Customer Reviews

Dragon Strike

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

What I found interesting about this book is how the authors knit fact with fiction. Kudos to the authors for that and the detailed knowledge of the latest weaponry. But ultimately, it comes down to predicting the future........and that is a very hard thing to do.

While I suppose that ANYTHING can happen in the future, there are some things which are very unlikely. For example, it is extremely unlikely that India might help China build its infrastructure after China is alienated by the West. (p. 246)

Another problem I have is that the American President backs off when he realizes that China can unleash a nuclear weapon on American soil EVEN THOUGH China made the first (using conventional weapons) strike and killed 2,000 American seamen. Americans are very nationalistic. If the Chinese would rather die than to give in, so would the Americans.

Also, a character named Reece Overhalt comes out of nowhere and becomes a key player at the most crucial time of the nuclear standoff. I find it hard to believe that a businessman like him is trusted w/ top secret information like location of Chinese submarines and that he, instead of the US Ambassador, negotiates peace on behalf of the American President.

Finally, the book seemed a bit like a Hindi movie.......a 1.5 hour story stretched to 3 hours by smaller unrelated stories.

Right up until the shooting starts, it's a great book. Beyond that point, too many players are using cards they would no longer have. The authors seem to have forgotten that most US cities came to terms with imminent attack long ago, and that at the end of the threatened scenario one side would still be in a position to offer deals that the other would no longer be in a position to refuse. Militarily spot-on, financially iffy. Beyond a certain point, economics does not play a role in policy decisions at a leadership level. A President that ignored that would not remain President very long.

Stategy wise, the book understandably has many "if"s and "but"s. But in terms of depicting psychologies of nations in the context of aggression and war, Humphrey offers obvious insights. As an Indian living in his "theatre of war" I can assert that his understanding of geo-political and military realities, as well as his portrayal of "national" characters, is bang on.

That India would react to China's nuclear attack by refusing to nuke civilian positions is typical. For those who read about international affairs in the US, the recent war in Kargil exemplifies India's character as a nation which can be ethical and humane in a war. ( I know peaceniks will be horrified by my use of words ! )

He has an eye for details ( though there are some minor factual errors), and writes in a no nonsense journo-fictional style that is engrossing and informative at the same time.

What I found a little funny was that all other reviews talked about how America is or will be, in context of the book. The reviewers only confirm Humphrey's portrayal of America and its citizens in the book as being insular and inward looking !

My only advice to people reading the book is to get themselves out of their American (?) skins, and put themselves in the shoes of the protogonists ( India, China and Pakistan) for perspective.

Though I am sceptical, I also hope the book influences policy makers in the Western World enough to make them understand the dangers of propping an Islamic fundamentalist country run by tinpot dictators, the dangers of turning a blind eye to an increasingly belligerent dragon that chooses peace only when it suits it, and understand how much India really embodies so much of the ideals of democracy, liberty and world peace - ideals so dear to the Western world and its citizens.

"Dragon Strike," like its predecessor, "World War III," is not a novel about individuals, but about groups - nations. The thinness of enjoyable characters in this book fits well with its purpose, which is to focus on how we, the Americans, vs. they, the Chinese would likely behave in a nuclear showdown. How would the American public react if it became convinced that a rogue superpower had calmly decided to either get its way in its part of the world, or commit suicide and take as much of us with it as it could? Today's America is not the America of the Cuban missile crisis, and China is not Russia. The Media is both more extensive and drama-oriented now than in 1962. This book is an alert to U.S. think-tanks to reanalyze deterrence in an Asian context, as well as what Americans would do if they became convinced that nukes could come out of the sky at any moment. The book "Unto Others," by Sober and Wilson may be helpful in understanding how the importance of individual characters must be subsumed in any work purporting to deal with contention between civilizations. Both Hawksley and Holbertson, "Dragonstrike" authors, have long experience in Asia, and their understanding of how Chinese think when it comes to the West, shows up strongly in the book.

Just got through reading Dragon Strike, and have to say it left me unimpressed. While Hawksley's grasp on the financial/market aspects of the conflict is good, his knowledge of military tactics and hardware leaves much to be desired.

Constant, nagging technical errors plague the book, such as references like "SU-24 Flankers" and several others. The lack of understanding on naval and air warfare shows through, and their is also an unusual bias towards the Royal Navy capabilities that shows through, and a British bias in general.

This bias is exemplified not only by exaggerating British military capabilities in the fight for the South China Sea, but also by his treatment of panic caused by a possible nuclear attack. While the UK remains calm but prepared, the US falls apart with panic while gangs armed with AK-47 rule the streets and crowds surrounding the white house fire RPG's on government buildings ;-)

It's that kind of over the top style that distracts from the book overall. However the prose is not much better. His style is one of 1-4 page snippets that attempt to link the story as a cohesive whole, jumping around from China, Vietnam, Japan, the White House, etc. But the writing style is dry, with the characters nothing more than paper cut-outs, that you come away unimpressed, and unsympathetic to any of them.

As a techno-thriller, this falls short. As a primer on economics and the markets in time of war, Hawksley does show a grasp on the subject at hand.

Certainly no Larry Bond, Tom Clancy, Harold Coyle or Scott Malensek, but the book does make for an interesting "what-if" chronology, even if the delivery falls short. If you can find it cheap, and really enjoy the genre, pick it up and give it a look. Otherwise you should pass on this one and try one of the above authors.

Anticipating a 12-hour flight back to the States, I picked up Dragonstrike as backup airplane reading at London Heathrow, along with the latest LeCarre. Little did I suspect the extent to which I would be mesmerized by by Hawksley and Holberton's fictional extrapolation of current trends in PRC policies and claims. These claims lead to a global conflict that engulfs nations -- and financial markets -- in a matter of hours.

The authors, longtime Asia hands (with the BBC and Financial Times), construct a world crisis based on China's claims to the Spratley Islands and associated rich energy reserves in the South China Sea. They have done their homework thoroughly.

Much of Dragonstrike's content (for example, the PRC claims to the Spratleys, or Japan's response to Chinese agression in the Western Pacific region) is drawn from published policy -- this is not fiction.

Lessons that Dragonstrike drives home include the inextricable interdependency of nations, markets, and economies; the accelerated time frame of events in a global, networked geopolitick; the need for nations to balance business interests with sound defense policy; and the extent to which the globalization of interests has produced a new post-cold-war allignment of nations and economies. These are lessons that US legislators, in particular, seem sometimes to ignore.

It is especially chilling to be reading this "novel" during the current NATO/US bombing of Kosovo -- not to mention the ongoing debate over US policy toward the PRC. The policies that Hawksley and Holbarton put into the mouths of fictional spokesmen bear an uncanny resemblance to statements by US representatitives in the press and on CNN.

If you have any interest in foreign affairs, global capital markets, geopolitics, or life on the Pacific Rim, read this book.

Related reading might include Simon Winchester's books on the Pacific Rim and China; "The Japan that Can Say No" (cited by Hawksely and Holberton); and NY Times OP-Ed writer Thomas Friedman's just-published work on the global politick.

One of the most thoughtful -- and thought-provoking -- books I've read in a very, very long time.

While I have seen ebooks with a missing letter here and there, this ebook abounds with missing characters, especially numbers. So much so that it becomes very hard to read. The general plot is interesting, but does suffer from some poor research into the military aspects of the story. If you want the whole story, you will need to buy a hardcopy.

Dragonstrike is a different style of storytelling. There are no real central characters or narrative, just a series of newspaper reports detailing major incidents (although there is a narrative about an English family preparing for the holocaust: very grim).

This style makes the story seem a lot more authentic, but also presents baffling stats and figures for people without knowledge of military/economic affairs.

In so far as this is alternate future history I found the book satisfying: a book ABOUT events, not a detective/murder/love story set amongst great events.

The book is very believeable, and the fact that China was willing to sacrifice itself on the altar of nuclear fire was an indication of the mentality of the leadership not of the people.

What this book teaches us is that war will never be simple again: because of the levarage of global and multinational corporations.

Portrays the harm that can come about when politics and distrust rules in a world armed to the teeth with nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction

For scenario creation, research and thought, the authors get a 4.5. For story they get a 1. The characters are so thin as to be interchangable. The authors stop the story with multipage interludes to give background on key plot points, like the Japanese dependence on foreign sources for oil, and therefore their touchiness about the South China Sea shipping lanes. These topics could have been wrapped into the narrative, but without real characters even this becomes a problem. These interludes act like a sidebar in a magazine. In a magazine you can skip them if you don't want to read them. Here you don't know if you can or can't, as historical reality and future speculation are mixed together. Another problem is an overemphasis on equipment. Clancy's Red Storm Rising also went into heavy detail about this or that weapon system, but these elements were part of a cohesive overall narrative. In this story we learn next to nothing about any of the pilots, soldiers, sailors or leaders involved. Had the authors closely followed one or two Chinese submarine captains, a Vietnamese fighter pilot or Allied bomber pilot, the story would have been much richer. Read this to learn one way China might try to throw the US out of Asia, but run far, far away if you are looking for an engaging thriller.