Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts: The American Military in the Air, at Sea, and on the Ground

Robert Kaplan, one of the nation’s leading foreign affairs journalists, is contributing editor to theAtlantic Monthly and a long-time FPRI Associate.

His latest is Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts: The American Military in the Air, at Sea, and on the Ground.

Expanding on his acclaimed Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground, Kaplan lets readers experience up close the American military worldwide in the air, at sea, and on the ground: flying in a B-2 bomber, living on a nuclear submarine, and traveling with a Stryker brigade on missions around the world. Provided unprecedented access, Kaplan moves from destroyers off the coast of Indonesia to submarines in the central Pacific, from simulated Iraqi training grounds in Alaska to technology bases in Las Vegas, from army and marine land forces in the heart of the Sahara Desert, to air bases in Guam and Thailand and beyond.

Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts provides not only a riveting ground-level portrait of the Global War on Terrorism on several continents, but also a gritty firsthand account of how U.S. soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen are protecting sea-lanes, providing disaster relief, contending with the military rise of China, fighting the war in Iraq, and crafting contingency plans for war with North Korea and Iran.