Hi.
Strategic bombing is necessary, no doubt. It´s just a queston of what targets are struck.
Early war strategic bombardments mainly hit infrastructural, industry and military targets. There were terror attacks on urban areas, too, but they were few. Such bombardments could collapse all war efforts, see Battle of Britain.
Total destruction of urban areas in combat areas were often problematic as the enemy can often defend better in debris areas, see Stalingrad, Caen, Monte Cassino, Jülich.
Late war bombardments of enemy towns should lower the enemy´s will to continue fighting. This concept doesn´t work very well.
Most conventional bombardments in 1945 were “we have bought the bombs so let´s use them, we won´t need them after the war” and almost senseless (My hometown was bombed that way in late March 1945. Only “military” target was a hospital taken over by the Wehrmacht. The hospital and also the bridge over the local river weren´t hit, not even near. 90% of the buildings were hit, 5000 civillians died that day.)
The atomic bombs are a different thing. I´m still not sure if they were really necessary. Maybe they saves millons of japanese civillians from starving in an ongoing war with a total blockade of Japan and many thousands (maybe also more than a million) of allied and japanese soldiers lives.
Yours
tom!