Just found it at the library. Impressive tome- long, comprehensive scenarios, interesting ideas, even pictures included. Probably all quite unlikely in retrospect, but I like it. Thoughts on it? Know any similar tomes written in the '90s?
Total War 2006 by Simon Pearson
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It was a decent read...I don't know where my copy went, or I'd read it again. The detail throughout the book is good, but makes the ending stand out, and not in a good way; it seems to end in about two pages.
The only obvious plot hole is that the Israeli ABM general acts like an idiot - he is alone in thinking through the implications of the enemy's armament, and if he'd simply told his superiors the reasoning behind his seemingly odd interceptions, they'd have agreed, and the war would have turned out very differently.
The only obvious plot hole is that the Israeli ABM general acts like an idiot - he is alone in thinking through the implications of the enemy's armament, and if he'd simply told his superiors the reasoning behind his seemingly odd interceptions, they'd have agreed, and the war would have turned out very differently.
Not in the 90's, but it did remind me of 'The Third World War' by General Hackett. I actually mentioned this book here a day or two ago. When I first read it, I clung to it like a bible, and hunkered down here for the coming British near-civil-war. I've mellowed out since though, and in retrospect it seems a bit silly and full of fait accomplis. Still, a riveting read, and well thought-out. Also, he hit the nail right on the head with his theories on airpower and the media war. He also predicted the resurgent Russia quite well (though this was before Putin, who is mentioned only as 'Yeltsin's successor was a weak man who was swept away' or such).
Permanganate, the Israeli officer tried to tell his superiors several times of his theories, but they ignored him.
Permanganate, the Israeli officer tried to tell his superiors several times of his theories, but they ignored him.
Where did the Russian SAM systems come from? ... His point is that the West had become too complacent with its idea of Russia as a defeated enemy, unable to come up with new weapons. This has been proved right in light of recent events. The S-300 ('Patriotski') is an existing Russian SAM - he simply has them with an improved version of it.
The Air Combats were very clean, I agree - I think there's he's just highlighting the complete difference in fighting a 'clean, old-fashioned' war with Russia (that the West prepared for for 50 years) to the dirty assymetrical war with the middle east.
Riain
Banned
I know that the Russians have a superb array of adanced SAMs which could be used to create the very tough defensive umbrellas described. But it strikes me as odd to imagine a world where large numbers of countries in the ME deploy these networks with little to no reaction from the West. If these SAMs were deployed in huge numbers between when the book was written (1998) and the start of the War in 2006 surely the West would bump up their response on the priority list. A few more B2s, accelerated F22, Rafale, Typhoon, FA18E programmes plus bringing into service some of the array of hard and soft kill options which lurk in the background in every advanced arms producer. I find it easy to believe that the west would be caught flat-footed by the political developments which saw the rise of Saladin, but not that the deployment of hundreds of top flight SAMs throughout the ME would go unanswered.
It's been years since I read the book, but I don't remember that. I remember him coming back from a call with a superior, during which he was reamed and told to follow procedure, but I don't remember him saying that he'd informed his superiors of his reasoning. After all, his reasoning is completely logical, even without hindsight - why would the Israeli command ignore it if they knew about it?
I'm skimming the book now- that is, reading the parts about politics, background setting, major battles, and glossing over most of the stuff about military hardware and so on- I'm actually one of the few in AH who cares more about social relations than warfare.
Slight spoiler-
I like how on page 21 the "Democratic President autorised one last big raid" on Iraq in 2002 shortly before lifting sanctions, and accidentally hit Saddam Hussein as he was visiting a bioweapons lab hidden under a nusery school. However, this only put the dictator in a coma, but "Saddam's son took up the reins of power and announced that he would take over as President until his beloved father recovered. He promised open dialogue and cooperation with the West but voweed that no American on Briton would ever set foot on iraqi soil again." Also, "France, Russia, and China were equally appalled" as the Arab world at this apparent attempt of "state-sponsored terrorism." Then there's some stuff about French trade after sanctions are lifted, and the French channel Canal 5 changes the world opinion about Iraq as a place that sanctions had hit the people worst, so then "for the following two years Iraq, led by Saddam's very able son, concentred on becoming the model neighbor while, without the presence of U.S. or U.K. inspectors, she was able to continue dundisturbed in making her own preparations, under Saddam Hussein's finest palace for action against Israel." I'm still wondering if whether or not he is Uday or he is Qusay.
Man, this is a wacky alternate present indeed.
Slight spoiler-
I like how on page 21 the "Democratic President autorised one last big raid" on Iraq in 2002 shortly before lifting sanctions, and accidentally hit Saddam Hussein as he was visiting a bioweapons lab hidden under a nusery school. However, this only put the dictator in a coma, but "Saddam's son took up the reins of power and announced that he would take over as President until his beloved father recovered. He promised open dialogue and cooperation with the West but voweed that no American on Briton would ever set foot on iraqi soil again." Also, "France, Russia, and China were equally appalled" as the Arab world at this apparent attempt of "state-sponsored terrorism." Then there's some stuff about French trade after sanctions are lifted, and the French channel Canal 5 changes the world opinion about Iraq as a place that sanctions had hit the people worst, so then "for the following two years Iraq, led by Saddam's very able son, concentred on becoming the model neighbor while, without the presence of U.S. or U.K. inspectors, she was able to continue dundisturbed in making her own preparations, under Saddam Hussein's finest palace for action against Israel." I'm still wondering if whether or not he is Uday or he is Qusay.
Man, this is a wacky alternate present indeed.
Well I saw Pearson in an interview on BBC shortly before the Iraq clusterfuck started and, well, its his book alright.
Excluding the F-22 the Russian advanced Su-32 series, when paired with European electronics, are best in class and still cheaper than F-15s/F-16s and JSFs.
However in a general sense, Western gear + Western training beats Russian gear + Russian training.
However in a general sense, Western gear + Western training beats Russian gear + Russian training.
Are there any other books similar to it? Because this is some amusing stuff. He covers everything from Iraq to Northern Ireland to China collapsing to the formation of the requisite Caliphate in this book. I mean at the end I know it becomes all techno-thriller and cliche and unbelievable with WMD's flying around like tracers, but it's still fairly amusing. He aims for a style of verisimilitude and largely gets it even though a lot of the events are very unrealistic.
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He does get some things right.
- The Conseravtives would elect a Young Dynamic leader.
- British Born Muslims would attack on British terrioty.
- Russia would bully and attack former members of the Soviet Union.
Upon doing some research on Amazon, it seems like there is a distinct lack of "future military textbooks" similar to this one. Oh well.
If anyone wants to participate for a similar project, try this! An action-packed, yet semi-believable techno thriller game.
If anyone wants to participate for a similar project, try this! An action-packed, yet semi-believable techno thriller game.
Apropos of nothing, I bought this book almost exactly four years ago, but I didn't really try reading it again until now. I don't think I'll do a blow-by-blow recap of it, but suffice to say that most of this book is written in an authoritative textbook style that captures the now-alternate-history retro-future world of 2006 from the POV of 2000. However, and I think it'll become more likely as the book goes on, it increasingly falls into the sensationalist, crypto-right-wing politics of techno thriller fare (in a boomer Tom Clancy military nut dad way, though the author is actually an ex-RAF vet).
For example, near the start of my reread, the author mentions that Germany's economy hits the high water mark in November 2002, before slipping into economic depression/recession. The cause of this is because during the '90s, improved workers rights and lavish benefits leads to corporations having to offshore. Three direct factors- the expense of developing East Germany post-reunification, unemployment in West Germany stemming from the aforementioned offshoring to the U.S. and Asia, and immigration- namely ethnic Turks and Kurds- leads to a devastated economy, then social turmoil as newly radicalized disaffected neo-Nazi youth clashing with new immigrants.
It's astounding, in retrospect that Pearson gets so many general issues right, while so many of the specifics wrong. But I'm not even sure if you can chalk it up to the vagaries of prophecy. He doesn't even get the cultural stereotypes right. Basically, this passage presumes that the Germany of the '90s were behaving like the French in giving their workers many holidays and short workweeks to do nothing, leading the traditionally industrious Germans to export jobs and manufacturing to other countries. (Which, of course, is diametrically opposite to how it's worked out in real life: German unions have traditionally worked hand in hand with management in many companies in a low-adversarial relationship, and Germany has continued to enjoy the strongest economy in the EU by being a manufacturing leader.)This then leads up to essentially a Greece-shaped crisis (austerity isn't mentioned, but presumably that's what would happen). And sure, economic breakdown leads to social breakdown and ethnic conflict with immigrants, but the book has the CDU (which is the "right-wing opposition" in this world) explicitly supporting xenophobia by saying Germany had "an overdose of immigrants". So yeah, contrast this to how it actually played out in reality- somehow this was sillier to me than the earlier parts about Algerians getting taken over by Islamists, France sending the Foreign Legion there and then getting kicked out humiliatingly, and Labour screwing the pooch on Northern Ireland leading to renewed violence.
I know this is a long digression from a twenty year old technothriller novel, but somehow this three pages entitled "Germany steps right" had a greater resonance to me than the actual military conflict stuff so far, probably because it's easier to relate to in OTL 2020 (and maybe even in OTL 2006?) than a post-Clinton Democratic president accidentally assassinating Saddam Hussein during a bombing raid on a secret bioweapons lab underneath an Iraqi nursery and then either Uday or Qusay becoming the next Iraqi president and opening up to the non-Anglo-American West. Let alone (what I assume will happen) the Muslim world uniting under a charismatic warlord named Saladin and declaring jihad against McWorld.
That said, I think this is worth reading because this is like the only published textbook-style AH besides Sobel's For Want of a Nail, and it's relatively contemporary, and sort of predicts a technothriller version of the War on Terror.
For example, near the start of my reread, the author mentions that Germany's economy hits the high water mark in November 2002, before slipping into economic depression/recession. The cause of this is because during the '90s, improved workers rights and lavish benefits leads to corporations having to offshore. Three direct factors- the expense of developing East Germany post-reunification, unemployment in West Germany stemming from the aforementioned offshoring to the U.S. and Asia, and immigration- namely ethnic Turks and Kurds- leads to a devastated economy, then social turmoil as newly radicalized disaffected neo-Nazi youth clashing with new immigrants.
It's astounding, in retrospect that Pearson gets so many general issues right, while so many of the specifics wrong. But I'm not even sure if you can chalk it up to the vagaries of prophecy. He doesn't even get the cultural stereotypes right. Basically, this passage presumes that the Germany of the '90s were behaving like the French in giving their workers many holidays and short workweeks to do nothing, leading the traditionally industrious Germans to export jobs and manufacturing to other countries. (Which, of course, is diametrically opposite to how it's worked out in real life: German unions have traditionally worked hand in hand with management in many companies in a low-adversarial relationship, and Germany has continued to enjoy the strongest economy in the EU by being a manufacturing leader.)This then leads up to essentially a Greece-shaped crisis (austerity isn't mentioned, but presumably that's what would happen). And sure, economic breakdown leads to social breakdown and ethnic conflict with immigrants, but the book has the CDU (which is the "right-wing opposition" in this world) explicitly supporting xenophobia by saying Germany had "an overdose of immigrants". So yeah, contrast this to how it actually played out in reality- somehow this was sillier to me than the earlier parts about Algerians getting taken over by Islamists, France sending the Foreign Legion there and then getting kicked out humiliatingly, and Labour screwing the pooch on Northern Ireland leading to renewed violence.
I know this is a long digression from a twenty year old technothriller novel, but somehow this three pages entitled "Germany steps right" had a greater resonance to me than the actual military conflict stuff so far, probably because it's easier to relate to in OTL 2020 (and maybe even in OTL 2006?) than a post-Clinton Democratic president accidentally assassinating Saddam Hussein during a bombing raid on a secret bioweapons lab underneath an Iraqi nursery and then either Uday or Qusay becoming the next Iraqi president and opening up to the non-Anglo-American West. Let alone (what I assume will happen) the Muslim world uniting under a charismatic warlord named Saladin and declaring jihad against McWorld.
That said, I think this is worth reading because this is like the only published textbook-style AH besides Sobel's For Want of a Nail, and it's relatively contemporary, and sort of predicts a technothriller version of the War on Terror.
Total War: 2006 - Wikipedia
I had bought this book, but was never able to read it, partly because the build-up of imaginary pressure to do a long write-up summary of what happens like I did in the other thread.
Today I flipped into it and randomly found that it talks about Israel/Palestine, so---
More here. This book was written in 1999.
Today I flipped into it and randomly found that it talks about Israel/Palestine, so---
More here. This book was written in 1999.