Book Review: “Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War” by P. W. Singer and August Cole 

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In this novel the People’s Liberation Army refused to open fire on protesters pouring into the streets. Their supreme leader vanished, being vanquished. A PLA-backed oligarchy known as Directorate took over China. It went on to take over the world.

With covert support of Russia, China obliterated the U.S. satellite defense preemptively. Next, the PLA wiped out the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor and then occupied Hawaii. Now China effectively controlled the resource-rich Western Pacific Region, mocking U.S. sanctions.

Below China’s radar screen the U.S. recommissioned and revived those rusty warships long retired into a naval junkyard. A “Ghost Fleet” emerged on the horizon. America might be down, but not out.

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As a war novel “Ghost Fleet” has a promising beginning. But it soon capsizes in the absence of a good explanation for shying away from the nuclear option.

For the record, Mao Zedong had boasted more than once that he would not blink, even if he had to lose 300 million of his countrymen to the United States or the Soviet Union, should either one bet on the nuclear option in a war with China. 

Would Maoists go softer than Mao on nuclear warfare? Would the U.S. simply wait for the other shoe to drop and let the PLA seize the nuclear initiative? 

I found the authors, Singer and Cole, inarticulate on this burning war issue. They had a nuclear elephant in their fictional war room, for crying out loud. In deafening silence, however, they kept their World War III going non-nuclear, unconvincingly.

Yes, a world war in the nuclear age doesn’t have to go nuclear. But Singer and Cole had better put up a cogent argument against the nuclear option, which they didn’t. 

Why not learn something from Tom Clancy?

In his “Red Storm Rising” (1986), Tom Clancy ran non-nuclear too. But his World War III took pace in the crowded continent of Europe. Nuclear warfare was not an option for any European country, big or small, capitalist or communist. Through East Germany’s plea to Russia, Clancy made this point as plain as daylight. 

Meanwhile, Russia was alienating all its Warsaw Pact satellites. To live to fight another day, Russia resorted to the Doctrine of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) and reached a nuclear-free understanding with everyone involved——in effect, an armistice.

In the hands of Tom Clancy World War III went nuclear-free convincingly.

In the hands of Singer and Cole World War III was a fool’s errand.

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“Ghost Fleet” also disappoints me when it comes to characterization. 

Singer and Cole appear to have forgotten about literary subtlety which could give their characters some depth between the lines. As a reader, I bumped into one cardboard character after another. 

I didn’t come away with the impression that I had taken in a war epic. 

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It is history, not this techno-thriller, that hints at what kind of war or peace awaiting us.

In modern history Russia was well-known to the Middle Kingdom as the ultimate threat to its security. 

At this virulent juncture Beijing’s vulnerability is clear for all to see. What if Russia joins America in taking the PRC down a peg or two? Geopolitical containment in the time of Novel Coronavirus could be the worst-case scenario for Beijing. Expect Beijing to put on a brave face day in and day out, though.

Who’s going to write a novel about the implosion of the PRC? 

Your second chance, Messrs. Singer and Cole.

——Lingyang Jiang