Above (L to R): Stephen Scherr of Goldman Sachs and author Malcolm Gladwell
Beware the law of unintended consequences, warns best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell. In a recent episode of
Talks at GS, Stephen Scherr, Goldman Sachs’ chief financial officer, spoke with Gladwell about his new book,
The Bomber Mafia. It tells the story of a small band of idealistic military strategists, who pioneered the use of precision bombing during World War II in the false hope that they could make war less lethal. “They felt they could make the rest of the war machine obsolete,” said Gladwell. “If you had bombers that could put bombs wherever they wanted, you wouldn’t need armies. You wouldn’t need infantry, you wouldn’t need tanks, jeeps, ships, the Marine Corps wouldn’t need nothing except for bombers.” But the realities of combat had a logic of their own. This one innovation in aerial warfare led to the deadliest and most destructive bombing raids in world history, killing