Customer Reviews

Warriors

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Warriors is a war novel par excellence. The characters were believable, the military tech was cool, and the story was believable.

Starting with nothing but a promise from a king, John "Pirate" Bennett builds an air force that becomes the class of the world, based on the F-20 Tigershark. The central theme of the book is that "only airpower can defeat airpower", and that it's the pilots that count, not the machine. Lots of flying and fighting!

I was unconvinced that American pilots could transform the Saudi Air Force into an air force that could challenge Israel's experienced pilots. The Saudis have made a very weak showing in every war that their air force has been involved in.

This book by Barrett Tillman shows a deep and incisive understanding of air power. It discusses in an easy to read format, basic but very important principles regarding the development, growth and application of airpower. This was done from the perspective of an experienced combat aviator - and makes it a must read for those interested in air combat and air strategy.

I am certain that this book must have been interesting reading for the countries in the Middle East, and specially Saudi Arabia and Israel. I would even dare say that the basic insights it contains makes it a must-read for air-force academies all over the world.

I've read tons of air-war techno-thrillers over nearly 2 decades and, having gone through a fairly large number of mediocre books, I'm still stupefied as to how this one went bad. "Warriors" tells the story of a former military aviator who gets his dream job - build an air force out of scratch for a group of wealthy Arabs. He'll get to choose the pilots, the trainers and their planes. No longer taking orders, he'll define what the orders will be. No longer stuck with the equipment supplied by the lowest bidder, he can choose the best - in this case, the F-20 "Tigershark", a single-engined, next-generation evolution of the Northrop F-5. As the multi-nationally trained "Tiger Force" takes shape, the hero - an ex-USN naval aviator - muses on the essentials and virtues of fighter aviators. However, regional problems (i.e. Israel) force the Tigers to go to war after all. With their spanking new jets and world-class trained pilots, the Tiger Force edges out Israel's traditionally favored IAF to maintain and then overcome the balance of air superiority in the war.

So why isn't this the epic air war novel that fans have been clamoring for? I'll start w/Tillman's questionable choice of characterizations for the players - the Israelis are calculating political manipulators who throw their weight around (the Arabs successfully buy F-20's only because the Israelis doubted the plane was sufficiently formidable to amount to a threat) while the Arabs are largely respectable, professional, only interested in defense and (most woefully of all) romanticized. Unlike the Saudis we know from the news - who employ religious police against their own people while penning foreign professionals into separate communities - these Saudis are both modern and appreciative to their foreign trainers, and never resort to using political manipulation to get what they want. While neither characterization is wrong, (the Israelis are not purely- noble, plucky and fearless, while the Arabs are not by definition xenophobic, illiterate religious zealots who think they can fund global terrorism and get anything they want with petro-dollars) Tillman unfairly uses different perspectives for the one and the other - cynical for one, romantic for the other. Tillman compounds the disparity by dropping his musings on real subjects like the pro-Israel lobby and the Liberty attack of 1967. While those subjects are ripe for discussion, it's woefully dishonest to lob them, uncritically, in a novel. (Because it's a novel, the writer can bend the facts because its fiction, but since these fictionalized facts are rooted in history, it's impossible to say where the fiction becomes historical argument; since Tillman has authored numerous works of non-fiction, it's lamentable that he chose to address these issues in a work of fiction). And lastly, the idea of Americans teaching Saudis to fly aircraft in defense seems incredibly ironic since 9-11, unlike the hoards of other horrible books that at least look less implausible now.

Technical realism and storytelling (normally at odds with each other) also take an unexpectedly big hit. Tillman's premise is built on a question - how would an experienced aviator build a world-class air force? Unfortunately, he treats the premise as a technical one that can and should be answered quickly, rather than one for a book which requires that characters be challenged, that plots don't fall according to the plans of those within them and that we've got what to read for about 250 pages. Dealing with a technical problem, Tillman takes the path of least resistance: his characters get the planes and pilots they want, develop overall proficiency in time for the big fight, and work for reasonable employers willing and able to fund anything. Lastly, when the war comes, the tactics used fit those taught to his pilots perfectly. In other words, it's a dream of air-war come true. Realistically however, the war you plan for is seldom if ever the one faced (a truism I picked up reading many a fighter-pilot memoir), and both the equipment and training can be counted on to be less than optimal - even for the war as contemplated. Wouldn't a better story have been one with aging aircraft, less-than-proficient fliers and an unfavorable political situation? That story would have had us guessing about the plot or sympathizing with its Arab characters (instead of idealizing them, why not put them at a disadvantage and have them surprise us with their pluck?). Instead of a book with characters, plot and action, "Warriors" reads like some dry dramatized study of a hypothetical war. Tillman's experience in aircraft is not reflected in this book which frequently sees things from a "big picture" well outside the cockpit - real pilots don't have spot view. Also, there are few stirring air combat moments like the one described by William Anderson in his memoir "To Fly and Flight". Tillman uses his technical details to reinforce the same truisms we've heard for years - you must fight air power with air power (didn't the Israelis learn the opposite in 1973?); a pilot must know the limits of his aircraft; that pilot proficiency is the deciding factor in air combat - rather than tell a story. The end is unintentionally anti-climactic, and is otherwise obvious from the first page. "Warriors" could have been a great story about fighter drivers being asked to confront a well equipped and trained enemy using inexperienced pilots with aging and unreliable aircraft - in other words, a story which rivals the challenges of air combat with a few of its own.

Barrett Tillman is a well-known aviation writer an enthusiast. He has written over thirty books about the W.W. II United States Navy and USN carrier aviation. "Warriors" was his first venture into fiction. This novel is just plain trash: unbelievable concept, subtle anti-Semitism, and an unabashed worship of Saudi Arabia. The writing is mediocre and not up to the high standards of Tillman's historical books.

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UNBELIEVABLE CONCEPT:
The basic plot premise of the novel is that the Saudi Arabian king hires a former United States Navy (USN) fighter jock to build a Top Gun fighter school for the Saudis who will then unite the Arab World to destroy Israel. The only thing that the Arab world has been able to unite behind so far is Israel's destruction. This is believable. However, the idea that the more radical Arab states would submit to being led by "more moderate" Saudi Arabia is very farfetched.

DOGFIGHTERS MAKE THE DIFFERENCE:

The USN fighter jock makes three assumptions:

1. "Only airpower can defeat airpower"
2. "Pilot quality is the decisive factor in combat between aircraft."
3. The F-20 Tigershark, a cheap and simple fighter, will have better mission turn-around rates than more complicated multi-mission aircraft.

In the book, a Top Gun school is set up for the Saudis to make them into world-class aviators, which is done by recruiting fighter aces from around the world to be their teachers. These foreign pilots train Saudi aviators to be fighter jocks and the best pilots among each class return to teach other Saudis. Meanwhile, a maintenance corps required to keep F-20 fighter planes up and flying is set up.

Tillman's idea is an interesting one, but it's also a rather far-fetched concept. This book was published in 1990 and during the 1991 Desert Storm conflict, Saudi Aviators proved to be less than impressive flyers. This isn't to say that there aren't some world-class pilots among the Saudi armed forces, but as a group, Saudi flyers didn't perform well. Despite flying some of the most technologically advanced aircraft in the world, Saudis still have great difficulty maintaining their weapons and are still dependant on Western technicians to maintain them.

Saudi Arabia also still has an abysmal literacy rate despite great efforts to educate the Saudi population. It is true that many Saudi Arabians are very bright and well educated, but this tends to be only among the highly privileged who can afford to study abroad. It's hard to imagine that one fighter jock could turn so many societal shortcomings around and build the necessary resources to train adequate numbers of pilots and technicians to destroy the Israel Air Force.

Perhaps another questionable assertion that Tillman makes is that, in future warfare electronic warfare, opposing electronic weapons will cancel each other out (Page 272) making radars near useless. History, to date, has taught us anything but this lesson.

SUBTLE Anti-Semitism:
Tillman writes about Israel with a subtle animosity although he apparently has respect for the Israeli military. The US administration is very upset with Israel. Tillman is able to justify this by having Israel successfully invade Jordan under the pretext of destroying terrorists. Tillman's US government is prepared to appease terrorists and give in to moral relativism. Even when Saudi Arabia and Israel go to war, the US government doesn't treat Bennett and other foreign aviators as mercenaries or worse (Page 96), which they most definitely would be if they were fighting for foreign powers.

Not only that, Tillman drops a piece of information frequently used by anti-Semites, Bennett's brother was stationed on the USS Liberty, a US spy ship that wandered too close to the war zone during the 1967 Six Day War and was mistakenly fired upon by Israeli combatants (Page 58). In Tillman's defense, he does mention the Stark and Vincennes episodes. However, Tillman conveniently transforms his dropping of the Liberty into an excuse that it would be in the best interests of the USA arm Saudi Arabia. In another quote, Tillman blames the Israelis for the lack of peace in the Middle East (Page 234).

Tillman also repeats the sorts of assertions that the anti-Semitic Arab media continues to make to this day (Page 132-133) without putting such information into perspective or revealing it for being false:

``'But you know the Jewish influence in America.' Aziz's voice had a brittle edge. `It is endless, there is no bottom to it.'
Musad was about to reply that he could not blame any nation or group that acted from self-interest. It was the way of the world. Aftah looked up from his notes. `Yes, that is so. The Israelis can do almost anything they wish where the U.S. is concerned. They can spy on the Americans; they can lobby against American interests in the U.S. Congress. They have even killed Americans with impunity.'
He looked over the top of his bifocals. `They cannot produce oil for the Americans. But we can.'"

That entire quote is chocked full of anti-Semitic mistruths.

SAUDI PROPAGANDA:
Tillman must have gone to a Saudi embassy for his research and historical background. It is blatantly pro-Saudi and brushes over any questionable information regarding Saudi history and legitimacy. He frequently quotes the Koran even using quotes from the Koran to describe the Saudi Arabs as perfect warriors (Page 109) from whence comes the title of the book.

The great majority of novel advocates that Saudi Arabia and the USA should be closer allies...

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I recommend AGAINST reading this book.

It is very poorly done. While there are many good ideas, the bad ones far outweigh the good ones...

Review by: Maximillian Ben Hanan

This book will ring true only to those who have confronted Israel on the battle field. It makes sense that once you have a carte blanche to creat a fighting unit/army it is just a matter of time. The raw material is not inferior as is generaly conceived, and the creation of the Tigre unit was based on this premis. The Israeli Army relies on the never ending supplies (and backing) from The US. They got a bloody nose in 73, the mighty long arm of the Chel Ha avir was blunted. US air lift, vs a a poor reaction from the USSR, turned the tide and resulted in a messy stalemate. It is very pausable that an American pilot with experiance , regardless of 9/11 would take this dream job. The ending is the most likely outcome in this region. The book is "Visionary" to say the least. It is philosophical, and any attempts at degradeing it on technical basis (choice of aircraft) just mirrors the reader' total ignorance of the mindset of this region. (we don't have to go far, look at Irak..) Great reading.