The Warhead

The Quest to Build the Perfect Weapon in the Age of Modern Warfare

By: Jeffrey E. Stern

Narrated by: Sitara Attaie, Ray Corasani, Vas Eli, Justin Price, Peter Romano, Saskia Maarleveld, Gary Tiedemann, Dallis Seeker, Jeffrey E. Stern

An Apple Best Book of the Month

From award-winning journalist and coauthor of The 15:17 to Paris, an affecting human history of the first self-steering bomb

Paveway, the first "smart" bomb, was created to be a more precise and ostensibly humane weapon, reducing civilian casualties. The true impact of the bomb, however, is ever more complex and unpredictable.

In The Warhead, Jeffrey Stern tells the story of Paveway through the lives of seven interconnected stories. They're stories of Nazis, Kennedys, Operation Paperclip, and Walt Disney; of the Apollo mission and the space shuttle Challenger disaster. Paveway inadvertently sparked the personal computing revolution and the adoption of GPS, it ushered in the era of modern warfare, and it shows up at critical historical moments throughout the last half century.

At once revelatory and deeply human, The Warhead unearths the complicated truth behind one of the most significant weapons of our time.

Way to political

An interesting way of telling a story but with too many side stories. Some narrators were good some were subpar. The inclusion of a antiwar protestor did not help the story and was there for emotional purposes not relevant to the story. This could have been much better.

Absolutely incredible journey!

A captivating journey through the air of modern warfare. From the variety of narrators and the stories they told down to the afterword, I didn't want the book to end. Jeffrey E Stern brought forth a human element to war. Telling the stories of those who fought, volunteered, and have been impacted, with the genius to tie it together. Bravo

Meandering History of the Paveway Precision Bomb

This is a ranging and interesting history of the development of the Paveway laser guided bomb during the Vietnam War and subsequent iterations through Paveway IV with GPS, inertial guidance and laser guidance.

The most interesting story is the development of the initial Paveway bomb by Weldon Word at Texas Instruments as a solution to bombing the Dragon’s Jaw bridge at Thanh Hoa with subsequent decreases in pilot casualties and in aircraft loss. What started off as a solution to a specific problem in the 1970’s expanded into a solution for many problems and into the political concept by US leaders that precision bombing alone could end wars. War could be waged from air conditioned rooms without the need to put boots on the ground.

The story starts with the unrelated Operation Aphrodite in 1944 to use radio controlled flying bombs (B-17’s) to destroy German V-3 Vengence weapons with the subsequent loss of Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Many histories are presented as backgrounds to the 1986 bombing of Libya, Operation Desert Storm, Kosovo air strikes, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Unified Protector in Libya. US leaders have become comfortable with bombing and killing people in the waging of wars with precision bombing while minimizing loss of US military personnel.