Chapter 43: Terrible Swift Sword

Strategic bombing was an interesting military concept. Basically, the idea is that you crush the enemy’s ability to fight by bombing the fuck out of them. Could it break up formations, make peoples’ lives miserable, hinder resupply, and be a general nuisance? Sure.

Could it win a war?

Well, it depended on who you asked, but generally, no. Despite all the sound and fury, whether it was artillery (World War I, II, Korea) or aircraft (World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan), they didn’t win the fight against a dedicated enemy. They were force multipliers, yes. But strategic bombing effectiveness was historically overstated by bomber commands; post-analysis often showed only one-third (or less) of the expected performance.

Take Korea: even with all the bombing the US did in Korea (and we did a lot), it wasn’t enough. Nor was the destruction in World War II Japan enough to take them out of the fight (at least without nuclear weapons). US analysis post World War II concluded that strategic bombing in Europe was a failure. And that was with over ten thousand bombers and about two and a half million servicemembers involved from the US alone, with similar numbers of British bombers taking part as well.

The most important contribution from Allied bombing raids were the million men taken from the front to operate AA defenses, and the destruction of German planes which helped facilitate the Normandy landings. Not the damage the planes (or bombs) themselves did. Even attacking petroleum refineries, which are basically giant bombs that the workers have to try very hard not to explode was significantly less effective than expected when the missions were OK’d, or when analyzing post-bombing images.

In Japan, the US burned 58 of 62 cities with populations above 100,000. Forty percent of urban land area was razed, and about a third of the population left homeless. And yet it was still considered necessary to use nuclear weapons, rather than actually face the survivors of these bombing attacks on the ground.

So why wasn’t strategic bombing successful?

Well, it turns out that bombs aren’t that effective. Even a five hundred pound bomb (which makes a big bang) doesn’t do too well against hardened structures or with near misses. Even bombs which are in the ton range do less damage than you’d expect. Especially after ground targets spread out, limiting the damage you can do with any single hit, troops travel at night, tanks camouflage themselves, etc.

Accuracy when attacking is hard, especially with imperfect weather, night conditions, warping of aiming gear due to temperature shifts, etc., etc. And our birds were, if better in some ways, not that different from those active in the Second World War. Precision munitions were much better performance wise, and we did have those, but they were expensive. Both for 21st century Earth militaries, and for Uzushiogakure. And strategic bombing was all about mass damage, not precise, tactically informed strikes to support the (much cheaper) infantry.

On the strategic bombing morale effect, it turned out that humanity has evolved the capacity to lose horrendous amounts of people and infrastructure to natural disasters. Whether plague or weather, we’ve come through a lot over the years, and it’s almost a certainty that all our ancestors went through some period where fully half of their friends and family died around them, or their city was destroyed by flood, fire, or earthquake.

They survived it, and so can we. Psychologically, we treat bombing similarly. Where a unit in contact with the enemy will often break at twenty or thirty percent casualties, a unit being bombed often won’t. And breaking doesn’t really have any advantage over dispersing anyways.

But despite strategic bombing’s limitations, people love it anyways. They love the idea that they can win in such a lofty fashion, destroying the enemy without even really engaging with him, just hitting him really, really hard. There’s something viscerally satisfying about it.

That said, even MacArthur, one of the US’s top generals and commander for much of the Korean war, wasn’t a fan of conventional strategic bombing. This is the man who was so in favor of establishing a nuclear wasteland across the North Korean peninsula to block Chinese reinforcements that he was refused control over nuclear missiles despite being one of only five men to ever reach the rank of General of the Army in the US’s history. The man who would later be cashiered by the president for being too bellicose.

At the end of the day, strategic bombing helps. It negatively impacts an enemy’s ability to make war. But it doesn’t win wars by itself. Not unless you’re willing to up the ante to something truly 100% lethal, like a nuclear bomb, and threaten the enemy with total and unstoppable annihilation. That brings things from “the tribe survives” to “this is utterly lethal” in peoples’ underdeveloped subconscious, and is a sufficient shock to end the fighting. At least for a while; the US and USSR showed that even mutual annihilation wasn’t sufficient threat to prevent decades-long conflict, merely enough to limit it to proxies.

Now, if all this applied to relatively squishy non-chakra active infantry, the crucial question became what did I think it was going to do to supersoldiers with illusion decoys, active shields, instant foxholes, and on-demand cover?

In short, I wasn’t optimistic. Sadly, I was in a distinct minority with that opinion.

As Uzushio, we had only really used our aerial assets in one war. During my childhood, in my first year in Konohagakure, a massive coalition had launched the single largest maritime invasion in the Elemental Nations’ history. And our birds, backed up by naval artillery, had shredded them. Subsequently, we used tactical air support to destroy strong-points and aid conventional forces.

Did that make a huge impact? Hell yes.

But it also gave us an unrealistic understanding of how effective air support was. Against wooden sailing ships, which were minimally mobile, highly dense concentrations of targets, air support was utterly dominant. Even with technology advancements, that equation didn’t change too much; in modern Earth, entire fleets were built around aircraft carriers, and aircraft carriers were one of the biggest metrics of naval power in the 21st century (much in the same way dreadnoughts were in the 20th).

We were facing an invasion of hundreds of thousands of infantry, tens of thousands of them chakra active samurai and ninja. The biggest problem with chakra active units was their tendency to use storage scrolls. That meant no fat, slow, road-bound targets to hit and ruin the logistics needed to keep a unit in the field (one of the top applications of widespread strategic bombing), and no significant reduction in mobility by our taking out roads or bridges. To make it worse, they had planned and prepared to counter their understanding of our known capabilities. The situation was more like Korea or Vietnam than some naval battle in the Pacific.

Now, I had done some things to improve that. I’d forseen much of this issue, and designed our aerial assets to operate more like helicopter gunships than bombers. Again though, that role depended on good sight lines, and preferably concentrated enemy forces. In many ways, given the constant cloud and fog cover, we might even perform worse than strategic bombing, and I fully expected Lightning’s forces to go for economic destruction and widespread guerilla operations rather than a straight-up fight.

After all, if I were in charge of Lightning, and looking down the barrel of gradually worsening economic weakness and political irrelevancy, I would do my best to wreck everyone’s economies, and then try and recover somewhat better after negotiating some treaty to end a mutually destructive war.

Now, if only I could get that through these idiots skulls!

“Commander, I designed these weapons. We tested it, and simulated it, and under realistic conditions, we won’t take out a tenth of their chakra forces!”

Saito Uzumaki, commander of the newly established Independent Air Force, glared at me with enough hatred you’d think I’d murdered his child.

“Kazuo-sama, respectfully, I appreciate what the consul to Konohagakure has accomplished,” he started, referring to me in the way least associated with my military talents, “but he just doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Our war-games clearly show an expected destruction or routing of eighty to ninety percent of enemy forces; even in the worst case, we will cause sixty percent casualties. Do not hold us back out of fear!”

“Fear?” I scoffed. “How about wisdom? We will run through months of Uzushiogakure’s chakra production from ammunition expenses, and in the end all we’ll do is embolden the enemy by demonstrating our restrictions! With the next generation of surveillance, and the fire-control networks, it might be different. But as it is, this is just a waste of resources!”

Due to conversational mores about topic relevancy, I hadn’t even been able to present my plan yet. Sometimes traditional, formal, feudal manners were a pain in the ass like that. I’d merely stopped Kazuo-sama from ordering a poorly considered strike due to one man’s enthusiasm. It didn’t help that Saito was close friends with the head of our army, and they shared opinions on military strategy.

“Gentlemen, this is a war-conference. Let us have some civility,” Kazuo-sama interjected. “Fuutaka-san,” he called me, emphasizing my role in the creation of our aerial program, “I understand why you think a mass aerial strike would be ineffective. What would you recommend?”

I grinned, though I wasn’t happy. Finally, I’d be able to present my idea.

“We are presented with an opportunity. Lightning believes they understand the limits of our power. And the rest of the world is watching to see if they are right. But rather than answer the challenge with weapons we’ve already shown, why not use something new? Something that will leave the rest of the world wandering ‘what else do they have in store?’ I have developed a weapon capable of destruction on a massive scale. Originally, I had intended to use it to destroy Kirigakure, but it wasn’t ready in time. I see no reason why Kumogakure might not serve as a demonstration instead.”

It was a pity, but it was necessary. The death of a few armies was inevitable at this point; limiting the war would limit the destruction. Destroying Kumogakure was no great evil; they were unenlightened, vicious, murderous brutes with a penchant for capturing and rape-baby-farming teens with useful blood-limits, and the city itself was a legitimate military target.

On the other hand, fully establishing the Pax Uzumaki could lead the world, or at least our part of it, into a new golden age. In short, the action I was proposing was at least moral in a utilitarian sense.

Further, I was utterly unwilling for this turn into our Vietnam, and it certainly had that possibility without my action. Or worse. Our rule over Water was largely based on improved conditions; high casualties among Uzushiogakure forces, and high demands over our new subjects could result in widespread rebellion and unrest. Something Lightning was likely banking on, and an investment our treaties with Fire Country required. I wouldn’t risk my parents, our cousins, friends, even simple fellow citizens on a conventional war going well. Lightning, after all, had good planners too, and they thought it worth invading.

No, for my family to thrive, Lightning had to fall. Fast, hard, and completely. It was just a bonus that the example would dissuade anyone else from trying the same in the future.

Plus, I’d been stockpiling my updated orbital bombardment seals for years. I kind of wanted to see if it would work as well as I expected.

Kazuo-sama raised an eyebrow. “How much territory would you destroy?”

I took control of the strategic map, and began placing circles. They covered the three largest forts near the border and five secondary ones, the Daimyo’s Court in the capital, and Kumogakure.

“These territories,” I replied. I had more than enough ammunition, after all. I’d long since brought Sachiko and Yasu in on the secret, and regularly used some of my spare chakra when we were travelling to add to my arsenal.

“How sure are you in your success?” Kazuo-sama asked.

I thought for a moment. I had successfully tested one of my kinetic bombardment rods with updated radar spoofing and laser-resistant shields against the ocean, but it was possible the orbital fortress (assuming that was what intervened when I first tried this against Kirigakure) didn’t consider that a threat worth responding to.

“Ninety percent that the technique works, eighty percent that it does as much damage as I’m predicting,” I replied.

“And how long will this take?”

I thought about it. I pretty much just had to enter in the targeting coordinates, send the weapons out on a remote controlled boat in case the fortress decided to return fire, and then send them off.

“An hour,” I replied.

“Very well,” Kazuo-sama allowed. “We will see how effective this new seal is, and then should it prove necessary Commander Saito Uzumaki will lead our Air Force out. Let us reconvene in an hour.”

I bowed. “Thank you, Kazuo-sama.”

Then as the meeting wrapped up, I turned and left.

Back on Earth, the US Strategic Air Command, the organization that held command over both nuclear bombers and ICBMs, had a motto: “Peace is our profession.”

But originally, it was something different: “War is our profession. Peace is our product.”

It was time to make peace.

==================================

The impact was impressive, but less so than many seal-based fireworks. Oh, the rods were loaded up with chakra, and exploded nicely, but there wasn’t the panache, the beautifully organized destruction I’d grown used to seeing.

Instead, it was just a series of really big bangs, and huge clouds of dust and smoke. Between the seals they were loaded with and the shear kinetic energy, each rod hit with energy equivalent to about a twenty ton TNT explosion, with most of the energy focused to go horizontally rather than vertically.

Their armies largely destroyed, the strongest concentration of their ninja scoured from the earth, and their bureaucracy crippled, Lightning faced a grim choice. They could continue to fight, in which case we threatened unrestricted bombardment similar to what had effectively already defeated them. Or they could surrender unconditionally.

They chose surrender.

But it did put us in a bit of an awkward situation. Whirlpool was already fairly extended just dealing with Water Country. Further, humanity needs foes to conquer, places to adventure. And in a generation’s time, if Lightning did get parceled between Fire and Whirlpool, and our alliance stayed strong, we’d be collectively so strong that the rest of the Elemental Countries couldn’t withstand us. Long term, that meant stagnation, civil strife and internal conflict.

So rather than let Fire take over, we created the Grand Pact. An agreement between Whirlpool-Water, Fire, and all their respective allies and protectorates. This agreement balkanized Lightning over various cultural and geographical boundaries, creating twenty six new states. They were forbidden from establishing any mercenary armies, which would prevent their having a strong ninja system (unless fully funded and supported by taxes, but that was unlikely). They were required to have free trade, and allow free passage of Pact traders (though they could charge the same tolls they charged their own citizens). And the borders were static; furthermore, no individual could rule land within more than one of the new countries.

The former Land of Lightning would have a ninja system, jointly administered and staffed by the Grand Pact. This would put our ninja in contact with each other, hopefully building cross-border friendships and making war less likely in the future. It was all very “Allies occupy Western Germany.” But it would also allow for adventurism within well defined limits. The national equivalent of individuals taking up paint-ball, or perhaps dueling, rather than full on war.

Lightning’s Bijuu were processed by Uzushiogakure, getting the same seals that protected the three-tails from outside interference before being turned loose under parole not to destroy human areas without first consulting Grand Pact and Uzushio forces. Our sealing department estimated that the damage to the dimensional fabric from chakra imbalance had at the least stabilized, and would likely begin to improve as more Bijuu were protected and freed.

Finally, the Grand Pact declared a policy that the act of any nation succeeding or attempting to develop a superweapon without Pact permission to be causus belli, and in and of itself justifying preventative strikes by Pact superweapons. That was something I insisted on. There would be no analogue to the USSR’s development of the atom bomb and ensuing decades long threat to existence.

In return, the Pact agreed not to deploy superweapons without agreement from both Whirlpool-Water and Fire Countries, though I retained the ability to deploy the superweapons which I had already produced. This part of the agreement, something that was meant to be secret, leaked, earning me a nice, fat “flee on sight” in the Bingo books. No one was going to risk my annoyance if I survived a fight with their forces, and no one was going to bet that strongly against my survival given that it was widely known I’d beaten Hatake Sakumo in a sword-fight for my jonin promotion.

Honestly, I’d had Thor II seals working for years. I wasn’t some bloody handed war-monger, and I did have self control. It was just that I also had a very healthy desire for peace.

But if it kept the enemies at bay, I wouldn’t complain.

For all the death and suffering, I was sure it would lead to a brighter future.

And if nothing else, at least it got me off of shipping contracts duty.