KILL CHAIN.

An essential and page-turning narrative on the history of drone warfare by the acclaimed author of Rumsfeld, exploring how this practice emerged, who made it happen, and the real consequences of targeted killing

We are changing the way we fight. Once, we raised armies and fleets to confront enemy armies and fleets. Now the military is being built around a single strategy: the tracking and elimination of “high value targets” – in other words, assassination. Assassination by drone is a subject of deep and enduring fascination. Yet few understand how and why this has become our principal way of waging war. KILL CHAIN uncovers the real and extraordinary story; its origins in long-buried secret programs, the breakthroughs that made drone operations possible, the ways in which the technology works and, despite official claims, does not work.. Drone strikes against individual terrorists, and missions carried out by highly trained elite units such as the SEALs are frequently covered in the news, but attack drones and commando units are just the more visible parts of a huge system of surveillance and intelligence that is rapidly evolving. The goal is to be able to “see everything” and thus to be able find and hit anything—or anybody. While we will never actually be able to see everything, we are spending billions of dollars trying. Taking the reader inside the well-guarded world of national security, the book reveals the powerful interests - military, CIA and corporate - that have led the drive to kill individuals by remote control. Most importantly of all, the book describes what has really happened when the theories underpinning the strategy -- and the multi-billion dollar contracts they spawn -- have been put to the test. Drawing on sources deep in the military and intelligence establishments, Kill Chain unveils the true effects, as demonstrated by bloody experience, of assassination warfare, a revelation that readers will find shocking.

Andrew Cockburn is a writer and lecturer on defense and national affairs, and is also the author of five nonfiction books. He has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Playboy, Vanity Fair, and National Geographic, among other publications. He currently lives in Washington, D.C.