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Article: Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War.
- Article from:
- American Political Science Review
- Article date:
- June 1, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Cambridge University Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Stephen A. Garrett, Monterey Institute of International Studies
The famous Italian air power theorist, Giulio Douhet, writing in the years after World War I, confidently predicted that at the outbreak of the next great war, a massive aerial bombing attack on an enemy civilian population would be enough in itself to induce surrender: "To put an end to horror and suffering, the people themselves, driven by the instinct of self-preservation, would rise up and demand an end to the war" (Command of the Air, 1942). The British head of Bomber Command in World War II, Sir Arthur Harris, echoed Douhet's theory when he argued (in December 1943) that a continuation and expansion ...