Author Andrew Cockburn, the Washington editor of Harper’s magazine, built his reputation
as an expert on governmental and military affairs covering the U.S. and Soviet
arms race and occasional clashes of the Cold War. Although his latest book, Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins,
focuses on the current “drone war” in the Middle East and Africa, Cockburn
shows how the current state of affairs in the U.S. military has its roots in
both the decades-long conflict with the U.S.S.R. and in some cases, lessons
learned (or not learned) during WWII.
Kill Chain opens in 2010 with a case of mistaken
identity during a U.S. drone strike that resulted in numerous civilian
deaths. From this tragic but compelling
episode, Cockburn takes the reader back to the 1940’s when U.S. bombers were
striking daily against Nazi Germany in an effort to “bring the Reich to its
knees.” He shows how much of the
conventional wisdom about air power at the time was gradually disproven, and
then summarily ignored as the United States government became entangled by the
“Military-Industrial Complex” that President Dwight Eisenhower so famously
warned of in his farewell address. (Fun
fact I learned while reading this book:
In the original draft of his speech, Eisenhower had labeled the thing to
be feared as the “Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex” but decided to remove
the word “Congressional”, stating later that he was already “…taking on the
military and private industry. I
couldn’t take on Congress as well.”)
As the Cold War escalated, ended, and then was replaced,
(first by the War on Drugs, and then later the War on Terror) Cockburn
demonstrates how the U.S. government has continuously invested more and more
money on high-tech weapons (such as drones) that are often not only unwanted,
but in some cases dangerously flawed.
Kill Chain is available on the New Arrivals shelf in
the Library’s main lobby, or by requesting it through the Library catalog here.
**Post written by Charles Courtney
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