Giulio Douhet has long been acknowledged as one of the world's foremost airpower theorists. His insights into the use of the airplane in war, and his predictions on the form future wars would take, were among the first to be clearly articulated and presented to the public. Yet, he remains an elusive and vaguely understood figure. Only a handful of his many dozens of works have been translated into English, and very little is known about his personal and professional life. Moreover, analysis of Douhet's works is not only dated—the excellent study by Bernard Brodie was published over three decades ago—but gives undue emphasis to the issue of nuclear weapons and their effect on Douhet's ideas. It is necessary to reassess his theories in the light of modern war, whose dominant characteristics are not nuclear weapons, but precision munitions, stealth technology, rapidity of application, and the ability to strike at great range. The Gulf War would seem to indicate that Douhet's arguments regarding the dominance of airpower in modern war may at last have some validity.
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