[hollerith]

>The goal will be extracting a political surrender by the government . . . terrorizing the populace and inflicting mass misery is the most effective means of pressuring the government.

That didn't work on Germany or Japan in WWII. (Bombing had an effect, but the effect was mainly to degrade the enemy's ability to manufacture weapons, produce fuels and lubricants and move things around.)

[fnordpiglet]

Except for the two nuclear bombs dropped on cities?

[hollerith]

OK, but if the nukes are what persuaded Tokyo to surrender, it did so after Tokyo lost almost all of its warships and stopped having enough fuel for its warplanes and started having so much difficulty importing things by sea or by air that there was no hope at all of their continuing to run an industrial economy and would be lucky to manage to continue to feed most of their population.