What Does Society Truly Think About The Ethics of War?

Here are some of my thoughts on the book, The Bomber Mafia, by Malcolm Gladwell.

Gladwell, M. (2021). The Bomber Mafia: A dream, a temptation, and the longest night of the Second World War. Little, Brown and Company.

The Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell

Is war acceptable? This is one of the most thrilling yet puzzling questions that have haunted

philosophers, students, and shower thoughts for hundreds, if not thousands of years. According to the Just War theory, the inherently unethical idea of mass killing is only acceptable when there are significant ethical reasons that justify it. But who determines what is ethical enough? Still, this question haunts us to this day. The Bomber Mafia, written by Malcolm Gladwell in 2021, explores a different question. Can and should the inherently unethical idea of war, or mass killing, be made more ethical if more lives are preserved? To explore this, Gladwell covers events in World War II (1939-1945) through an ethics lens. Gladwell covers anecdotes from naval bases in Guam to bombings in London in order to look at the costs and benefits of differing priorities in war. Through the examination of Hayward Hansell and Curtis E. Lemay, Gladwell shows how wartime ethics are shaped by a conflict between doing what is morally right and doing what gets results, concluding that society has shown to reward those who win, not those who try to fight ethically.

Haywood Hansell (1903-1988)

Hayward Hansell embodied the ideals of the Bomber Mafia which prioritized precision and protecting civilian lives even at the expense of military effectiveness. Hansell believed that bombing ought to be…focused on civilian targets—not civilians,” sticking to the Norden Bombsight despite its ineffectiveness in Germany where 0.04% bombs hit the intended target (p. 104). Gladwell writes: “Hansell tried to fight a moral war” (p. 198). Despite growing pressures from higher-ups to abandon the Norden Bombsight, Hansell stood strong. The Norden Bombsight was more than just a machine; it was a symbol of the country’s moral commitment in times of war. By abandoning it, he would be folding under the pressures of others at the expense of his morality and humanity. While this showed a high commitment to his moral compass, it led to an overwhelming failure of the Twenty-First Bomber Command and the loss of many US lives. Instead, his ideals were pushed aside for tangible results.

Curtis LeMay (1906-1990)

Once Curtis Lemay replaced Hayward Hansell, he abandoned all moral goals of precision

bombing in favor of swift and destructive results, even if that meant killing innocent civilians and risking his own soldiers. LeMay’s first mission was the infamous firebombing of Tokyo that killed over 100,000 civilians in one night. A report concludes that “more persons lost their lives by fire in Tokyo in a six-hour period than at any time in the history of man” (p. 185). This marked a pivotal moral shift in the Bomber Command and set a precedent to reject the Bomber Mafia’s ideals. It ended up being the key turning point, as Japan surrendered months later. While it was certainly effective, it came at a staggering risk and even greater cost. LeMay later said, “What choice [did] I have?...I had to produce [results],” admitting that he didn’t sleep that night because “a lot could [have gone] wrong” (p. 181). It is often overlooked that LeMay put his soldiers at risk. If he had lost his soldiers, he would be the one responsible for these deaths and the failure of the whole B-29 program. However, if the plan succeeded, which it did, many innocent lives would be lost. It reveals LeMay’s pragmatic, decisive, and result-driven approach to war, despite the potential of failure. LeMay chose results over morality, which history ended up rewarding him for. 

The legacies of Curtis LeMay and Hayward Hansell highlights how society rewards tangible achievements no matter the ethical cost. In 1964, LeMay was awarded the highest honor given to a foreigner by the Japanese government, crediting him for “rebuilding the Japanese Air Force” because he was able to end the war quickly (p. 197). This honor is particularly striking considering that LeMay was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians. He was not only celebrated by the United States but also by the very nation he cruelly burned to ashes. Meanwhile, Hansell, who fought to carry out a moral form of warfare, had slow and ineffective strategies, was replaced, and ultimately faded into obscurity. Gladwell drives the point home when he writes, “We don’t give prizes to people who fail at their given tasks, no matter how noble their intentions, do we? To the victor go the spoils” (p. 198). 

In The Bomber Mafia, Gladwell uses the contrasting visions of Hayward Hansell and Curtis E. Lemay to explore how wartime ethics are remembered. While Hansell was committed to fighting morally through the Norden bombsight, LeMay sacrificed morality to produce results. Ultimately, LeMay is honored and remembered for helping the US win and bringing the war to an end, while Hansell quietly was forgotten. This reveals how society celebrates those who succeed and produce tangible results, despite their questionable moral intentions. This idea extends far beyond war. In business, politics, technology, and even in the classroom, effectiveness is often rewarded over integrity. Gladwell forces us to check ourselves: do we truly honor ethics, or is only valued when success isn’t part of the equation? Morality shows us how to be good people. If we only value success, we risk losing our humanity and the pursuit of becoming our best selves.

Some final thoughts:

Something I struggle to grasp with is this: Was LeMay a courageous leader who made a brutal but necessary decision, or did he truly compromise human values in the name of efficiency? While nothing will justify LeMay’s actions, I would argue that LeMay was more courageous than Hansell. Hansell might have failed, but the protection of his morality was guaranteed. The protection of his morality came at the expense of many US soldiers and a prolonged war. LeMay’s approach was more selfless because his morality would be lost whether he won or lost (because it was either his soldiers or Japanese civilians that would die). If the Japan mission failed, he wouldn’t have gotten any results either. In Poker terms, Hansell only played half his chips by choosing to protect a part of himself, while LeMay went all in. It just so happened that LeMay won big, while Hansell lost the half of the chips he bet. LeMay won by making a brutal decision where he was the aggresor—stripping him of morality, but maybe it was necessary to end the war, which protected the US and Japan from losing more lives.