2034: A novel of the next world war, by Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis
A cautionary tale on escalation management and uncertainty.
It seems fitting to comment on 2034 — and later on its sequel, 2054, which I have already tipped my toes in — this year. Since its release in 2021, a lot has taken place. Ukraine was invaded, and tensions over Taiwan have not subsided. Their prediction of a fumbled Afghanistan evacuation came true (surprisingly earlier than they had suggested, to the point that mere months after the book’s release, its government fell apart and the Taliban took over).
The politics of 2034’s administration are left mostly to the reader’s discretion, though it is clear that today’s growing international disorder cemented itself. All we know is that the current US president was a non-partisan woman candidate after the turbulent 2020s. An aged Putin is still Russia’s president — it is assumed he took some successful action to take over some parts of Ukraine, though by which means remains unclear (it may retoractivelly connect with our own timeline’s war in Ukraine). Iran continues its disordering in the Middle East and grows closer to China, which in turn continued to grow into a proper superpower — with great military (and especially cyber) capability, surpassing the US in some regards.
However, this book is not an exercise in prediction, but rather a cautionary tale on a plausible series of miscalculations, and should be read as such. The chain of events that leads to the nuclear escalation described in this story is not so much a call to action as it is a tale of our universal fallability — a recognition that all wars start with a combination of mismanaged expectations, misguided intentions, and miscalculated consequences, all consequences of our human limitations in processing information. Wars are not accidental. Most accidents surrounding the start of a war can be resolved by the bitterest adversaries without falling into zero-sum logics, and as such, somewhere along the decision-making process, an active choice to escalate is made, an argument explored in Christopher Blattman’s Why We Fight: The roots of war and the paths to peace.
The lessons of the world of 2034 should be sobering to the decision makers of today. Backed by the weight of a former US Navy admiral and NATO SACEUR as one of its co-authors, the book — itself thrilling and entertaining as a work of fiction — offers a look into the world we might be looking at in the coming decade through the eyes of those in the middle of the decision making process. America’s divisions, coupled with the hubris of hegemony, may prove fatal to the international system we live under, and its chief challenger (China) should be the object of greater attention by everyone interested in preserving it. Technology will play a key role in the dynamic between the two global superpowers, and we would all sleep easier at night if both established clear lines of communication to resolve conflicts which may arise from the asymetry of information, technology, and forces well before they start.