It was a show of force, an attempt to crush morale through the dying nation likely in the hope of ending the war a little sooner. Heavily bombing Serbia led to the rise of a rebellion and the fall of Milosevic. While the event was an inescapable tragedy, this was a time of massive war and destruction, death and massacre. To ask this is to ask whether the nuclear attacks on Japan were really necessary. They killed many innocents and severely injured countless more, but they helped end the power through a show of massive force.
No. It isn't. The Japanese were still more than capable of putting up a fight, and very much intended to.
I had a feeling that, at some point, someone would try to draw that comparison, but it doesn't work. At all.
Absolutely. Japan didn't want to surrender even after we nuked Hiroshima. They were still capable of putting up a hell of a fight, & would continue to be unless we took radical measures to stop them. Bombing Dresden was completely useless except for increasing the body count, though.
