kw: book reviews, novels, warfare, cyber warfare, world war 4, chinese-american relations
I grew up in the shadow of Communism. Our big fear was the USSR, but even in the 1950's some wiser ones foretold that the bigger danger would eventually be from China. I have many, many church friends from both sides of the Strait of Formosa, and that is the view of them all. I remember the "liberalization" in China after Mao's death in 1976. I remember wondering how long it would last, because Deng was getting old already. Sure enough, in my estimation, each Chinese leader to follow Deng has been worse than the prior one, and Xi is poised to do more damage to the human race than Mao did.
The timeline of 2034: A Novel of the Next World War, by Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis, is set just over a dozen years in the future, so perhaps the authors expect a future Chairman to arise who will outdo even Xi, who will be 80 in 2034, should he live so long. The authors do mention Putin, the Russian President, who will be 82; he plays a part in a side drama.
The premise of the novel is simple: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which already (2021) has the world's largest navy, plus formidable cyber warfare capabilities, will think itself invincible, particularly once the US is found to have a weak President ("…whose greatest weakness is her fear of being perceived as weak."). The weakness of Biden does not bode well…
If I were to go into my reactions and learnings from 2034, I'd have to drop spoilers right and left. Maybe the authors would be OK with that, but I think it better to say that the scenarios of the novel are plausible, and fit right into what I have learned about China and the CCP from friends and acquaintances. I find it very unsettling. The Chinese tactics described rely on their cyber warfare capabilities. All that is keeping events like those in the book from happening right now are that the CCP's cyber warfare and cyber silencing techniques aren't yet quite up to snuff. I don't think it will take a dozen years for that gap to be filled.
A Chinese (not Taiwanese) friend told me recently about the Chinese GPS system, called BeiDou; the CCP will not permit the use of the "Western" GPS system in China. I replied, "It would behoove our military to get a bunch of BeiDou equipment, then, in case their first act of war is to silence GPS!" Needless to say, the NSA would need to take a whack at making sure there aren't any "surprises" buried in BeiDou software. I know of a couple of areas for which my GPS navigator is consistently in error by one mile. I presume it is for a military reason. It is a mistake to make cruise missiles and armed drones, let alone bombers and fighter jets, dependent on GPS.
I can surmise a few reasons for the authors picking 2034 as the year it all begins. For one thing, although Xi and Putin could still be in power, all the senior leadership of both American parties, including Trump, Biden, McConnell, Pelosi, and Schumer, will almost surely have died by then. That frees the authors from accounting for the personalities of any of these folks, and of the Clintons, whose last gasp may not yet have been heard. But I think the reason for settling on 2034 in particular, rather than 2040 or even 2027, is that 2034 is fifty years after 1984, and I think it is the right choice; I favor the mantle of George Orwell falling upon their shoulders. My bottom line:
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