Elliot Ackerman, James G. Stavridis: 2034: A Novel of the Next World War. (2021)
Fri, Mar 18, 2022./noise/books | LinkKindle. I don't usually read this sort of militaristic strategic imagineering. The draw was Elliot Ackerman despite the strong sense that the returns have been negligible for some time.
Briefly it's 2034 and China has decided that it's time to take Taiwan. (Putin, despite making a hash of many of their premises in the real world, is still in power.) The USA has tied itself up in technological knots and cannot do more than react. Contrary to Daniel Ellsberg there is a nuclear exchange that most humans survive. India has risen as the USA slid into third worldism.
Well, what can I say. The plot is derivative and holey; we begin with an almost scene-for-scene replay of the Kobayashi Maru from Star Trek II, right down to having a woman in charge. Soon enough it's Dr. Strangelove with "Wedge" standing in for the far more entertaining Slim Pickens. It's probably intended more as a think piece, exploring their concerns through provocative situationalism, but even so their research is not good enough. (Just one example: severing internet cables running through the Arctic would have no effect on connectivity in the continental USA; I mean, just ask Google. I thought everyone knew it was designed to survive nuclear war.)
The authors have developments depend more on personal links than the institutions that the West claims to be comfortable with. (Some big moves depend on stale familial relations.) For all that and despite women being placed in positions of power, responsibility, and violence, when it comes to the substance of decision making men dominate.
Torn to shreds on Goodreads.