Never Mind, We'll Do It Ourselves: The Inside Story of How a Team of Renegades Broke Rules, Shattered Barriers, and Launched a Drone Warfare Revolution

Never Mind, We'll Do It Ourselves: The Inside Story of How a Team of Renegades Broke Rules, Shattered Barriers, and Launched a Drone Warfare Revolution

Never Mind, We'll Do It Ourselves: The Inside Story of How a Team of Renegades Broke Rules, Shattered Barriers, and Launched a Drone Warfare Revolution

Never Mind, We'll Do It Ourselves: The Inside Story of How a Team of Renegades Broke Rules, Shattered Barriers, and Launched a Drone Warfare Revolution

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Overview

“An extraordinary, riveting, page-turning account—finally cleared for publication by the CIA—of the once highly classified effort by the CIA and special military units to develop a truly game-changing, transformational capability: armed drones."—General David Petraeus, US Army (Ret.), former Commander of the Surge in Iraq, US Central Command, and US and Coalition Forces in Afghanistan, and former Director of the CIA​

The Inside Story of How a CIA Officer and an Air Force Officer Joined Forces to Develop America’s Most Powerful Tool in the War on Terror.
 
Never Mind, We’ll Do It Ourselves is the story behind the origins of the Predator drone program and the dawn of unmanned warfare. A firsthand account told by an Air Force team leader and a CIA team leader, Never Mind, We’ll Do It Ourselves takes readers into the back offices and secret government hangars where the robotic revolution went from a mad scientist idea to a pivotal part of global airpower.
Featuring a foreword by Charlie Allen, an introduction by Lieutenant General John Campbell, USAF (Ret.), and an afterword by Lieutenant Colonel Gabe Brown, the story reveals the often conflicting perspectives between the defense and intelligence communities and puts the reader inside places like the CIA’s counterterrorism center on the morning of 9/11. Through the eyes of the men and women who lived it, you will experience the hunt for Usama bin Laden and the evolution of a program from passive surveillance to the complex hunter-killers that hang above the battlespace like ghosts.

Poised at the junction between The Right Stuff and The Bourne Identity, Never Mind, We’ll Do It Ourselves documents the way a group of cowboys, rogues, and bandits broke rules and defied convention to change the shape of modern warfare

 

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781510720916
Publisher: Skyhorse
Publication date: 01/26/2021
Pages: 376
Sales rank: 397,151
Product dimensions: 6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Alec Bierbauer has spent a lifetime conducting counterterrorism and counterintelligence operations in venues ranging from Bosnia to Yemen and Afghanistan. With an emphasis on integrating emerging technologies into high-risk special programs, he was the CIA’s point man in the development of the Predator program. Bierbauer resides in Huntsville, Alabama.

Col. Mark Cooter (USAF, Ret.), a distinguished Air Force intelligence officer, has operational experience in Desert Storm, the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya operations. As a Predator squadron operations officer, Mark led Predator programs from their near inception in Bosnia through joint Air Force/CIA operations in Afghanistan and beyond. Col. Cooter lives in Springfield, Virginia.

Michael Marks has worked around the world within the US intelligence and special operations community, a career that stretches from the jungles of Nicaragua to the mountains of Afghanistan. A bestselling author, his books have been adopted by venues such as the FBI Academy and the Army Asymmetric Warfare Group. Marks resides in Great Falls, Virginia.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Foreword Charlie Allen xi

Introduction by Lieutenant General John Campbell, USAF (Ret.) xv

Chapter 1 First Blood 1

Chapter 2 How It All Began 29

Chapter 3 Just Duct Tape And Baling Wire 65

Chapter 4 All Prices Are Negotiable 79

Chapter 5 Showtime 87

Chapter 6 It's Always What You Least Expect 103

Chapter 7 Everything Comes With A Price 119

Chapter 8 A Deadly Idea 137

Chapter 9 The Breaking Point 145

Chapter 10 Building A Killer 147

Chapter 11 Connecting The Dots 171

Chapter 12 Unthinkable 195

Chapter 13 Payback's A Bitch 211

Chapter 14 They Grow Up So Fast 249

Chapter 15 With Everything On The Line 261

Chapter 16 Objects In The Rearview Mirror 297

Afterword By Lieutenant Colonel Gabe Brown 307

Postscript: The Long And Winding Road 309

Mark's Personal Comments 315

Alec's Personal Comments 317

Michael's Personal Comments 319

Index 321

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