Andy and I have written about the origins of “vulnerability thinking” and many dimensions of vital systems security in total war and strategic bombing. In reading Churchill’s “Their Finest Hour,” the second volume of his four-volume series of World War II, I came across a couple interesting nuggets along these lines. In World War II, concern with vital systems was essential to strategic thought on both sides, and at certain points was the dominant consideration. After the fall of France, when Hitler turned his attention to Britain, there was a kind of military stalemate, or at least a situation in which neither side could turn its major strength on the other. The overwhelmingly dominant German army was prevented from invasion across the channel by British naval dominance. Churchill claims that he never believed that Germany could launch a successful invasion. As a consequence, the major concerns revolved around attacks on vital systems. Churchill writes that he considered German u-boat attacks on shipping to be the most serious strategic threat, and the Germans engaged in various forms of terror bombing and strategic bombing during the Battle of Britain, particularly on major centers of industrial production (particularly aircraft production — which seems to have been rather concentrated). Churchill also has some very interesting things to say about vital systems and civil defense, among which the following about preparations for a German invasion. Note the interesting use of quotes around ‘vulnerable points’ — perhaps it was something of a neologism at the time:
Obstacles were placed on many thousand square miles of Britain to impede the landing of air-borne troops. All our aerodromes, radar stations, and fuel depots…needed defence by special garrisons and by their own airmen. Many thousands of ‘vulnerable points’ — bridges, power-stations, depots, vital factories, and the like — had to be guarded day and night from sabotage or sudden onset….The destruction of port facilities, the cratering of key roads, the paralysis of motor transport and of telephones and telegraph stations, of rolling stock or permanent way, before they passed out of our hands were planned to the last detail. Yet, despite all these wise and necessary precautions…there was no question of a scorched earth policy. England was to be defended by its people, not destroyed (p. 177).
Hmmm, trying to process this one. I’ve also (recently) read Churchill’s masterful, if overwrought, history as he saw it of Britain and WWII. Although I believe you in claiming that Churchill (somewhere) stated that Germany could never launch a successful invasion, I do remember him discussing it as a very distinct possibility — so much so that Britain’s war effort after Dunkirk revolved around a massive build up of a civilian/military defense infrastructure that could repel an invasion. My recollection of Churchill’s thoughts on the matter was that Germany *could* very well have brought England to its knees had it “only” had the shipping and air support necessary for such an operation.
As for the Battle of Britain, I am even more clear on the matter of Germany’s quite effective attacks — in the Battle’s initial stages — on Britain’s tactical air squadrons. In hindsight it appears that Germany erred in not continuing the attack on those targets; one book I read recently suggested that had Germany pressed *that* fight even for just another few weeks — England may have succumbed.
The point in engaging with these details of military history — or at least, my memory of military history through the eyes of the more well-known scholars on the topic — is that the choice to bomb “vulnerable targets” was as much a matter of Hitler’s whims as of strategic necessity. I believe, but I’m not 100% positive, that Hitler decided to send bombers to raze cities to terrorize the population as much as destroy aircraft making capacity, etc. etc. — which in any event was largely ineffective as England’s production steadily rose throughout the war.
The bigger point, if I even have one here(!), is: is a politico-military concern with degrading/destroying roads, bridges, ports, telephone relays, etc., usefully understood through the lens of ‘vital systems’? It seems to me that (a) one can go back decades/generations/centuries of warfighting to find military concerns with contemporaneously understood “critical infrastructures” — something not limited to WWII (although I’m not suggesting Stephen you think this is limited to WWII). Air power, perhaps, is a critical technology to understand how these technological systems came to be seen as “critical” — in the sense that: they could be reached (by bombers) and destroyed, which would adversely impact the war effort… hence critical. Raw materials of various kinds were also considered “critical” — I think Churchill himself documents which materials were understood to be central to the war effort, and suggests that their availability globally impacted strategic decisions in the war.
I’d be interested in tracing back in further detail how these kinds of objects and their systems of production and circulation came to be seen/understood as critical, as well as delimit and define the nature and extent of this ‘criticality.’