The War After Armageddon
by Ralph Peters
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Book Reviews of The War After Armageddon
Book Review: Annoy the Jihadis! Buy Ralph Peters Latest!
Summary: 5 Stars
I admit to having been a devoted fan of Ralph Peters "sulphurous prose" for years! Both in his books and his newspaper columns, Ralph regularly commits the unpardonable sin of voicing outrageous truths precisely aimed at reducing the more PC-bound among us to apoplectic fits. One of my favorites: when he contacted DC's newest exercise in self-congratulation, THE NEWSEUM, to inquire if they offered military rates.(They don't and his resulting column infuriated the newsies but delighted everyone else). Same way with his latest book, an all-too-plausible scenario of a 21st century Crusade resulting from nuclear attacks by Islamists on Israel and the United States. Under Peters relentless scrutiny, neither Islam nor Christinity are recognizable as religions of peace because the bloodletting on both sides is as constant as it has been in history's earlier relgigious conflicts. Naturaly, the technology is better but he is wonderfully skeptical about the allefged advances of the RMA: the electronic armore that fails to protect, the hi-tech US aircraft brought down by jamming, ECM as well as the new swarms of lower-tech drones. Indeed, part of the new litter of Peters modern battlefield is the electronic junk that proves fatally vulnerable to physical destruction or devastating, resolutely simple counter-measures.
But if these facets of his novel give Peters the trenchant authority of the veteran warrior, it is his effortlessly sardonic tongue-in-cheek expressions that make him such a 'fun read.' A reluctant Air Force general protests in classic air-speak, "You realize of course that there are airspace deconfliction issues and we need to do our weaponeering based upon specific target parameters..." An Army colonel-from-corps headquarters is characterized thus: "He carried himself like a former athlete who had gone into sales." Even the concluding character summaries in the index hits the few remaining targets somehow left unmolested. The best one: The wife of the main character, "Overcame her training and career as a lawyer to become a decent
human being." If you have served a day in America's armed forces, you will instantly recognize Peters finely tuned ear for the service versions of ethnic humor, his wondrous appreciation of improbable profanity and the pervasive and understandaqble doubts about the manliness and overall worth of anyone driving a Volvo.
Even better: Ralph has an abiding contempt for America's enemies but never under-estimates their uncanny ability to bring peril, especially what TomClancy once characterized as "the sum of all fears." It is against that backdrop that the Soldier ans the Marine stand tallest, tough often under-appreciated by their countrymen and occasionally even lied about by the Judases of the media and political worlds. Those Volvo-driving scum are the real enemies of Peters novels, although here the Jihadis come very close. So do yourself and that soldier or marine on your Christmas list a favor and buy this book. Your purchase will certainly annoy America's enemies, foreign and domestic - and you'll feel better about yourself too!
Colonel (Ret.) Ken Allard, Former MSNBC military analyst, San Antonio, Texas
Book Review: Too Biased with Too Many Cardboard Characters
Summary: 2 Stars
Of Ralph Peters credentials their can be NO doubt that the man knows about what he speaks. But when it comes to writing credible characters, he still needs some speech lessons. If you take the three main antagonists, Al-Ghazi, Simon Montfort and Gary Harris, you'll don't have a real person among the crew. Granting Mr. Peters some leeway, I will say the Montfort is even more of a caricature that Bugs Bunny. Anyone who has been in the military would know that a guy like this would have been bounced out of VMI, much less been able to work his way up the promotion ladder to a place of power.
The MOBIC idea holds no water because of the volunteer army. Troops would never stand having raving fundamentalist as their officers, since most volunteers are just normal patriotic Americans. So the idea that the majority of service personnel and officers would move over to MOBIC is an absurdity. Neither (I hope) would the country (only ten percent fundamentalist christian), never even thirty percent arch-conservative allow there to be a established of a christian army without there being a fight on the floor of Congress and in the street.
For whatever the 'jihadis' could throw at us, this country would rise up as it did during the Vietnam War and force out the 'radicals'. This is a moderate, centrist nation, and always has and will be. Do you think that 40 million catholics would let themselves be made second class citizens? What about the Latinos and Blacks who make-up well over 50% of the enlisted personnel?
Does anyone think that if there was a nuclear exchange between Iran and Israel, that the US, Russia and China wouldn't pulverize whatever the Israelis didn't? The Russians who are still as paranoid as they ever were, would never stand for a nuclear presence in the Middle East after the first nuke was detonated. They are way to close to 100s of millions of Muslims to sit on the sidelines. The Chinese could easily lose 1 billion and still have 300 million people left.
For alternate history to be good, it must be reasonable, and this isn't even plausible. After the first US city was nuked, there would be a couple dozen nuclear submarines parked off the middle east and 'let God sort it out' after. We could then spend the next thirty years figuring out how to pump oil out of the ground, without getting it contaminated.
Remember, in this country, there is always some one willing to stick out his neck and say that, 'the emperor is naked', beware the man behind the curtain.
Zeb Kantrowitz
Book Review: Can it really happen?
Summary: 4 Stars
Some people read only fiction; others only non-fiction. The dangers that Ralph Peters has attempted to convey to the American public in his recent non-fiction books, such as Wars of Blood and Faith: The Conflicts That Will Shape the Twenty-First Century, he has now woven into a fictional account in The War After Armageddon.
This is the type of fiction that raises many more questions than it answers. And throughout the book, Peters uses his military experience and his knowledge of U.S., European, and Middle Eastern geography, culture, and history--ancient and not-so-ancient--to formulate the questions.
Among its many questions, this book asks: Were the Crusades limited to the Middle Ages? Are all jihadists Muslim? Can a "Kristallnacht" occur in America just as easily as it did in Germany in 1938 (although perhaps not against Jews)? Have Americans become so humane in the past 70 years that the "Japanese relocation camps" of 1942 could not just as easily be recreated for U.S. Muslims? Could a nuclear attack create conditions for a fascist takeover of the U.S. government? Could that government then rewrite the U.S. Constitution and silence all dissent?
Peters also includes many of his favorite military questions: For which type of future war is the Defense Department and Congress preparing? Is DOD being sold an ever more expensive bill-of-goods by the defense industry? Will the Army and Marines become "Star Wars" battle forces with "droids" doing all the boots-on-the-ground fighting? Can the current, and future, U.S. military function in an "electronic desert" (remember, GPS was a military invention)? If Iran, Pakistan, and other Middle Eastern nations have nuclear weapons, do we really expect them to forever keep them "on the shelf"? If they don't, what is Israel's planned response? And, more importantly, what is our planned response?
Then Peters has a little fun, with questions like: If all of Europe's capitals are left as nuclear wastelands by the Jihad, but the only two U.S. cities nuked are "Sin City" and Hollywood, who really pulled the trigger? Was it another Pearl Harbor or a U.S. "Mukden Incident"? Could such a nuclear attack create a pretense for a future "Wehrmacht vs. Waffen SS" scenario within DOD, with the "SS" getting all the latest and greatest equipment?
Just what is "Armageddon" in this book? Remember the 1960's movie "Failsafe"? This is "Failsafe" for the 21st century!
Book Review: Excellent Picture of Near-Future Warfare -- and an Intriguing Story
Summary: 5 Stars
Ralph Peters' "War After Armageddon" is a gripping, disturbing, but excellent novel about a 21st Century American Crusade in the Holy Land. It is set in a drastically different future, after Iran had destroyed Israel, European had suffered an anti-Muslim "ethnic cleansing," the US had suffered nuclear terrorist attacks on LA and Las Vegas, and fundamentalist-extremist "Christians" had seized control of the US government. The US Army, relegated to second-rate status behind the National Guard (now the Military Order of the Brothers in Christ), is supporting the MOBIC's attack on the Muslim troops in the Holy Land. Although the scenario sounds far-fetched, Peters does a good job using flashbacks judiciously to illustrate how the world got to that point.
Peters is able to write a book with the feel of an Army insider. He presents a disturbing but convincing look at a future battlefield that is in many ways more primitive than the modern battlefield: electronic jamming makes radio communications iffy; anti-air missiles are so thick that unmanned drones, not manned aircraft, control the skies; computer-network warfare can take out entire weapons systems; etc.
But Peters focuses his story on the characters, from the general leading the US Army forces down to the "grunts" on the ground doing the fighting. These characters are convincing, if sometimes a little stereotypical, and Peters does an excellent job telling the story of a large military campaign through the eyes of so many. He also clearly draws on his Army experience in creating realistic staff officers and understanding how important logistics would be in a campaign like this one. For those without his background, he includes a glossary of terms at the end of the book (which I didn't find until I had finished it).
Peters' writing is crisp, fast, and sometimes staccato, and his warnings about any ideology or movement that is hijacked by extremists serve as an interesting backdrop to this story. While Peters' bleak future may not be probable, he makes it plausible. This is a page-turner of a book that anyone interested in modern or future military campaigns would enjoy reading.
Book Review: Gripping but uncomfortable...a terrific story
Summary: 4 Stars
The War After Armageddon by Ralph Peters is one intense experience. Peters' ability to deal with small, intense scenes in his story adds a realism that is second to none.
The story is pretty straightforward. The antagonism between east and west has finally boiled over. Israel is gone, a wasteland. Many cities in the United States have been turned into desolate landscapes after dirty bombs have been exploded in the major centers and many European cultural centers have also been decimated. The United States in on a "crusade" (dare I use the word) to put an end to Islamic extremists. America is landing troops in what is left of Israel to once and for all capture the holy land, even if it is a radioactive desert. Warfare is back to its most fundamental elements with most of the advanced weapons disabled or neutralized because of counter electronics measures. Scenes in the book are almost medieval in their feeling. Lt. General Gary "Flintlock" Harris is a terrific character. Anyone who has been in the military will at once identify with General Harris; he is authentic. The dialog between characters is as real as you'd want it and not stiff and contrived.
The War After Armageddon illustrates one possible outcome to the tension gripping both east and west now and for the last fifty years. It illustrates what happens when reason is replaced with hatred and intolerance.
Ralph Peters' book is scary because of its plausibility. While you're turning the pages the realization is constantly with you that this could actually happen; we really are this close to the abyss. In fact, I experienced the same discomfort reading Peter's book as I did when I read One Second After by William R. Forstchen. Forstchen's book deals with nuclear weapons exploded in the atmosphere over the United States that throws us back into the stone-age because all electrical devices are rendered useless.
For the post apocalyptic crowd and those that enjoy an action packed read, The War After Armageddon is a book you'll want to read.
I highly recommend.
PEACE to all.