Professional reviewers have bent over backward praising James Stavridis and Elliot Ackerman’s 2034: A Novel of the Next World War. I read these reviews and wonderful if we read the same novel.
It would be impossible to explain all the implausible
scenarios in the novel. They just pile up, one upon another. One is the speed
of the crisis: it takes China and the US months to unfold their war. In this work, and one would think so even
more in 2034, crises emerge quickly, and end quickly, for better or worse. A major conflict between China and the US would
not unfold as a Pacific style World War Two naval conflict as these authors predict.
Then there is the initial premise. The war starts because China has Battlestar Galactica
Cylon abilities that literally control US military and civilian technology. Yes, really. Battlestar did a better job, as it was plausible in that world. Yet another problem: why would one nation with nuclear capacity attack
another with nuclear capacity? Would not
MAD work for the US and China as it did for the US and the Soviet Union. How about a proxy war before we nuke Shanghai?
There little doubt in my mind that the United States will
steadily lose global hegemony in the twenty-first century, perhaps even to China. But not as this book fantastically, implausibly, and laughably lays out.
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