The Electronic Battlefield

Today's American Military is the most technologically advanced fighting force in the history of the world. Drone aircraft spy on-and attack, and destroy-designated targets, acting on commands from half a world away. Remote-control warfare has come into the world, forcing our society to face endless new questions, from the morality of doing battle without risk, to the emotional debate over whether drone operators can distinguish a band of terrorists from a group assembling for a wedding. And the drones are merely the most dramatic and visible example of astonishing, unstoppable, technological advance in the military. Battlefield sensors and satellite imagery provide a flood of information to commanders. Computers themselves have become targets-and weapons. How did it get that way? How and when were the decisions made, the weapons created, the strategies and tactics chosen that brought us to this point? In this classic account, Paul Dickson takes us back to the waning days of the Vietnam conflict, and the earliest days of "push-button war"-and the startling story of the birth of The Electronic Battlefield.