2006), 928pp official German history vol 7 excerpt and text search; online edition

Clodfelter, Mark. "Aiming to Break Will: America's World War II Bombing of German Morale and its Ramifications", Journal of Strategic Studies, June 2010, Vol. 33 Issue 3, pp 401–435

Clodfelter, Mark. Beneficial Bombing: The Progressive Foundations of American Air Power, 1917–1945 (University of Nebraska Press; 2010) 347 pages

Craven, Wesley Frank and James Lea Cate. The Army Air Forces in World War II (6 vol 1958), official USAF history

Davis, Richard G. "Bombing Strategy Shifts, 1944-45", Air Power History 39 (1989) 33-45

Franklin, Noble, and Charles Webster. The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany, 1939–1945 (4 volumes, 1961), official RAF history

Futrell, Robert Frank. Ideas, concepts, doctrine: A history of basic thinking in the United States Air Force, 1907–1964 (2 vol 1974)

Griffith, Charles. The quest: Haywood Hansell and American strategic bombing in World War II (1999) online edition

Hansell, Jr., Haywood S. Air Plan That Defeated Hitler (1980) online version

Kennett, Lee B. A History of Strategic Bombing (1982)

Koch, H. W. "The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany: the Early Phase, May–September 1940." The Historical Journal, 34 (March 1991) pp 117–41. online at JSTOR

Levine, Alan J. The Strategic Bombing of Germany, 1940–1945 (1992) online edition

MacIsaac, David. Strategic Bombing in World War Two (1976)

Messenger, Charles. "Bomber" Harris and the Strategic Bombing Offensive, 1939–1945 (1984), defends Harris

Overy. Richard. "The Means to Victory: Bombs and Bombing" in Overy, Why the Allies Won (1995), pp 101–33

Sherry, Michael. The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon (1987), important study 1930s-1960s

Smith, Malcolm. "The Allied Air Offensive", Journal of Strategic Studies 13 (Mar 1990) 67-83

Spaight. James M. "Bombing Vindicated" G. Bles, 1944. ASIN: B0007IVW7K (Spaight was Principal Assistant Secretary of the Air Ministry) (U.K)

Verrier, Anthony. The Bomber Offensive (1968), British

Webster, Charles and Noble Frankland, The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany, 1939–1945 (HMSO, 1961), 4 vol. Important official British history

Werrell, Kenneth P. "The Strategic Bombing of Germany in World War II: Costs and Accomplishments", Journal of American History 73 (1986) 702-713; good place to start. in JSTOR

Werrell, Kenneth P. Death From the Heavens: A History of Strategic Bombing (2009)