Page 9 - Airpower in 20th Century - Doctrines and Employment

9

Matteo Paesano *
1

irplanes were first used in an actual war just one hundred years ago, dur-
ing the conflict that opposed Italy to the Ottoman Empire ending with the
A conquest of Libya.
Not even eight years after the historic first flight at Kitty Hawk, the invention of
the Wright Brothers was introduced into modern warfare, bringing about a dramatic
change, as confirmed by the subsequent events of World War I. In addiction to this,
the Italian General Giulio Douhet was the first to understand and theorize, at the
beginning of the XX Century, the strategic and fundamental role of Air force would
play in the coming wars.
Given this kind of double Italian primacy it was quite obvious for the International
Commission of Military History (ICMH) to task the Italian Commission of Military
History (CISM) with publishing a monographic issue of its Review completely de-
voted to air power in the XX century. The prompt and eager support expressed by
individual National Commissions, that I would like to thank most warmly for their
cooperation, besides being a clear evidence of the fruitful international cooperation
in the study and analysis of military history, gave us the opportunity to bring together
quite a number of high ranking scholars. In their essays they have illustrated various
experiences and concepts on the matter of air power, as they took place and devel-
oped in individual countries during the last century. To this regard, it is a great pleas-
ure for me to stress how various scholars have recognised the pivotal role played by
Giulio Douhet in the development of modern military thought.
In this context the Italian Commission of Military History, in cooperation with
the Air Force Historical Studies Branch, whose personnel have commendably edited
this work, and under the supervision of Professor Massimo de Leonardis, has now
the opportunity and the honour to issue a deep and extensive work on this subject,
drawing a comprehensive analysis of a very important historical and military event,
i.e. the operational employment of air power.
Now that the unyielding confrontation between the Eastern and the Western
blocks is part of history, in order to adapt itself to new operational environments
(Gulf, former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.), air power had to change accord-
ingly and extend its scope to a point that, today, it would be more correct to identify
it as “aerospace power”. I am convinced that this issue of the International Review
of Military History is not only an opportunity to know some important events of the

*1 Col. E.I., President CISM.