In 2034, a small American flotilla on a routine ‘freedom of navigation’ patrol in the South China Sea encounters an unflagged trawler in distress, with smoke billowing from its bridge. What follows is far from routine, as events escalate and then spin out of control. That’s the beginning of 2034: A novel of the next world war.
This isn’t your average airport bookstore blockbuster. Novelist Elliot Ackerman, the author of several award-winning military-themed novels, including Waiting for Eden, has teamed up with James Stavridis, who spent more than 30 years in the US Navy, including long operational stints in the Indo-Pacific, rising to the rank of four-star admiral. He also served as supreme allied commander in NATO and dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Massachusetts. Stavridis has published widely on naval affairs, including Sea power: The history and geopolitics of the world’s oceans, and contributes actively to the ongoing international discussion on the implications of China’s rise.
Stavridis and Ackerman have combined their talents—the former’s detailed operational knowledge of military strategy and tactics and the latter’s narrative skills—to come up with a realistic, detailed and highly readable account of how the next world war might begin.
www.19fortyfive.com/2021/08/a-u-s-china-war-in-the-south-china-sea-in-2034-who-wins/