Relentless Strike
Pages: 560
Edition: Hardcover
List Price: $29.99
Publisher: St. Martin's
ISBN: 9781250014542
First entered: 5th, Sep 2015
Number of weeks: 2
Book Summary
Since the attacks of September 11, one organization has been at the forefront of America's military response. Its efforts turned the tide against al-Qaida in Iraq, killed Bin Laden and Zarqawi, rescued Captain Phillips and captured Saddam Hussein. Its commander can direct cruise missile strikes from nuclear submarines and conduct special operations raids anywhere in the world.Relentless Strike tells the inside story of Joint Special Operations Command, the secret military organization that during the past decade has revolutionized counterterrorism, seamlessly fusing intelligence and operational skills to conduct missions that hit the headlines, and those that have remained in the shadows-until now. Because JSOC includes the military's most storied special operations units-Delta Force, SEAL Team 6, the 75th Ranger Regiment-as well as America's most secret aviation and intelligence units, this is their story, too.Relentless Strike reveals tension-drenched meetings in war rooms from the Pentagon to Iraq and special operations battles from the cabin of an MH-60 Black Hawk to the driver's seat of Delta Force's Pinzgauer vehicles as they approach their targets. Through exclusive interviews, reporter Sean Naylor uses his unique access to reveal how an organization designed in the 1980s for a very limited mission set transformed itself after 9/11 to become the military's premier weapon in the war against terrorism and how it continues to evolve today.
Authors
Name: Sean Naylor
Hometown: Calgary
About the author:
Sean D. Naylor, 48, is the author of Relentless Strike: The Secret History of Joint Special Operations Command, to be published in September 2015 by St. Martin’s Press. Since January 2015, he has been the intelligence and counterterrorism correspondent for Foreign Policy magazine. He previously spent 23 years as a senior writer for Army Times, where his principal beat for the last decade of his tenure was special operations forces. Prior to that, he covered combat operations, exercises, training, readiness, weapons systems, force modernization and the Army's senior leadership.
Mr. Naylor received his bachelor's degree in journalism from Boston University in 1988 and a Master of Arts in International Relations from the same institution in 1990. In 1987 he traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan as a freelance reporter covering the Afghan mujahideen, meeting and conversing with Jalaluddin Haqqani, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Hamid Karzai, among others.
For Army Times, Mr. Naylor covered military operations as an embedded reporter in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq.
His coverage of 2002’s Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan earned him the White House Correspondents Association’s 2003 Edgar A. Poe award for excellence in reporting an issue of regional or national importance. It also led to a best-selling book, Not A Good Day To Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda, published in March 2005 by Berkley Books, New York, N.Y. Mr. Naylor is also the co-author, with Tom Donnelly, of Clash of Chariots – The Great Tank Battles, published by Berkley to favorable reviews in 1996.
Born in Canada, and raised in England and Ireland, Mr. Naylor became a U.S. citizen on March 14, 2000. He lives in Washington D.C. on Capitol Hill, reluctantly hung up his rugby boots 14 years ago after a 25-year playing career, and is an avid soccer fan.