Contemporary interstate warfare increasingly includes leadership decapitation. By testing influential airpower theories on Israel’s 2025 war on Iran, John Warden’s and to some extent Robert Pape’s explanatory powers on such warfare are examined, and to various degrees reasserted. By processtracing causal mechanisms within each theory, the conception of air power as a strategic tool is strengthened. Furthermore, decapitation emerges as a relevant mechanism. While significant for war studies, this finding also addresses the International Relations discipline, where leadership decapitation predominantly is regarded as an uncertain or counterproductive strategy based on research on terror organisations.
Beyond its academic value, this study also demonstrates how air power theory and leadership decapitation can be taken into account in future interstate warfare.