This volume brings together prominent military historians, practitioners, civilian and military legal experts, political scientists, philosophers, and anthropologists to explore the evolution of ethical and legal norms governing air warfare.

Introduction: The American Way of Bombing by Matthew EvangelistaPart I. Historical and Theoretical Perspectives1. Strategic Bombardment: Expectation, Theory, and Practice in the Early Twentieth Century by Tami Davis Biddle2. Bombing Civilians after World War II: The Persistence of Norms against Targeting Civilians in the Korean War by Sahr Conway-Lanz3. Targeting Civilians and U.S. Strategic Bombing Norms: Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose? by Neta C. Crawford4. The Law Applies, But Which Law?: A Consumer Guide to the Laws of War by Charles GarrawayPart II. Interpreting, Criticizing, and Creating Legal Restrictions5. Clever or Clueless?: Observations about Bombing Norm Debates by Charles J. Dunlap Jr.6. The American Way of Bombing and International Law: Two Logics of Warfare in Tension by Janina Dill7. Force Protection, Military Advantage, and "Constant Care" for Civilians: The 1991 Bombing of Iraq by Henry Shue8. Civilian Deaths and American Power: Three Lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan by Richard W. MillerPart III. Constructing New Norms9. Proportionality and Restraint on the Use of Force: The Role of Nongovernmental Organizations by Margarita H. Petrova10. Toward an Anthropology of Drones: Remaking Space, Time, and Valor in Combat by Hugh Gusterson11. What’s Wrong with Drones?: The Battlefield in International Humanitarian Law by Klem Ryan12. Banning Autonomous Killing: The Legal and Ethical Requirement That Humans Make Near-Time Lethal Decisions by Mary Ellen O’ConnellNotes List of Contributors Index

The American Way of Bombing: Changing Ethical and Legal Norms, From Flying Fortresses to Drones, edited by Matthew Evangelista and Henry Shue, brings together an array of historians, practitioners, and legal experts from both the military and civilian worlds. Overall, the volume is balanced and the authors engage with logic and consistency. This collection is a vital resource for military professionals, policymakers, and scholars alike. Unfortunately, the challenges of norm-setting in aerial warfare chronicled here are far from over and likely to become even more contentious in light of ongoing military and counterterrorist operations across the globe and in the face of rapid technological change.

This ambitious volume explores the evolution of tactics, tools, and, most important, attitudes toward aerial bombardment and its effects over the last century from the perspective of the country that has done most to shape these developments—the United States. The result is an impressive multidisciplinary collection that makes a genuinely useful contribution to debates about understanding, creating, and changing norms in warfare.