Recently I read a chapter from Mike Davis' Dead Cities that reminded me of part of Errol Morris' documentary The Fog of War. They both talk about the use of firebombs in World War II: bombs designed not to destroy military compounds but rather to destroy dense, urban civilian populations in order to weaken the morale of the enemy.
Here they both are, fascinating glimpses of history that show war becoming distilled from the unimaginably terrible horror that it is into statistics and ratings of efficiency.