In Fahrenheit 451, why was the city bombed?

In Fahrenheit 451, there is some sort of war going on between two factions (Montag’s society and another), and the reader knows very little about why they are fighting.  There are only a few mentions of the war in the novel.  Some examples of where we see the impact of the war is a radio report that war can be declared any day; jets going over the city every day and making the firehouse...

In Fahrenheit 451, there is some sort of war going on between two factions (Montag’s society and another), and the reader knows very little about why they are fighting.  There are only a few mentions of the war in the novel.  Some examples of where we see the impact of the war is a radio report that war can be declared any day; jets going over the city every day and making the firehouse “tremble”; and finally, at the end of the novel when Montag’s city is bombed and Montag sees the jets from the hobo camp he has joined.

Bradbury keeps the reason for the war secret perhaps in an attempt to let us see just how far this society has fallen.  People in this society seem very unconcerned about the war; it appears to be just another thing they put up with and don’t even notice.  In addition, the novel was published in 1953 during the Cold War.  Nuclear war was a real threat to people in the United States, and perhaps Bradbury is proposing that we don’t be complacent in its seriousness. 

I’ve always imagined that the war is being fought between Montag’s dystopian society and those who want to change it back to a society of individuality and freedom.  However, there’s no evidence to this in the novel, but it would have been a great idea for a second book about Montag.