The 300

The Inside Story of the Missile Defenders Guarding America Against Nuclear Attack

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Pub Date 16 Jun 2020 | Archive Date 16 Jun 2020

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Description

Military and security expert Daniel Wasserbly introduces the elite unit tasked with protecting the nation from long-range weapons of mass destruction.

Comprised of just three hundred soldiers, the United States Army’s 100th Missile Defense Brigade and 49th Missile Defense Battalion utilize sophisticated and cutting-edge technology to monitor the skies and seas surrounding the country and shield three hundred million Americans against any potential nuclear threat. Named for the number of Spartan warriors who defended Greece at the Battle of Thermopylae, these vigilant individuals endure rigorous, always-evolving regimens to maintain peak efficiency in the event of an actual nuclear strike.

Assigned to extraordinary locations at Fort Greely, Alaska and Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado, the 300 are responsible for the highest levels of homeland security. They not only maintain a never-ending watch via radar and sensor arrays, but receive continuous training in operating advanced interceptors designed to home in on and destroy in-flight ballistic missiles. It’s a complex—and occasionally unreliable—defense system that scientists and engineers are always improving and upgrading.

With unprecedented access to the highly classified strategic nerve centers of U.S. Northern Command in Cheyenne Mountain, years of research, and dozens of exclusive interviews with normally inaccessible missile crews, Wasserbly reveals the incredible true story behind the 300’s essential defense operations.

Military and security expert Daniel Wasserbly introduces the elite unit tasked with protecting the nation from long-range weapons of mass destruction.

Comprised of just three hundred soldiers, the...


Advance Praise

"A true insider account. If you have the slightest interest in missile defense, The 300 is the book for you."

—Sean Naylor, New York Times bestselling author of Relentless Strike

"A true insider account. If you have the slightest interest in missile defense, The 300 is the book for you."

—Sean Naylor, New York Times bestselling author of Relentless Strike


Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9781250221841
PRICE $28.99 (USD)
PAGES 320

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Featured Reviews

My thanks to NetGalley for the pestering me to read this book before it became generally available. It's a fascinating glimpse into the very few soldiers charged with operating what we used to call "Star Wars" defense system. Developed mostly under Bush II, they are highly trained in a system that, if it doesn't work in a real attack, would submit the country to nuclear devastation.

The threat, as it evolved in the early 21st century, was seen mostly as coming from North Korea that vacillated between belligerence and seeking respect, both aspects leading them to the belief that a nuclear arsenal was the only way to satisfy both aims.

Fort Greeley in Alaska was reinstated as the base for the Missile Defense unit. It was about an unhospitable as one could imagine. It had been an active base during the sixties but then abandoned. Housing for families was virtually non-existent and soldiers had to commute by small airplane to Anchorage (a very scary proposition) when they had time off, of which there was little. Another concern was the rumor that the army had forgotten to take a pallet of VX gas artillery shells off the frozen Blueberry lake one winter and it went to the bottom during the spring melt. To quell rumors of its existence, the army drained the lake only to discover the rumor was true and the extremely toxic chemical weapon was indeed found at the bottom of the lake. The author doesn't say how they were disposed of. Maybe they let kids play with them.

Integrating base security with those residing on base in such a relatively small area led to a funny concern. The MPs would drive around the base perimeter with .50 calier machine guns on their vehicles. “Sir, we have TWIGs driving around with .50 -cals,” Kiraly warned the battalion’s executive officer, Wayne Hunt. Teenagers with Guns— TWIGs. “A .50-cal will range into the garrison, right next to the missile field,” Kiraly said . “What if there’s something in the wire, and they shoot into the housing area? It’s only a couple hundred meters.” TWIGS indeed. A different set of TWIGS was in charge of sophisticated interceptor missiles.

I would not want to have been stationed at Fort Greeley where they kept diffing up canisters of things that scared the crap out of the disposal teams.

<i>The EOD guys stopped laughing once they got to the canister and looked up the numbers on the data plate. There were some frantic radio calls and Scott and Marrero were ordered to leave. They never found out why. Soon afterward, while the MPs were clearing the woods away from the perimeter to build a new headquarters facility, they stumbled upon a buried batch of old Chinese mortars. And after that, contractors were digging new telephone lines near the fort’s chapel, and about five feet down they unearthed a large sealed drum. Scott and his patrol were ordered to guard the drum until EOD arrived the next day. He never found out what was in it." </i> Hope they didn't buy their kids shovels for birthdays.

The book has excellent chapters on the history and development of anti-missile missile systems. They had their beginning with attempts to shoot down V2 rockets, but the excessive amounts of shrapnel would have injured more on the ground than the rockets themselves which were ultimately rendered harmless following Montgomery's destruction of the launch sites. With the development of Soviet ICBM capability Kennedy was at first a fan of the Nike Zeus program that had evolved into the Nike-X system. It never had a chance for live testing as McNamara and Johnson believed the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) scenario was the best deterrent and that continued development of any anti-missile defense system could be seen as destabilizing parity. All throughout this period, scientists debated whether such a system was even technologically feasible, not to mention the political debate over where to install the systems, i.e. which cities warranted protection and which not.
Administrations waffled on whether deployment was in the best interests until Reagan who wanted a bargaining chip in negotiations and he took what was now called "Star Wars" to a new level. That never went anywhere technically and it was gradually shelved until 9/11 when Congress was willing to fund anything that even hinted at defense.

By now, the technology had morphed into "hit-and-kill" whereby the ABM was expected to actually hit the incoming missile thereby destroying it. This required close interaction of radar systems and missile batteries, and the Bush administration was focusing on rogue nations like Iran and North Korea. Bush wanted everything up and running by the end of 2004.

It was an interesting way to fight and <b>An Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War</b> by Paul Scharre would make excellent simultaneous reading. The software was specialized and "If not constrained, the system would automatically take an aggressive approach and not necessarily the approach Northern Command or the White House wanted to take."

Enter the main focus of the book that is on the really very few who man (and a surprising number of women) the system connecting Colorado and Fort Greeley and the radar links.

Highly recommended for anyone interesting in the Cold War, MAD, and ABM systems, and the constraints of technological warfare, not to mention politics and the general reader. Entertaining and informative.

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I have to be honest, it took me a while to get through this book, as it probably should. This isn't really a light fiction you read at the beach. No, it's the product of extensive technical and historic research, written quite beautifully.
I am in no way an expert in nuclear weapons, but I studied international relations and I have always been fascinated by WMD, their history, and how to govern them. So this book was an interesting insight into some of it and I'm happy I had the chance to read it.

I'd like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for giving me a virtual copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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