The roots of Donald Trump's military strategy against Iran and the rhetoric of his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, can be traced back 105 years to an Italian general named Giulio Douhet. In 1921, Douhet published 'The Command of the Air,' proposing a revolution in warfare through large-scale aerial bombardments targeting civilians and infrastructure, not just combatants. His theories emphasized destroying morale by attacking 'eggs and nests'—a grim metaphor for civilian targets.
Douhet's ideas influenced Hitler's air campaigns and later attracted US strategists like Gen Curtis LeMay, who oversaw the firebombing of Japanese cities and nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Today, Hegseth's briefings on 'Epic Fury'—the air war against Iran—echo Douhet's focus on overwhelming force. Hegseth has promised 'the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history,' claiming quantity has a quality of its own, with record numbers of sorties and bomber pulses.
Despite Hegseth's claims of innovation, critics see a recycled pattern from past conflicts like Desert Storm and the 1999 Serbia campaign. Winslow Wheeler, a former GAO official, notes that while technology advances, human nature remains unchanged. Bombing often builds resistance rather than breaking will, as seen when German attacks on British civilians united the population rather than weakening resolve.
Hegseth has also echoed Douhet's focus on breaking civilian morale, urging Iranians to 'take advantage of this incredible opportunity' to change their leadership. However, Wheeler argues that the style is merely less polite than predecessors, not substantively different. The delusion of easy victory from the air, he suggests, may have seduced the US into another protracted conflict.
