Jane-DoH:-
, "the Strategic Bombing of cities happened because it could happen"
Actually that sounds suspiciously similar to my motto which is a variation of Murphy's law: If it can go bad, it will go bad; if it does go bad, it will do so in the worst possible way.
and your response sounds suspiciously like passing the buck. The modern bomber (as was in 1939/45) existed, it had been invented, it was where technology had got to, it was a fact! The RAF first tried to use it in the way that you would insist upon, used by day to attack pinpoint military targets. It was suicidal, mainly because the modern monoplane cannon equipped fighter also existed. In one raid alone all 11 aircraft were shot down. The solution, as our own fighters lacked the range to escort our bombers to strategic enemy targets, was to fly at night. Immediately there was a problem, pinpoint enemy targets could no longer be located let alone destroyed. The only targets that could be located, ie navigated to, were enemy cities which contained vital communications and production centres. They also of course housed the workers that manned those facilities. Striking at cities would thus disrupt the enemy war effort. Blaming all that on Douhet and/or Trenchard and/or Mitchell is up to you. Personally I see it as a fait accompli, we turned to area bombing because that was the only way to take the war to the enemy. You don't win wars by picking at the periphery, but by going for the jugular. It's crude, it's inhumane, it's war! I was one of the children that you see as victims in that cruel calculation. My mother, alone as most were because their men were at war, moved us from Clacton, where German bombers tended to coast in to follow the Thames to London and to often jettison their bombs there if having to abort their missions, to Bournemouth just in time for the tip and run raids of the Fw190's;-) Again, like many others, her man didn't come back and she had to carry on alone. There are no nice wars, 20 million Russians died in WWII, and unknown millions more Chinese. War is hell, not just for soldiers but for all. In many ways that has been our salvation, that "MAD" kept the peace through the Cold War for fear of the effects of a Hot one! I doubt if our luck will hold forever, and as we know all too well the "limited" wars continue unchecked. No doubt the perspective is different on the otherside of the pond as your homeland was hit by nothing more than paper balloon bombs, but I would remind you that substantially more hardware was being developed in Germany to correct that anomaly. If the Russians had not prevailed at Kursk, if the Western Allies had not got ashore on D-Day, that anomaly would have probably been corrected. Both successes can be attributed to the round the clock bombing of Germany. Ponder upon the thought of a dirty radiation bomb or two dropped on New York and other East Coast cities and perhaps the efficacy of winning the war in Europe ASAP can be better appreciated.