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The U.S. Isn’t Ready for a Modern War
A USAF F-35 fighter jet breaks the sound barrier. “If we ever had to fight World War III, the U.S. wouldn’t be ready,” Elliot Ackerman writes for The Free Press. (Andrej Tarfila via Getty Images)
Today, a $3,000 drone can take out a $10 million tank. When will the American military learn that lesson, asks veteran Elliot Ackerman.
By Elliot Ackerman
10.03.24 — International
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Two years ago, I was invited to lunch in Washington with Gilman Louie, a tech venture capitalist. He was in town to discuss the passage of the CHIPS Act, a $53 billion reinvestment in America’s semiconductor supply chain. Gilman believed that the offshoring of tech manufacturing was a dire national security issue. His concerns were many—from the vulnera…

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Elliot Ackerman
Elliot Ackerman is a New York Times best-selling author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including the novels 2034, Waiting for Eden, and Dark at the Crossing, as well as the memoirs The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan and Places and Names: On War, Revolution, and Returning. His books have been nominated for the National Book Award, the Andrew Carnegie Medal in both fiction and nonfiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, among others. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic, a senior fellow at Yale’s Jackson School of Global Affairs, and a veteran of the Marine Corps and CIA special operations, having served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. He divides his time between New York City and Washington, D.C.
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