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By Robert A. Vella – June 17th 2024
 
 
Imagining the unthinkable, that’s what acclaimed author Elliot Ackerman (a former U.S. Marine special operations team leader) and retired U.S. Navy Admiral James Stavridis (formerly the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR)) present in their recent book 2034: A Novel of the Next World War.  The premise of their truly thrilling fictional story begs the question which has haunted the world since the post-WWII Cold War:  Can nuclear war be contained enough to prevent a global catastrophe which would destroy human civilization and possibly cause the extinction of our species?
 
Although the authors do not answer that question directly, they do suggest an answer by what transpires in their story.
 

SPOILER ALERT

 
Here’s a brief synopsis:
 
Rather than a broad high-level dissertation of the major events which trigger WWIII, the story is narrowly focused on the experiences of five main characters:  an Iranian war hero, a Chinese military attaché, a U.S. naval commander, a celebrated U.S. Marine fighter pilot, and an Indian-American diplomat.  Such a focus brings a necessary human perspective to an otherwise inhuman topic, but it excludes examinations of the failures of political leadership as well as the tangible horrors of nuclear war.
 
Regardless, the story begins with China and Iran developing cyber-warfare technology which can disable and seize control of conventionally superior U.S. communications and avionics systems used for command-and-control, navigation, surveillance, tracking, and targeting.  The authors astutely identified America’s dependence on private industry as the weak-link in U.S. military security that is exploited by Chinese-Iranian cyber-attacks which sink an American destroyer flotilla guarding the Taiwan Strait and captures an advanced U.S. F-35 Lightning II strike-fighter jet patrolling the Persian Gulf.
 
Aggressively, and foolishly disregarding China’s cyber-warfare capabilities, the U.S. sends two aircraft carrier battle groups to the South China Sea to protect Taiwan.  The single Chinese carrier battle group, which had already sunk the American destroyers, then proceeds to utterly destroy the two U.S. carrier groups using the exact same tactics.  The enraged American leadership responds by escalating the conflict.  It diverts three other carrier battle groups to the western pacific and prepares to use tactical nuclear weapons if necessary.
 
Before the American redeployment is completed, China invades and captures Taiwan while Russia (still under Vladimir Putin’s leadership) seizes the opportunity to cut key undersea communication cables (which shutdown most of America’s internet) and militarily occupy a strategic land corridor through northeastern Poland.
 
U.S. leaders, who are unable to positively identify Russia as the perpetrator of the internet attack (being too preoccupied with China), order one of their carrier groups (led by the USS Enterprise) to launch a tactical nuclear strike against the port city of Zhanjiang (the headquarters of China’s South Sea Fleet).  The strike is successful (and extremely deadly) because the Americans begin to nullify the Chinese cyber-warfare capability by using obsolete F/A-18 Hornet strike-fighters stripped of their vulnerable communications and avionics systems.
 
Shocked by the escalation, China retaliates by sending its carrier battle group (led by the Zheng He) to the eastern pacific which destroys the cities of San Diego, California and Galveston, Texas with tactical nuclear weapons.  Russia, ever the opportunist, ventures to seize control of the Strait of Hormuz (to reap a financial windfall by monopolizing the world’s oil supply) by invading its Iranian ally’s key island military base in the Persian Gulf;  but, it fails embarrassingly when its airborne paratroop division is blown into the sea by unexpected winds.  Meanwhile, the U.S. plans to launch tactical nuclear strikes against three more Chinese cities.
 
India, the rising geopolitical power which until this point has managed to stay out of the conflict, comes to the conclusion that it must now get militarily involved in order to stave-off nuclear Armageddon.  As the Enterprise carrier group prepares for its nuclear assaults and the Zheng He returns to the western pacific, Indian leaders secure Iran’s non-involvement in the war by warning it (via intelligence sharing) prior to Russia’s airborne invasion in the Persian Gulf (which fails regardless) and then prepares to forcibly stop any further Sino-American aggression.
 
Subsequently, the Indians sink the Zheng He.  Then, their advanced aircraft (Russian-built Sukhoi Su-35 air-defense fighters) shoot-down eight of the nine F/A-18 Hornets attempting to launch tactical nuclear weapons against three Chinese cities.  The ninth Hornet, flown by the celebrated U.S. Marine pilot, evades their attacks and suicidally delivers his bomb.  Shanghai is annihilated along with more than thirty million of its inhabitants.
 
Both devastated (economically, militarily, and politically) and now fallen from the top of the geopolitical hierarchy, China and America agree to India’s peace demands.  A new world order emerges centered on the fledgling India-Iran axis.
 

END OF SPOILER ALERT

 
As a work of fiction, 2034 is exceptional.  The story is crisp, compelling, and skillfully written.  The characters are quite captivating, and the book is difficult to put down.  I found myself continually reading past natural break points because I was eager to discover what happened next.  It is also technically accurate to the highest degree as readers might expect from the accomplished military backgrounds of these two remarkable authors.
 
As a vision of a possible World War III scenario (which the book does not necessarily present itself to be), I would express these criticisms:
 
  • Although the Chinese/Iranian cyber-warfare advantage over the U.S. is certainly plausible, the constriction of combat engagements to naval forces is not.  In such a war, land-based air and ground forces would surely be employed as practicable.  So too would any orbital resources dependent upon their availability and capability.
  • Curiously, the story completely ignores any role played by U.S. allies except for a passing reference to NATO’s demise.  Countries such as Japan, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand would be alarmed (at the very least) by Chinese threats against Taiwan.
  • Also notably absent from the story are the various cultural, ideological, and political influences which obviously affect the decision-making processes of national leaders.  While Putin’s autocratic ambitions are appropriately inferred, the religious zealotry of Iran’s leadership (or, similarly, the ethnic/racial prejudices of America’s right-wing) are not even suggested.
  • The restriction in the use of nuclear forces to tactical weapons only by the U.S. and China is questionable in my opinion.  The urge to utilize strategic intercontinental weapons would be strong indeed especially by the nation which was losing the war.  I understand the desire to believe in the rationality of political leaders (i.e. that “cooler heads would prevail”);  but, once the nukes start mushrooming, human rationality would tend to falter amidst the torrent of chaos (as was depicted in the book by the serial military escalations).
As I stated at the beginning of this review, 2034 examines neither the egregious failures of political leadership which must occur in nations waging nuclear war nor the terrible human costs of such a war.  These omissions are acceptable in pure fiction, but are unacceptable otherwise.  However, I consider it as immensely valuable as informative literature concerning the possibility of a third world war scenario and particularly so given the current deteriorating states of human societies and modern civilization.
 
I’m rating this book as HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.