Whittle's exploration of drone technology goes back to the beginning--to a boy who was fascinated with model airplanes--and because he takes a story-teller's view to the whole of drone technology's history, this book is far more readable than one might expect. In fact, Whittle's step-by-step approach makes it a fairly fascinating journey, as he's careful to take time for exploring the characters of the people who played the greatest roles in developing the technology, and uncovering the steps that directed the timeline and the direction at each turning point. Covering more than three decades of genesis and development, the book moves quickly and carefully forward--and, truthfully, the power of this book comes partially forward because the power and the excitement of development and invention are transferred so artfully from the engineers and developers at the center of the book right on to the reader.

Readers should know that this truly is more of a history than anything. Although important questions of ethics and allowance are raised, and sometimes struggled with by the men and the women at the center of drone development, those questions aren't given center stage in Whittle's writing. They do, however, underlie much of the later portion of the book, and a thoughtful reader will find a lot to admire in the way that Whittle introduces them subtly while still focusing on development and history--probably with the realization that those questions are themselves large enough to fill a whole other work of nonfiction that is less focused on science and technology.

As someone who is, at best, skeptical of drones and what we've come to know as drone warfare, I wasn't sure how I'd feel about this book--but, at the same time, I wanted to be more informed. Now, although I'm still torn in terms of how we're using this technology, I'm both more informed and more appreciative, at least on some level, and I'm certainly glad to have stumbled across Whittle's work.

I'd certainly recommend this to anyone with an interest in the way science & technology develop, and in the way that that development both influences and is influenced by human factors. And, of course, anyone who feels somewhat under-informed about drone warfare and what these pieces of technology truly do will find this to be a useful exploration of the history and the technology--and a readable one, at that. ( )

Great lunch time reading! I found the entire story quite enthralling: the right balance of technical explanations and fascinating personalities.
Could have had more about up-to-date UAV technologies, but considering the copyright, it got to the 'end of the story'.
The conclusion, with what happened in Afghanistan, and to the people involved with Predator, was a fitting end to the book. ( )

Predator: the Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution
By Richard Whittle
Henry Holt and Company
Reviewed by Karl Wolff

Drone warfare. Those two words unleash a maelstrom of outrage, hysteria, and paranoia. Former Pentagon correspondent Richard Whittle traces the development and deployment of the Predator drone in Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution. He takes us into the shadowy territory of covert operations, military procurement, and new weapons development. Despite this being a history of covert military operations and groundbreaking inventions, this isn't about triumphalist saber-rattling or wallowing in the throes of cheap patriotism. Whittle does offer enthusiastic moments of gee-whiz technological innovation, but this is tempered with a grounded objectivity gained from years working as a journalist.

(Predator can be read in concert with other intelligence histories like The Puzzle Palace, Body of Secrets, and The Shadow Factory, all by James Bamford, about the National Security Agency.)

To the general public, drone warfare is a new thing. Whittle traces drone warfare back all the way to the Second World War. Drones originated as remote-controlled and unmanned aircraft. An early experiment included claimed the life of Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., eldest brother of JFK. He flew an explosives laden Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress into enemy territory. Ideally, after parachuting to safety, the unmanned B-17 would fly to its target destination. Unmanned aircraft and primitive drones were also used by the Army and Air Force for target practice. As with any new technology, there was institutional and bureaucratic resistance. When General Atomics, the manufacturer of the earliest Predator, proposed its use to the armed services, it met with universal rejection. The Army preferred using helicopters; the Air Force scoffed, devoted as it was to the cult of the fighter pilot; and the Navy had better things to do.

Then history intervened. In this case, the civil wars resulting from the breakup of Yugoslavia. A combination of reconnaissance needs, mountainous landscape, and budget constraints came into play. Unlike spy satellites and stealth recon planes (SR-71 and U-2), the drone could linger. Not just for hours, but for days. Unseen and unheard by enemy forces, it could paint a target (laser-sight it) for an air-strike.
Technological change brings institutional change. But institutional change was neither gradual nor immediately accepted. For decades intelligence analysts pored over still photographs. This was the case with the Cuban Missile Crisis and the CIA interpreting what those small rectangles were on the Cuban island. Trucks? Nukes? Then, all of a sudden, with the Predator, the CIA and the Pentagon were getting live streaming video. The analysts literally didn't know what to do with the information. Along with this embarrassment of riches came the usual hiccups. One of the unsung heroes of the drone revolution is a techno-scientist named Werner (he prefers to remain anonymous). Like Q from James Bond, he continually develops new technologies or workarounds for issues with the drone. In its earliest conception, the drone was piloted with line-of-sight technology, so the GCS (ground control station) had to remain nearby. Werner created a workaround where it could take off and land via a GCS, but in the interim fly via satellite. (Whittle goes into detail about the various hand-offs and the technical specifications involving different bandwidths.) This is astonishing. Not only does the drone remove the pilot from the craft, but with this innovation, the drone can be handed off to different pilots in a different geographical location!

Despite the caricatures given to drone warfare by critics, piloting the drone isn't the same as waging war via Playstation. There is a pilot and a sensor operator. As a consequence of its reconnaissance capabilities, drone pilots could see figures running away after a successful hit. (Note: Due to technological limitations, they could see figures, not individual faces.) But because of this, many were emotionally shaken by their duties. Drone pilots came closer to snipers than bomber pilots dropping their payloads at 30,000 feet.

When drones became weaponized during the Afghanistan campaign, the drone was outfitted with the twenty-pound Hellfire missile. In its first operation, it spotted and tracked Muhammad Omar, the Taliban leader. Unfortunately, due to a snarled chain of command, the drone never fired its missile on the target. After this farcical mishap, the chain of command for drone operations was streamlined. But this left a big unanswered question: Who would pull the trigger? In addition, who would be held responsible for any assassinations by Predator drone? The CIA was reluctant to seize responsibility due to the longtime ban on assassinations.

Whittle takes us through the corridors of power and the clashes between Predator advocates and gun-shy politicians. Richard Clarke, the counter-terrorism advisor in the National Security Council, badgering Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush to hunt down Osama bin Laden. Clinton became gun-shy of drone warfare following the botched Sudan bombing of a pharmaceuticals plant. Bush and company brushed off Clarke to focus on Iraq to the point of it becoming a perverse fetish. Clinton's reluctance was tragic, Bush's Iraq obsession was farce. Then 9/11 happened.

After the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Bush Administration's reluctance vanished. The Predator racked up a sizable list of hits, including Al-Qaeda's #3 Mohammad Atef. But it's not all wine and roses for unmanned warfare. The Obama Administration has expanded drone warfare to an alarming degree. Drones have hit targets in Yemen and Syria, both places where the United States has not declared war in an any official capacity. Part of this involves who pulls the trigger on the drone. Currently, the CIA has control over Predator operations, but critics have said it would make more sense for the Pentagon to have control. There are also legal, moral, political, and diplomatic questions that remain unanswered. With Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's recent statement saying ISIS will involve "thirty years of war," these questions better get resolved quick.

Drones are cost-effective long-range reconnaissance and ground-attack weapons. They remove the pilot from immediate danger. They also open a Pandora's Box of issues. The technology makes them capable of long-range assassinations, raining death from above in a darkly ironic twist to the planes hijacked by Al-Qaeda. But every technology is only as good as its user.

Out of 10/9.0

http://www.cclapcenter.com/2014/10/book_review_predator_the_secre.html ( )

Journalist Richard Whittle has been covering defense issues for a very long time and had already written one book about the program development of the notorious V-22 Osprey aircraft. Whittle has now turned his attention to the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or “drone,” as the media usually describes such unmanned aircraft. It’s a fascinating story: what began as little more than a fragile remote-controlled aircraft designed for surveillance has become a robust combat system that can be used for surveillance or attack around the globe. The Predator first saw major field testing in the 1990s in Bosnia but really came into its own with the introduction of both unarmed surveillance and armed versions in Afghanistan following September 11.

Whittle’s prose is extremely lucid. He has to juggle a large cast of characters from the 1980s in Israel through the early twenty-first century, along with a laundry list of Pentagon programs, offices, and technologies. With a lesser author, this could have been a dry, institutional history that gets bogged down in its own details; not so with Whittle.

Whittle has woven his narrative from a host of published sources as well as extensive interviews with many of the participants in the Predator’s development and operation. While most of Whittle’s sources (and they are legion) have gone on record, I am curious about the identity of a key figure, whom Whittle calls “Werner,” who is presented as being at the right place and right time on several occasions with just the right idea when it came to pushing Predator development forward. I’m always a bit skeptical of unnamed sources, especially when they seem this pivotal, and I would hate to think that Whittle has become captured by one of his sources the way that, say, Bob Woodward tends to be in his accounts of recent history. It’s a small quibble, but I’d love to see Werner’s identity revealed so his version of events may be cross-checked in a second edition. I also appreciated that Whittle took Tommy Franks to task when it came to Franks’ role in the first uses of the armed Predator in Afghanistan in fall 2001 and spring 2002. I was not impressed with Franks’ autobiography AMERICAN SOLDIER for a variety of reasons, and Whittle does a good job of pointing out the inconsistencies in Franks’ account that simply don’t square with what we know of those events from multiple other credible accounts as well as Franks’ (perhaps unsurprising) self-promotion.

Whittle is a gifted writer able to present technical developments and inside-the-Pentagon political maneuverings in a very engaging way – that takes talent. I very much look forward to reading more from Whittle, as he’s clearly very knowledgeable about contemporary military aviation issues and more than capable of presenting his research in a thorough but engaging manner. Those interested in the “drone revolution” and how the United States reached a point where pilots operating from the safety of U.S. bases in North America or elsewhere around the world conduct real-time surveillance and attacks thousands of miles away will find this an especially useful account. This really is a revolutionary new military capability that we should all gain a better understanding of. Highly recommended for those looking for a detailed look of the research, development, and acquisition process of the Predator UAV. It’s also a good first look at the initial uses of the Predator’s armed variant in Afghanistan, though this discussion is really only begun in the last chapter; I’d love to see this material expanded into a second volume on UAV operations from 2001 to the present.

Addendum (November 19, 2014): Whittle has donated 15 documents related to the history of the Predator program to the George Washington University's National Security Archive. They are available electronically: http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB484/

Review copyright © 2014 J. Andrew Byers ( )

Predator brings us along on a ride that was as unsteady and uncertain as the development and lack of support that the UAV received within the military community. It's a fascinating glimpse into the vision of the brilliant pioneers and the technological hurdles they had to surmount to make the UAV not only become a viable flying machine, but one that could stay aloft for increasingly long periods of time. That in and of itself is an interesting story, but the book goes beyond to show us the political wranglings that sought to abort the programs and the behind the scenes machinations that kept it alive until its' usefulness could be proven and its' coming indispensability noncounterable. We see its' early use in Bosnia, and witness its' transformation during the War on Terror, and how legal and ethical questions are still being hammered out as the technology becomes more entrenched in our society, for both military and civilian use.

Highly recommended for technology and history buffs alike! ( )