Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins (40 page)

Otherwise the Vietnamese ran herds of cattle down the trail: Vietnamese language Wikipedia page on Igloo White (auto-translated).
http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi%E1%BA%BFn_d%E1%BB%8Bch_Igloo_White#cite_note-ReferenceA-2
. Accessed April 19, 2013.

The electronic barrier cost almost $2 billion to set up and roughly $1 billion a year to operate: Nalty, op. cit., p. 283; Edgar C. Doleman,
Tools of War
(Boston: Boston Publishing Co., 1984), p. 151.

The funds for the secret operation were so artfully hidden: Dickson, op. cit., p. 101.

“This process,” an official U.S. Air Force historian tartly noted: Nalty, op. cit., p. 110.

As the same air force historian pointed out: Ibid., p. 296.

When General Lucius Clay, commander of the Pacific Air Force: Ibid., p. 302.

A CIA analyst’s suggestion: George W. Allen,
None So Blind, A Personal Account of the Intelligence Failure in Vietnam
(New York: Ivor R. Dee, 2001), p. 271.

At a public meeting in Boston of the antiwar Winter Soldier movement: Fred Branfman, “Guide to the Laos Automated War Archive,” Testimony by former U.S. Air Force member Eric Herter (grandson of former secretary of state Christian Herter), November 22, 2009.
http://fredbranfman.wordpress.com/
.

“They knew what they were doing when they sent John”: Interview with Tom Christie, Washington, DC, May 8, 2013.

“John” was Colonel John Boyd, a legendary fighter pilot: General information about Boyd derived from interviews over many years with, among others, John Boyd, Pierre Sprey, Franklin Spinney, and Tom Christie. For best published source on Boyd, see Roger Coram,
Boyd, the Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War
(Boston: Little Brown, 2002).

His superiors had already used him: Interview with Pierre Sprey, Washington, DC, March 17, 2013.

Packs of wild dogs roamed unmolested: Coram, op. cit., pp. 268–69.

One suggestion actively touted by an air force research base: Nalty, op. cit., p. 279.

“They sent me to close it down”: Interview with John Boyd, Washington, DC, 1989.

Rivolo watched in amazement: Interview, Rex Rivolo, Washington, DC, February 10, 2011.

Task Force Alpha was finally switched off: Nalty, op. cit., p. 279.

3 | Turning People into Nodes

“Don’t knock the war that feeds you”: Interview with A. Ernest Fitzgerald, former management systems deputy, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Financial Management and Comptroller, Washington, DC, January 2001. The slogan was also featured on a badge worn by aerospace workers around the U.S. during the Vietnam War. See also “Oral History of Edward S. Davidson,” SIGMICRO online newsletter,
http://newsletter.sigmicro.org/sigmicro-oral-history-transcripts/Ed-Davidson-Transcipt.pdf
. Accessed July 19, 2014.

Money authorized for buying weapons: The defense budget authority in 1975 was approximately $17 billion for procurement and $9 billion for research, development, test, and evaluation, for a total of $26 billion.
http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/docs/publications/usbudget/bus_1977.pdf
., p. 330. The defense budget authority in 1978 was approximately $30 billion for procurement and $11 billion for research, development, test, and evaluation, for a total of $41 billion.
The Budget of the United States Government for Fiscal Year 1977
(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977), p. 537.
http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/docs/publications/usbudget/bus_1980.pdf
.

In 1976, McDonnell Douglas, then the largest contractor: John Finney, “Not Enough Profits for the Defense Industry?”
New York Times,
January 9, 1977.

Intelligence reappraisals of Soviet intentions: Raymond Garthoff, “Estimating Soviet Military Intentions and Capabilities,” ch. 5 in
Watching the Bear, Essays on CIA’s Analysis of the Soviet Union
(Washington, DC: CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence, 2007).
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/watching-the-bear-essays-on-cias-analysis-of-the-soviet-union/article05.html
.

The new barrier fostered by the Pentagon’s DARPA: General Accounting Office, “Decisions to Be Made in Charting Future of DOD’s Assault Breaker,” January 28, 1981, p. 1.
http://www.gao.gov/assets/140/132235.pdf
. Accessed February 23, 2013.

Instead of the sensors: Carlo Kopp, “Precision-Guided Munitions, The New Breed,” Air Power Australia, 1984.
http://www.ausairpower.net/TE-Assault-Breaker.html
. Accessed January 15, 2013.

“The objective of our precision guided weapon systems”: Robert R. Tomes,
U.S. Defense Strategy from Vietnam to Operation Iraqi Freedom
(Florence, KY: Taylor & Francis, 2006), p. 67.

The General Accounting Office, the watchdog agency that monitors: GAO, “Decisions to Be Made,” op. cit., p. 9.

“Precision weapons, smart shells, electronic reconnaissance systems”: Michael Sterling, “Soviet Reactions to Nato’s Emerging Technologies for Deep Attack,” A Rand Note Prepared for the U.S. Air Force, Santa Monica, 1985.
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/notes/2009/N2294.pdf
.

When, for example, the navy’s development of invulnerable ballistic-missile submarines: Fred Kaplan,
Wizards of Armageddon
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982), pp. 233ff.

At the beginning of World War II: Don Sherman, “The Secret Weapon
,
”
Air & Space Magazine
(February/March 1995).

On an infamous raid: “Factsheet: The Norden M-9 Bombsight,” The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, Dayton, OH. Posted August 16, 2010.

The device was still being used to drop sensors: Nalty, op. cit., p. 27.

In December 1968, John Foster told an interviewer: John S. Foster Jr., Transcript of Oral History Interview II by Dorothy Pierce, December 12, 1968, p. 6.
http://www.lbjlibrary.net/assets/documents/archives/oral_histories/foster_j/Foster2.PDF
.

Though hailed as a momentous event: David Evans, “Sorting Out the Sorties,”
Chicago Tribune
, February 8, 1991.

Intimations that something new: Richard H. Van Atta et al., “Transformation and Transition: DARPA’s Role in Fostering an Emerging Revolution in Military Affairs, vol. 2: Detailed Assessments” (Washington, DC: Institute for Defense Analyses, 2003).

Pierre Sprey, a mathematical prodigy: Interview with Pierre Sprey, Washington, DC, October 19, 2013.

In reality, an actual Soviet invasion: Jason Vest, “The New Marshall Plan,”
InTheseTimes.com
, April 2, 2001.
http://inthesetimes.com/issue/25/09/vest2509.html
.

Warden, deeply immersed: Interview with John Warden, Washington, DC, June 1991.

As for targets, he had developed what he called the “five rings” theory: Colonel John A. Warden III, “The Enemy as a System,”
Airpower Journal
(Spring 1995).

Saddam’s name was erased: Rick Atkinson,
Crusade: The Untold Story of the Gulf War
(New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1993), p. 64.

Under “Expected results”: Ibid., p. 61.

Earlier in 1990, he had coined the air force’s new motto: Fred Kaplan,
The Insurgents
(New York, Simon & Schuster, 2012), p. 49.

As Lockheed publicists reported: Report to the Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Commerce, House of Representatives, “Operation Desert Storm, Evaluation of the Air Campaign,” Washington, DC, General Accounting Office GAO/NSIAD-97-1341997, June 1997, p. 26.

Writing soon after the war, Perry celebrated: William J. Perry, “Desert Storm and Deterrence,”
Foreign Affairs
70, no. 4 (Fall 1991): pp. 66–82.

Andrew Marshall was quick to catch the wave: Barry D. Watts, “The Maturing Revolution in Military Affairs,” Washington, DC, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2011, p. 2.

Deptula … took to print: David A. Deptula,
Firing for Effect: Change in the Nature of Warfare,
Defense and Airpower Series (Arlington, VA: Aerospace Education Foundation, 1995).

“saved my ass”: Communication from the late Colonel Robert Brown, USAF.

a diligent three-year investigation: General Accounting Office: Operation Desert Storm, Evaluation of the Air Campaign, GSO/NSIAD-97-134.

Catchphrases such as “system of systems”: Admiral William A. Owen, “The Emerging U.S. System-of-Systems,”
Strategic Forum
63 (February 1996), Washington, DC, National Defense University.
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA394313
.

“If we are able to view a strategic battlefield: Senate Budget Committee, Hearing on National Defense Budget in the New Century, February 12, 2001.

Other high-ranking officers talked wistfully: Pelham G. Boyer, Robert S. Wood, eds.,
Strategic Transformation and Naval Power in the 21st Century
(Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 1998), p. 229.

The Pentium III microprocessor: Information supplied by Dr. Herb Lin, National Research Council, March 1, 2013.

This inherent problem was apparently lost on Cebrowski: Vice-Admiral Arthur K. Cebrowski and John A. Garstka, “Net-Centric Warfare, Its Origin and Future,”
Proceedings Magazine
, U.S. Naval Institute, January 1998.

Two Rand Corporation researchers: John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, eds.,
In Athena’s Camp: Preparing for Conflict in the Information Age
(Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 1997).

Their report, “Transforming Defense: National Security in the 21st Century”: Report of the National Defense Panel, “Power Projection,” December 1997.
http://www.dod.gov/pubs/foi/administration_and_Management/other/902.pdf
.

Paul Van Riper, for example: Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper, Testimony before Procurement Subcommittee and Research and Development Subcommittee of the House National Security Committee, March 20, 1997.

Nor did Van Riper think much of air power enthusiasts in general: Text of “From Douhet to Deptula,” kindly supplied to the author by Paul Van Riper.

A Vietnam combat veteran: Interview with Paul Van Riper, Quantico, VA, March 19, 2013.

In 1973, in his final session of congressional testimony: Testimony of John S. Foster, Hearings on Cost Escalation in Defense Procurement Contracts and Military Posture, House Armed Services Committee, April 12, 1973.

Even so, Boeing and other defense corporations: Ehrhard, op. cit., p. 20.

Perry helped speed the process along: Ibid., p. 20.

4 | Predator Politics

The Predator drone was originally designed: Thomas Ehrhard, op. cit., fn. 170, p. 67.

After falling out with his employer: Richard Whittle, “The Man Who Invented the Predator,”
Air & Space Magazine
, April 2013.

Code-named Amber: Ehrhard, op. cit., p. 20.

However, just as Karem’s company: David Axe,
Shadow Wars: Chasing Conflict in an Era of Peace
(Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2013), p. 5.

Coincidentally, its initial project: Triga History,
http://triga-world.net/history.html
.

After parting company with parent General Dynamics: Matt Potter, “General Atomics—Color It Blue,”
San Diego Reader
, July 12, 2001.

As Neal later told an interviewer: Di Freeze, “Linden Blue: From Disease-Resistant Bananas to UAVs,”
Airport Journals
, Englewood, CO, October 2005.
http://airportjournals.com/2005/10/page/4/
.

Furious residents blocked the scheme: Mick O’Malley and Ben Cubby, “Digging Dirt with a Sledgehammer,”
Sidney Morning Herald
, July 31, 2009.

The brothers also bought the decrepit Sequoyah uranium-processing facility: Chris Kraul, “GA Tech to Buy Kerr-McGee’s Uranium Plant,”
Los Angeles Times
, November 21, 1987.

Undeterred, General Atomics kept operating the leaky facility: Keith Schneider, “Troubled Factory Is to Be Shut in Oklahoma,”
New York Times
, November 25, 1992.

An investigation found: Ibid.

To that end they set up a defense programs group: Dan Berger, “Haig, Vessey, to Help Guide New GA,”
San Diego Union–Tribune
, February 13, 1986.

Cassidy, described by subordinates as “not beloved, but admired”: Alan Richman, “Now Hear This: An Admiral Goes Down with His Ashtray,”
People Magazine,
June 17, 1985.
http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20091015,00.html
.

But the Predator, as the device was called, repeatedly crashed: Steve LaRue, “S.D. Firm’s Unmanned Plane Tested,”
San Diego Union–Tribune
, December 2, 1988.

Karem’s design suddenly became a CIA program: Ehrhart, op. cit., p. 67, note 178.

Almost half the 268 Predators: Craig Whitlock, “When Drones Fall from the Sky,”
Washington Post
, June 20, 2014.

“The problem is that nobody is comfortable with predator”: Ibid.

Familiar to anyone with a smartphone: Daniel Parry, “Father of GPS and Pioneer of Satellite Telemetry and Timing Inducted into National Inventors Hall of Fame,”
Naval Research Laboratory News,
March 31, 2010.

Thanks mainly to exponential increases in the amount of data: “Global Bandwidth, Feast or Famine?”
Network
, October 1, 2000.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/bandwidth.htm
.

Two of these prototypes disappeared during the 1995 missions: Ehrhart, op. cit., p. 50.

In October 1994, when General Ronald Fogleman: Ehrhart, op. cit., p. 51.

In April 1996, William Perry, by now defense secretary: Richard Whittle,
Predator’s Big Safari
(Washington, DC: Mitchell Institute Press, 2011), p. 10.

As Neal Blue, who contributed $100,000: Barry M. Horstman, “Some Knew Where George Was and Sent Lots of Money for Him,”
Los Angeles Times
, January 25, 1988.

“For our size, we possess”: Gopal Ratnam, “Predator Maker Spreads Wings: General Atomics Expands into Sensors, Lasers, Launchers,”
Defense News
, May 2, 2005.