Book Review on Future Wars: The World's Most Dangerous Flashpoints

When you read this book, you must view it thinking that it still 1991 as that was when this was written. Also, for some of these scenarios, it assumes that George H.W. Bush was reelected in 1992 as his popularity in 1991 was very high due to the Gulf War. The last China scenario takes place in 1998 but the author does not tell you who the American president was at that time.

There are 10 different scenarios in this book; they range from a 2nd Russian Civil War, to a Sandinista invasion of Honduras, to a 2nd Korean War. Instead of giving a play by play of just the war, he gives you the political reasons for the war, the international reactions to the war, while featuring a certain crucial battle. For example, in the 2nd Korean War, he talks about how American withdrew its army from South Korea in 1994, which lead to student protests over reunification. The end result of that was North Korea deciding to take advantage of the chaotic situation to launch an invasion. The end result was a North Korea humiliated in defeat by South Korea with them even invading the North by itself.

I do have a few minor nitpicks though. After reading this book, it does seem like it wasn't proofread all that well. There were a number of grammatical mistakes as well as some date issues. For example, in the Russian Civil War scenario, the war supposedly started in October 1993 and ended in April 1994. But the main battle was supposedly fought in May 1994; how could that be? This isn't the Battle of New Orleans in 1812, where slow communications prevented both sides from realizing the war was over. Other such errors included such things time issues in the Egypt scenario, spelling issues in the India/Pakistan scenario and other similar errors in the China scenario.

There were 2 more areas that I thought were interesting. The author put himself in as a military advisor in the Israel war scenario, which I felt didn't add anything to the storyline. Also I thought the whole Sandinista war plot line pretty unbelievable. Even though the war lasted 3 days, the very idea of Nicaragua trying to conquer Central America is laughable.

Overall, in spite of a few problems, I would recommend this book. You could probably finish it in a night if you are a fast reader. I would give this book 4 out of 5 stars.