Title: Ghost Fleet - A Novel of the Next World War
Author: P. W. Singer & August Cole
Year: 2015
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
ISBN: 978-0-544-14284-8
The book is about a war initiated by China & Russia where they attack and occupy Hawai'i in a repeat of the day that would live in infamy. The effect of this is to push the US out of the Pacific. At the end, the US, supported by the UK, Poland (especially) and Australia is able to re-invade, roll back the occupation and the world reverts to some semblance of how it was.
The drivers of the plot are the politics that could cause future wars and the technology that would enable their prosecution. In the introduction, the authors say all the technology depicted in the book already exists. The book was published a decade ago and even if the tech wasn't widely available then, it is more available now, which is good for the credibility of the authors. Despite the technology being marvellous, there is homage to older, more human controlled machines - lower tech F-15s and F-16s save the day after newer F-35s and other hi-tech stuff fail because they were compromised during manufacture by having Chinese made chips.
The politics behind the war assumes that the fears expressed today about China, its relationship with Russia and the tensions within Europe and NATO play out how western supremacists have been shrieking they will. The war begins when China enters an alliance with Russia in which Russia is the junior partner. This is made plain by only showing the objectives of China and the discussions about the war within the Chinese leadership. The alliance attacks the US which despite (in the book) having a smaller economy than China maintains its post WWII era military presence in the Western Pacific. This irks China because it constrains it. At the end, the US is pushed out of the Western Pacific but retakes Hawai'i and perhaps Guam.
Other things I liked are the depictions of combat. There are believable depictions of ground, sea, air, space and cyber warfare. They are believable despite me having no experience and only superficial knowledge gleaned from books and films. However, they tally with those aspects that I found believable in other media. For example, the cyber warfare bit reminds me of attacks that Russia carried out against Ukraine and a demonstration of the feasibility of such attacks within the US described in the book Sandworm. The air combat reminds me of Top Gun: Maverick (which I think is a fantastic film). I don't have comparisons for the naval and ground combat which were nevertheless exciting. There is also a plausible description of an evolution in Chinese politics when the communist government is toppled by a nationalist and perhaps fascist or maybe corporatist alliance of military and big business called The Directorate. I think this is neat given that both fascism and communism have the same root.
The military and political bits I did not like are depictions of the Chinese. The war begins with a cruel betrayal in space by the Chinese against an American. The rest of the war's prosecution depicted Chinese successes as due to sneaky cunning while the American successes were due to bold cunning, grit, intelligence and combat experience. There is a stereotypical depiction of the main Chinese military character as beholden to a past sage, indicative - I imagine - of an inability to be original. There is a recurring mention of Chinese technology being based on stolen western intellectual property which is perhaps a stressing of that lack of originality. Chinese military motivation is shown as deranged fanaticism in contrast to American loyalty to lofty ideals. Chinese aggression is personalized as being The Directorate (i.e. the motives of the government or the regime (as western media likes to put it) differ from that of the rest of the country) against the nation of America (i.e. people, government and state united) who are attacked while going about their peaceful lives. This supposedly unprovoked aggression is depicted by having the main characters on the American side be ordinary people while the focus on the other side is usually the politicians or top military people who are usually only shown in relation to the war while the Americans are given a more rounded treatment. In this case, there was a lot of focus on the marital problems of the main American character who was being pressured by his wife to leave the navy and focus on his family. While this desire of hers would make sense during peacetime, maintaining it in war is just selfish and stupid. A (perhaps unintended) side effect of the focus on Chinese leaders and American ordinary people makes us see the war at the strategic level for the Chinese and a tactical one for the Americans.
The other bits I didn't like are those I consider irrelevant. I do not like insertion of social justice agenda except it serves a purpose. So, here, there is a gratuitous mention of a gay naval captain. The man dies pretty early, and his sexual preferences have nothing to do with his death or even how he commanded his ship. There are deliberate mentions of Indians, Chinese and Latinos in the US military which I imagine were meant to show the salad bowl that is America. The presence of the Chinese American however, served to show that America had changed since the internment of the Japanese and how the society doesn't accept racism, it didn't really add anything to the book. There was also a serial killer subplot that was just pulp fiction.
Despite the above, I generally liked the book. As I said before, the combat was realistic. And the description of the politics behind the war echoes the book I'd read just before this one. That book was The Revenge of Geography by Robert Kaplan. That book attempted to show how geography determines politics and international relations. It talked about how current borders that make no geographic sense will shift based on geography and demographics. So, in both Kaplan's book and this one, there is a hint of possibility of future conflict between China and Russia due to demographic pressure from the Chinese on Russia's empty far east. In the movie Crocodile Dundee, there is a statement that people fighting over ownership of land is like fleas fighting over ownership of portions of a dog's rump. The rump will always be there regardless of the presence of any particular flea. So, any concern about present borders seems a bit senseless to me, especially when the government of the country cannot defend or develop the area. In the case of Russia, it might be able to defend it, but can it use it optimally? Even though Kaplan did not talk about Africa, I think the DRC should be balkanized. Its government can neither defend nor develop its territories, especially it's east. So why insist that the country must remain as designed during colonial era? Countries like Uganda, Burundi and especially Rwanda should be allowed to tear chunks off it. However, since America can both defend and develop its territory, I like that the book ended with Hawai'i retaken. I also like how the US was pushed out of the Western Pacific. It is just irksome that one country can meddle in everyone's backyard while keeping other countries out of its own neighborhood. The situation at the end of the book seemed like a more stable balance of power.
I first read this book in 2016. I enjoyed it then. And I enjoyed it now. It is recommended.