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A remarkably believable account, Humphrey Hawksley's Dragonfire, illustrates a major nuclear war in Asia emerging and proceeding in a series of logical steps, none of which seems as horrendous as the final outcome.
Assume Tibetans based in India launch a raid into Lhasa to free a Tibetan monk being held prisoner by the Chinese. Assume the Chinese encourage their Pakistani friends to stir up trouble on India's western border. Assume the Pakistani military produces a risk-taking leader who replaces the weak government, undertaking a high-risk campaign against India with strong backing from China. Assume that at the peak of the Pakistani campaign, the Chinese launch an attack on India. These circumstances set the stage for what follows. As India's larger military weight wears out the Pakistanis and India pushes into Pakistan, the Pakistanis desperately decide to use nuclear weapons tactically on their own territory. From then on, the situation spirals out of control.
The recent terrorist attacks on America make this novel slightly less likely because we are almost certainly going to see a stronger American military and a closer American relationship with Pakistan, which will have a stabilizing influence.
Nonetheless, as a harbinger of the dangers the world will face in the next generation and the potential for utilization of weapons of mass destruction, this is an especially believable and incredibly thought-provoking novel well worth reading.
Genre: Mystery
Assume Tibetans based in India launch a raid into Lhasa to free a Tibetan monk being held prisoner by the Chinese. Assume the Chinese encourage their Pakistani friends to stir up trouble on India's western border. Assume the Pakistani military produces a risk-taking leader who replaces the weak government, undertaking a high-risk campaign against India with strong backing from China. Assume that at the peak of the Pakistani campaign, the Chinese launch an attack on India. These circumstances set the stage for what follows. As India's larger military weight wears out the Pakistanis and India pushes into Pakistan, the Pakistanis desperately decide to use nuclear weapons tactically on their own territory. From then on, the situation spirals out of control.
The recent terrorist attacks on America make this novel slightly less likely because we are almost certainly going to see a stronger American military and a closer American relationship with Pakistan, which will have a stabilizing influence.
Nonetheless, as a harbinger of the dangers the world will face in the next generation and the potential for utilization of weapons of mass destruction, this is an especially believable and incredibly thought-provoking novel well worth reading.
Genre: Mystery
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