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Notes -
I don't want to be class reductivist. But no shit it's not a mainstay of warfare - because the methods and norms of warfare are set by the ruling elites and they obviously don't want to be in the firing line of reciprocal action. Do you think the 50,000 American guys that died in Vietnam would have preferred a series of assassination attempts on leadership or key figures to stem the spread of communism, even if it meant that Kissinger or William Rogers might have their cars blown up (I have no evidence or intuition that this would me more effective, nor do I intend to defend that position), or would the ungentlemanly breaking of norms upset them too much?
I think this is a bit orthogonal to the topic, though. "Decapitating enemy leadership" has arguably always been a "legitimate" (insofar as such things can be "legitimate" when you go down to the level of primitive, tribal tit-for-tat) strategy in warfare. The rebel army seeks to overthrow the Emperor, killing him if necessary; the Emperor is in his right to demand the rebel leader's head on a pike; rival kingdoms are perfectly fine with the enemy bloodline being extirpated, and so on. Consider the Ferguson, the 18-Century rifle that could have been used to assassinate George Washington.
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