March 11 (UPI) -- Donald Trump has called for Iran's "unconditional surrender" in the war. He has demanded that he be allowed to choose the next leader. And Trump has told Iran's military and security forces to "lay down their arms," or be killed.
The decisive force is the missile and bombing campaign conducted jointly with Israel meant to compel the Iranian leadership to capitulate. This is known as "strategic bombing." And only once in history has strategic bombing forced surrender.
The history of strategic bombing dates to World War I. German Gotha bombers and Zeppelins attacked London, causing panic, marking the first major use of strategic bombing.
In the 1920s, Italian strategist Giulio Douhet described the theory of using air power to deliver victory from the skies, obviating the need for large land armies and navies. Douhet saw that the use of poison gas, the first weapon of mass destruction, would be so deadly as to produce surrender.
"In 1921, Brig. Gen. Billy Mitchell of the U.S. Army Air Service demonstrated the power of air attack by sinking the German battleship Ostfriesland, demonstrating the vulnerability of warships to air power. Of course, the U.S. Navy protested. But all the major powers began to investigate the utility of strategic bombing.
