Bruce Riedel and Michael O’Hanlon. “Why we can’t go small in Afghanistan”. USA Today. September 4, 2009: “For those who have forgotten the realities of the 1990s — when we tried to go after Osama bin Laden without access to nearby bases by using ships based in the Indian Ocean — the two- to four-hour flight times of drones and cruise missiles operating off such ships made prompt action to real-time intelligence impractical.”