The present chapter aims to provide an overview of what can be described as the “mainstream approach” towards dual-use objects, focussing on two selected air campaigns that took place in the aftermath of WWII, i.e. the First Gulf War in 1991 and the NATO bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) in 1999. As is well known, the affirmation of the supremacy of air power in the twentieth century changed the reality of war and drastically transformed the dynamics of warfare. This evolution fuelled and was fuelled by the notion that targeting national infrastructures represents an effective way to attack the enemy from the “inside out”, as advocated by the famous “Five Strategic Rings” theory developed by Colonel Warden. The implementation of this theory, which was tested during the First Gulf War and the NATO bombardment, results in a significant tension between IHL’s key tenets and military strategies. The tension emerges between the (alleged) strategic value of hitting key infrastructures and the negative humanitarian impact that those military operations have on civilian life-support systems. After introducing and discussing the militarisation of civilian activities, as an essential precondition to the targeting of dual-use objects, the present chapter will reflect on the two selected examples and the theory that informed the choices made in both contexts, analysing the extent to which they have contributed to cementing the current, and still mainstream, approach to dual-use objects.