Born in Caserta, Campania, Italy, from a family of Savoyard exiles who had migrated there after the cession of Savoy to France[2] he attended the Military Academy of Modena and was commissioned into the artillery of the Italian Army in 1882.

Douhet wrote a report on the aviation lessons learned in which he suggested high altitude bombing should be the primary role of aircraft.

[4]: 3  In 1912, Douhet assumed command of the Italian aviation battalion at Turin and wrote a set of Rules for the Use of Airplanes in War (Regole per l'uso degli aeroplani in guerra) — one of the first doctrine manuals of its kind.

The same year, he completed a hugely-influential treatise on strategic bombing, The Command of the Air (Il dominio dell'aria), and retired from military service soon after.

Except for a few months as the head of aviation in Benito Mussolini's government in 1922, Douhet spent much of the rest of his life theorizing about the impact of military air power.

Armies became superfluous because aircraft could overfly them and attack these centers of the government, military and industry with impunity, a principle later called "The bomber will always get through".

[6] The chief strategy laid out in his writings, the Douhet model, is pivotal in debates regarding the use of air power and bombing campaigns.

The Douhet model rests on the belief that in a conflict, the infliction of high costs from aerial bombing can shatter civilian morale.

By smothering the enemy's civilian centers with bombs, Douhet argued the war would become so terrible that the common people would rise against their government, overthrow it with revolution, then sue for peace.

On a tactical level he advocated using three types of bombs in quick succession; explosives to destroy the target, incendiaries to ignite the damaged structures, and poison gas to keep firefighters and rescue crews away.

Though the initial response to The Command of the Air was muted, the second edition generated virulent attacks from his military peers, particularly those in the navy and army.

In "Rivista Aeronautica" in July 1928, he wrote that he believed that 300 tons of bombs over the most important cities would end a war in less than a month.