6 - The changing logic of US air warfare

Summary

This chapter seeks to establish whether and how target selection actually changed over the period under investigation. I do not enquire into the role of IL in determining what kinds of targets were selected for attack. In other words this chapter is not about the legal definition of a legitimate target. It examines what US decision-makers considered legitimate targets of attack and what they hence chose to bomb. Did their conception of a legitimate target of attack develop between 1965 and 2003?

North Vietnam between 1965 and 1972

Between 13 February 1965 and 31 October 1968, the Johnson administration conducted a sustained air campaign against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, dubbed Operation Rolling Thunder (ORT). The aim was to interrupt the flow of material and personnel from the North to the South, where it supported an insurgency against the US-backed government. After a pause in the bombing for roughly four years, the Nixon administration responded to a military offensive by the North against the South with OLB I. It lasted from 8 May to 22 October 1972. Following another much briefer interruption, President Nixon ordered the resumption of the air war on 15 December. An ultimatum the US had given the Democratic Republic of Vietnam to re-engage in peace negotiations had just passed. This latter phase of the air war is known as the Christmas Bombing or OLB II. What did the US target during these five years of waging war from the air against North Vietnam?