2034: A Novel of the Next World War

This book seems to be trying to achieve two things. The first is to be a 'wake-up' call to the general public about how unprepared America is for a confrontation with a technologically superior, determined China, its probably designed to help stimulate thought about cyber-warfare, smart-weapons and our dependence on technology. The second thing this book is trying to be, is an entertaining thriller story, with interesting characters, action and so forth.Unfortunately it achieves neither particularly well.In terms of the former, in the 'post-Trump' era its a little hard to feel 'too' sorry for the Americans (sorry). The thought of WW3 beginning over some poxy islands in the middle of nowhere is a tragic one, and the book does explore well how a series of tit-for-tat escalations, misjudgments and mis-communications could lead to straight up nuclear warfare. There was (I feel) a lack of detail on the actual nuance of cyber-warfare, smart weapons and self-flying planes. There is certainly almost no focus on NATO and Europe other then some background noise about Russia running rampant. India plays a fairly major part but the whole Pakistan thing is (I kid you not) mentioned on a side paragraph.As a story...well its no Tom Clancy 'Bear and the Dragon' (similar thing), lets put in that way. The characters are 'broadly' unlikable military archetypes. I'm not sure why a pilot that gets kidnapped, tortured and goes through all those horrible things somehow ends up in charge of a nuclear bomb plane at the end - gee I wonder what could happen? Same for the military admiral lady - I mean - she keeps loosing ships but keeps getting promoted up and then loosing more ships? I don't get it...I liked the White House character, he was interesting. I had a chuckle about how the American president was both a woman and an independent. The idea of American having an independent as a president is almost as laughable as them sorting out a working health system.Anyways, it was a fairly rapid page turner, but the ending was a bit of a lame duck. Probably fairly realistic (I guess) but a bit of a lame ending, it sort of just peters out.If you want a big military thriller, pick a Tom Clancy style 'story' - if you want to explore how WW3 could start and what could be done politically about it, there are a huge number of texts in these areas.I have no doubt that the idea for this story came from a good place, people need to be more aware of how things could spiral out of control fast. But this...just isn't that interesting a book, failing to make the military engagements thrilling, nor the political machinations, interesting.

I usually don't write book reviews but can't resist this one. Still can't understand why WIRED put it on the cover page--may be a remarkable PR stunt given the author's background.BUT. According to the author:The Chinese are technologically advanced to the point that it can remotely hijack an F-35 in mid-air and block all communications between US ships that can see each other, but its Minister of Defense is detestably fat and can't afford a tailor to make him a fit uniform;Most, if not all US ship captains are women who keep taking unnecessary risks, losing ships but being promoted.All the Iranians hate Americans and torture and kick them;All Chinese who remotely represent humans will, and want to move to the US....And the best of all, out of nowhere the Indians turn out to be the most sophistically not only sinking the almighty Chinese battle groups but also intercepted the US warplanes carrying nuclear bombs to Shanghai. Oh btw, despite all the technologies, the whole of mainland China is defenceless so nine US aeroplanes can nuclear three Chinese cities (so three planes each city).I kind of see the story the author tries to convey: a detestable proud fat enemy with mysterious black-suited men who kill their own despite own generals only wanting to "teach in the US" after the war somehow possessed far superior technology, the US is mired in its own stupidity and Indians, while drinking their mysterious teas, save the world.That's about the worst £10.99 spent for a while.

In the not very distant future, America's technological lead may have evaporated. other powers, most notably China having caught up could use their more ruthless approach to power politics and human rights to dethrone the world's only superpower in a few surgical strikes. Fast-paced, well written and researched this could be the world of our children if we remain complacent. Read, think about it and then consider what you can do to avoid this all to realistic scenario.

Another entry in the growing list of Speculative World War 3 novels, this time tensions in the South China sea rapidly escalates into a limited nuclear exchange between the US and China. Intervention comes from an unlikely source. I've yet to read a WW3 novel where the planet ends up a radioactive cinder which i feel is the most likely outcome if a future conflict goes nuclear. Story wise this is a good read and fairly plausible, following multiple protagonists including a Navy Commander, a veteran Iranian soldier (the most interesting character in the book) and a US Pilot (shades of Dr Strangelove at the end) named Wedge who may or may not be inspired by the Star Wars character. A gripping read even if it peters out a bit at the end.

This is a novel that provides an all too realistic view of how conflict in the not too distant future (2034!) could be fomented and what a likely outcome may be. It has a similar aim to Clancey's Red Storm Rising, but this book deals much more with the geo-political angles rather than delving into tactical details (although there are enough of these to provide drama). The analysis that led to the chosen scenario is very sound and, as a graduate of the British Staff College, I found it all very plausible. Indeed, the current hiatus (mid-Aug 21) playing out in Afghanistan lends even more credence to the underlying thesis. Highly recommended, both as a novel and a vision of how the world order may change and in whose favour.