Kill Chain

February 16, 2015
To military planners, drone warfare makes a lot of sense and embodies the "enduringly desirable attributes of âspeed, range, precision, and lethality'": it requires fewer troops on the ground, has the opportunity to kill only targeted individuals, andâtheoreticallyâdoesn't require a lengthy campaign. Yet as national security specialist Cockburn (Rumsfeld) shows in this history of the practice, the grim reality is often anything but. Cockburn's contacts in the military apparatus allow him to describe a program rooted in emotional button-pushing over the war on terror that was riddled with egos, overzealous commanders, dead civilians, and lucrative government contracts for a weapon whose performance was often less accurate than promised. Troublingly, Cockburn says, taking out a high-ranking targetâa primary goal of drone warfareâoften creates a power vacuum. As an intelligence officer noted of the situation in Iraq: "We kept decapitating the leadership of these groups, and more leaders would just appear from the ranks to take their place." The program and its effectsâboth intended and notâare ripe for a takedown and Cockburn admirably explains the strategies, intentions, and emotions that continue to surround the program. As he says in the book's closing chapter, whether it's working or not, "the assassination machine is here to stay."

January 1, 2015
An examination of the rise of the present generation of killing machines, antiseptic and seemingly inescapable.It's not just the technology that makes a difference on the modern battlefield. It is, by Harper's Washington editor Cockburn's (Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy, 2007, etc.) account, the development of a doctrine that augments-and sometimes replaces-the old order of battle with the notion that enemy leaders are objects fit for assassination, adding a necessarily political dimension to the military one. This shift was marked, Cockburn writes, in the Kosovo War, when Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, a "high-value target," became a candidate for execution from afar: "Assassination, officially forbidden and always denied, was still in the shadows but edging ever closer toward public respectability." Arguably, it's still disreputable, but assassination happens all the same, as witness the demise of Osama bin Laden and, less notoriously, the recent deaths of several ISIS commanders in Syria. Cockburn carefully charts the rise of the new doctrine and its supporting scholarship. It was anthropologists, for instance, who provided rationale for the unseemly bombing of Muammar Qaddafi's family compounds, killing his sons and grandchildren, on the grounds that "in Bedouin culture, Qaddafi would be diminished as a leader if he could not protect his immediate family." Given that current Army doctrine, developed by the enthusiastic counterinsurgency fighter David Petraeus, has a section on targeting enemies for elimination-and given that current political doctrine allows the killing of anyone who even resembles a terrorist-it appears that we'll have to shelve any remaining romantic ideas of single combat and get used to war by murder. Sharp-eyed and disturbing, especially Cockburn's concluding assessment that, nourished by an unending flow of money, "the assassination machine is here to stay."

COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

February 1, 2015
Cockburn, Washington editor for Harper's, delivers an unflattering critique of the U.S. military's reliance on advanced technology, from remote-controlled drones to databases to complex fighter planes, rather than on boots-on-the-ground presence and simpler, less expensive, often more manageable hardware. He details the terrible collateral damage from misfiresone group of more than 30 Afghan civilians killed or wounded by U.S. gunfire after being wrongly identified via drone, for instanceand ruinously counterproductive competition among the services for a share of a humongous military pie. As an anonymous officer described now-retired air force general David Deptula, More than Russians or Chinese or Al Queda or anybody else, Deptula's main enemy was the United States Army, and after that the Marine Corps, and after that the Navy. A report that is both enlivening and terribly troubling.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

Starred review from March 1, 2015

Drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), have actually been around for several decades, but have gained notoriety in the past ten years for their use in attacking hard-to-reach, high-priority human targets. While this form of warfare undoubtedly saves some American lives and is easier to stage than sending in the troops, the civilian toll from the strikes seems to drive more people to oppose the United States. Cockburn (Washington editor, Harper's Magazine; Rumsfeld) has experience with political/defense topics, and he writes about the development of another expensive, advanced technology weapons program, which companies and the military love. He critiques a common misperception that if one can only take out the most important targets, then the enemy will collapse; enemies always appear to have a way of adapting, he notes. The other misconception is that technology can defeat human will, even though history has plenty of counter examples (e.g., the Vietnam War). The policies, effectiveness and ethical use of drones are controversial. Their use is expanding, however, and the focus is shifting from Iraq and Afghanistan to places such as Yemen and Africa, and planning continues for operations against more advanced rivals. There are reference notes appended but no bibliography, and the illustrations do not add anything to the work overall. VERDICT Despite some problems, this is an informative and easy-to-read book for those interested in this hot topic. Perhaps a drone will drop it off at your front door. [See Prepub Alert, 9/29/14.]--Daniel Blewett, Coll. of DuPage Lib., Glen Ellyn, IL

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2014

With drones emerging as a principal means of warfare (they're part of current air strikes against ISIS), it's more important than ever to understand how they work. British journalist Cockburn explains their hushed origins, the technology behind them, the ways that technology can fail, and the multi-billion-dollar contracts involved.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2015

Drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), have actually been around for several decades, but have gained notoriety in the past ten years for their use in attacking hard-to-reach, high-priority human targets. While this form of warfare undoubtedly saves some American lives and is easier to stage than sending in the troops, the civilian toll from the strikes seems to drive more people to oppose the United States. Cockburn (Washington editor, Harper's Magazine; Rumsfeld) has experience with political/defense topics, and he writes about the development of another expensive, advanced technology weapons program, which companies and the military love. He critiques a common misperception that if one can only take out the most important targets, then the enemy will collapse; enemies always appear to have a way of adapting, he notes. The other misconception is that technology can defeat human will, even though history has plenty of counter examples (e.g., the Vietnam War). The policies, effectiveness and ethical use of drones are controversial. Their use is expanding, however, and the focus is shifting from Iraq and Afghanistan to places such as Yemen and Africa, and planning continues for operations against more advanced rivals. There are reference notes appended but no bibliography, and the illustrations do not add anything to the work overall. VERDICT Despite some problems, this is an informative and easy-to-read book for those interested in this hot topic. Perhaps a drone will drop it off at your front door. [See Prepub Alert, 9/29/14.]--Daniel Blewett, Coll. of DuPage Lib., Glen Ellyn, IL

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.