The Warhead REVIEWS
Unfiltered reviews that reflect the true impact of Jeffrey's work.
Publishers Weekly
"Stern tracks the Paveway from Vietnam to its subsequent deployments, often with upgraded capabilities, in hot zones around the world. Along the way he spotlights fighter pilots using the new tech; peace activists protesting against the bomb's deployment; CIA analysts wrapping their heads around the unlimited potential of a weapon that, ostensibly, removed people from the war-fighting equation; and innocent civilians on the ground who suffered the collateral damage." Read More
The Wall Street Journal
In past eras, the perfect weapon was one that would inflict maximum damage on an enemy. A bigger cannon, a more explosive shell, a better strategic bomber—a B-52 instead of a B-29—or a hydrogen bomb instead of an atomic one.
Today, in a supposedly more humane age, the perfect weapon is one that does minimum damage, sparing the innocent by targeting the guilty with maximum precision and surprise." Read More
Foreign Affairs
"...in this illuminating and thoughtful book, Stern, tells the story of the bomb and its effect on warfare. He discusses the prompts and experiments that encouraged engineers to develop Paveway and then improve it. He also describes the effect precision missiles had on policymakers, arguing that by reducing the risk of civilian and American military casualties, their advent made it easier for Washington to launch military operations..." Read More
LIBRARY JOURNAL
"Stern compiles seven captivating stories that share a historical connection to Paveway, the world’s first precision-guided “smart bomb,” which was built to reduce collateral damage and ultimately changed the history of warfare forever. These stories demonstrate just how unpredictable seemingly valuable wartime technology can be in the broader context of world history." Read More
The VVA Veteran
"He weaves those stories into a recounting of eight American military operations involving bombing campaigns that took place over a 77-year period. One theme throughout the book is the desire to create a bomb with target accuracy, but also with minimal risk to the human bomber and to civilians. Or, as someone put it, 'winning a war without really being in a war.'”
APple Books
"The Warhead recounts the development of guided weapons, from their Nazi precursors to modern drones, showing how technological ambition, profit, and politics intersected to change warfare by distancing people from the act of killing. If you’re intrigued by war stories that will get you thinking about moral quandaries, read The Warhead." Read More
Keen on America
"The conceit of “perfection”, Stern warns, might be as quintessentially American as the fatally flawed Walt Disney corporation or the Kennedy dynasty. Which is why this history of smart weapons makes such chilling reading in an AI age when Americans are once again being promised perfect military technology." Read More
DAILY KOS
"Jeff Stern tells this sweeping, complex, and important story with novelistic immediacy and detail...he traces the evolution of the smart bomb, its development and its uses, through the lives of those who built it, struggled to stop it, and who suffered its effects. Stern knows how to tell a story, and this one is remarkable in its ambition and scope."
Reviewed by Mark Bowden (author of Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War)