Customer Reviews

The War in 2020

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is one of the best novels I have ever read. The WAR IN 2020 is an honest book which does not try to pull its punches.

Despite some of the themes being dated (written in 1990; the USSR exists in 2020 (sort of) AND the Japan as the enemy), the book was one of the first to take a hard look at the end of the cold war and its effects on islamic fundamentalism and the chaos in Central Asia (a common thread throughout many of his novels.) It also looks at the peace dividend and how these so-called savings get deferred to the butcher's bill.

The WAR in 2020 strikes a somber tone and does not come off with a triumphant flourish where the heroes get the medals and all the bad guys get theirs. The ending leaves you wondering what the [heck] everyone died for--unfortunately, it ends like most wars. Don't get me wrong, this book is an exciting novel with its fair share of action, but it does not cop out with a comic book ending that wraps up everything in a neat package.

This is a military fiction novel for thinking adults.

A Personal Commentary:

Ralph Peters seems to me, an under appreciated author. He is not as popular as Tom Clancy (they both showed up in the mid 80s) but I find him to be a literary and philosophically superior author. I think that Ralph does not constantly the sales Clancy does because he does not go near the nationalism trap that Clancy has fallen into. I hope that he continues to write more novels.

...then he might write something like "The War in 2020."

Sure, Japan Inc isn't so scary any more. Yeah, we're proving now (January, 2002) that we can take on radical Islam and win. OK, so our military isn't quite as hollowed-out as we'd feared. And maybe we're still the tech kings of all the known universe.

That still doesn't make this book any less scary or fun to read. The reason? It's just really well written, with living, breathing characters you really will care about. That's why Ralph Peters has a shelf life ten times that of Clancy -- and I'm a Clancy fan.

Oh, plus a techno-thriller second half that will keep you up all night.

I first picked up this book when I was in high school. Being a military junkie (the history, battles, weapons, personalities, etc.) I bought War in 2020 expecting the usual 'techno-thriller' fare - the genre where the practice of military hardware in action subordinates characterization and plot is an unfortunate occurrence. Don't get me wrong, I love the Cold War stuff churned out by Tom Clancy and Larry Bond but IHOP Peters outdoes them both.

This novel was that and more. It was written by a soldier about soldiers. Peters effortlessly mixes the strategies of international geopolitics with the you-are-there immediacy of a desperate cavalry raid. You can feel Peters bristle with disdain when he describes members of the US President's cabinet while the troops from both sides (US/USSR vs. Japan, South Africa, Arabs) are men in honorable professions laboring in "dishonorable" times.

The characters are particularly well-fleshed out, particularly US Army Col. George Taylor, the haunted commander of the 7th Cavalry (Heavy)and his loyal staff.

The what-if global scenarios in the book offer tantalizing sub-plots as well - the US losing in a meaningless confrontation after losing their technological edge; the effects of a global outbreak of an incurable disease; Islamic hegemony leading to a genocidal war; the destruction of Israel and its subsequent relocation to the American heartland.


The book might be dated but I feel that the timeline and real world chnages does not detract to the overall story - a great adventure that would make you think. I have literally read and re-read this book to pieces.

For those Professional Soldiers that read, there is always one book above all others that means the most and connects most profoundly. It becomes an intergral part of that inner drive that sustains in times of frustration, hardship or danger. For me, War in 2020 is much more than simply a work of future navel gazing - LTCOL Peters has struck at the core of what it means to soldier in an uncertain future. Some commentators miss the point - decrying the fact that War in 2020 has not perfectly predicated the current reality(never mind that LTCOL Peters makes clear that that was never his intent - an impossible task for anyone). I have little sympathy for this unfortunate misconception, I firmly believe that this is a profoundly important work and transcends the limitations of the genre. For the Professional Soldier it examines warts-and-all concepts such as; inter service rivalry in a time of catastrophe, the nightmare of the future techo solution no one could predict(Nuclear weapons, nerve agents, and the horrible future of the Scrambler are weapons that no soldier could ever see coming) and the dangers of dedicating oneself to the profession of arms above all else. It is sobering, yet fascinating - and above all else profoundly moving. If you are a civilian and wish to have a glimpse at why people dedicate themselves to the profession upon which all others depend, read this important work.

Should be manditory reading for future officers and US DoD personel.

The biggest criticism of this book I hear is of the future history depicted inside. The future history in this book may seem implausible to many but some has already come to pass in one form or the other. This is a work of fiction and the 'history' is one plausible possibility out of many, not a prediction. Even so I didn't find it unbelivable, much is certainly still possible, and it is suprisingly often that the implausible does happen because no one is watching for it.

That said, the military aspects of the first and the final battles, the future self imposed geo-political irrelevance of Europe, and the rise of new and old powers in both expected and unexpected places are good reading and stuff for good thought.

Military types will like the technology, and the planning and the execution of operations.

I especially like the fact that in the end it's hard to tell who won and by how much. No great march to enemy capital. Modern war seems to be like that. You'll have to come to your own conclusions.

I didn't give the book 5 stars because it was a good story but a bit weak (flat) on characters.

The War in 2020 has been called "The military equivalent of Orwell's 1984," and it's hard to disagree with such a judgement. It is set in a nightmarish world where Japan has become a military threat once again, Russia has governed itself to the point of being reduced to figurative ash and has been invaded by Japanese-sanctioned Iranian forces and local guerrilla armies, and the US has become the last hope for Russia, in spite of the fact that the US military has been all but destroyed due to decades of neglect.

Peters creates some fascinating characters and fleshes them out very well through the course of his story. Colonel George Taylor, the commander of the US Army's 7th Cavalry, is an officer infected with an AIDS-like plague, called Runciman's Disease, that attacks the brain. Shot down by Japanese gunships years before his duty in Russia, Taylor not only doesn't give a damn that the odds he faces are impossible, he almost relishes such odds.

His m! en are loyal to him, for the very good reason that he has earned it. Major Howard "Merry" Meredith served with Taylor during rioting in California and a subsequent uprising in Mexico, and has only his wife in the States, and Colonel Taylor. Lieutenant Colonel David "Lucky Dave" Heifetz is Israeli, a refugee after Arab armies have incinerated Israel. Like Merry Meredith, he basically has no one else other than Taylor.

One younger officer not immediately under the command of George Taylor winds up playing a decisive role with him. Captain Ryder works for Army Intelligence, and his Russian counterpart reveals an intelligence coup - a computer brain from a lost Japanese command aircraft. The Russian demonstrates a shocking truth about the computer brain that provides the Army with decisive knowledge of the Japanese-Iranian advance.

Using advanced helicopter gunships with the most powerful electronic countermeasures ever conceived, George Taylor leads t! he 7th Cav against the enemy, and achieve complete surprise! - to the double horror of the Japanese commander, Noboru Kabata. A sort of Admiral Yamamoto of sci-fi, Kabata opposes the violence with which the Japanese have waged this war, and doubly opposes the terrible secret of the Scramblers, a weapon of unprecedented horror that he is forced to use.

What results is a desperate final mission for the 7th Cav - a raid on the Japanese supreme HQ in Baku. But still more complications erupt, as the Russians commit a disasterous act against Colonel Taylor, and the raid must press on against odds that grow ever worse.

Ralph Peters makes his scenario truly believable throughout the novel, and the allegories he draws are further worth a read. This is the kind of novel that warrants a full-scale TV miniseries.

I was initially skeptical of this book (having first read it around the time of the collapse of the USSR; it seemed too far fetched) but it did not take long to warm up to the premises, the events and the author's take on various political/military developments.

Though not a literary masterpiece, it is a great example of its genre, and I haven't encountered any books of this size that I was able to finish reading in 11 days (a personal record!)

Now, if only Hollywood were to option the rights...

Granted, this was written in the era when Japanese growth was projected as a fait accompli. In any event, it deserves to be read for its literary and political value. Tolstoy would envy Peters' ability to capture political realities as reflected in soldiers' eyes. On a purely literary level, the characters are compelling and sympathetic. Peters manages to shed light upon the dilemmas of Russian whores and Soviet apparachuks and humanizes them both.

His American characters are tragically flawed in the best traditions of Shakespeare. Col. Taylor alone deserves a prequel or two. Peters, who has emerged as one of the few original thinkers in the US Army in the decade since he wrote this book, hits on the great Russian fear -- Arabs and Chinamen nipping at their "soft underbelly". While the author might (or might not, considering his views on the PRC in "Fighting For the Future") prefer to substitute the Chinese for Japan as his expansionist Asian power if he were to write this story today, he's surely correct in his main point that Russia -- with her declining birth rates and cultural torpidity -- will be challenged by rising Asian powers in the east and south. Hopefully, America will realize that, when all is said and done, she stands with Orthodox Christendom, and against Islam and the Asiatics. All in all, a page-turner on the first read and worthy of serious thought on the second!

I finally got around to re-reading it. To butcher Faulkner, "Everyone has a moment when they are Lucky Dave on the road to Damascus right before he heard the news."

A definitive, first class take on the future of war and soldiers that fight them. Ralph Peters shows he has the expertise to create a believable, HUMAN character that one will actually root for. A haunting story of triumph and tragedy, "The war in 2020" is a must-read for all fans of the military thriller. Peters knows about what he writes, and has created a tale that really hits home. You may not like what happens, or how it happens, but you will definitely respect the realism and how it is played out.

This was Ralph Peter's second hardcover novel, and it was published at the very end of the Cold War, when a rising Japan appeared to be poised to be the next superpower and the USSR seemed ready to explode into internecine violence.

Give Mr. Peters credit for batting .500, if you ignore his timeline. The War In 2020 turned out to be The War In 1999, and we have yet to see the end of it.

My biggest complaint with the story is the description of the Army and Navy as being self-involved navel-gazers, immune to learning lessons from even the most catastrophic defeat, and leaving only the Army seriously devoted to the art of fighting and winning wars. Ironically, as this book hit the shelves in 1991, the Air Force was showing us over Iraq that it had taken the lessons of Vietnam to heart.

But that complaint is trivial. Many of the characters are drawn from history, and any ugliness in them is less an issue of Mr. Peters' beliefs and attitudes and far more a reflection of just how ugly we can be when we put our minds to it. The action draws, interestingly enough, on then-Captain Peters' visions of what future warfighting might demand in the way of equipment, doctrine, and soldiers. (Read his articles in The Military Review from 1986 to 1988 for more details.) It is a thought-provoking look at "high-intensity" war in an era advanced communications and sensor technology.

And, just like real wars, the book leaves you wondering why it all ended up the way it did. It may not be as aesthetically satisfying as the rousing victory with the Forces of Darkness banished from the world, but it is certainly far more realistic.