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4 reviews for:
7 Deadly Scenarios: A Military Futurist Explores War in the Twenty-First Century
Andrew Krepinevich
3.32 AVERAGE
4 reviews for:
7 Deadly Scenarios: A Military Futurist Explores War in the Twenty-First Century
Andrew Krepinevich
3.32 AVERAGE
The scenarios the author presents are very plausible. They're grounded in projections of present reality, take place in the near future, and are carefully thought out. Anyone interested in military science, geopolitics, or near-future economics should read this. I hope the leaders of the world are thinking about possibilities like these so that they won't be caught unprepared if they start to happen.
Up front I'll say that I didn't much enjoy this book, and I wish I hadn't paid for it.
The author's premise is that accurately predicting the future is hard, and because military planning lead time measures in years, if we make bad guesses now about future risks, we'll have the wrong tools and the wrong training in place to deal with things when they happen. He proposes the use of scenarios to prompt military planners to consider how things might develop and what responses they might require. He then describes several possible future scenarios in which international crises threaten the U.S.
One problem I see immediately is that all of his scenarios are themselves dependent on a fair amount of prediction--one scenario predicts a slowdown in the Chinese economy due to current demographic and environmental trends which in turn leads to conflict over Taiwan. But this all assumes you're correctly anticipating how those trends will play out, and how other parties will act as they do. Is the scenario, then, anything other than one guess at how the future might play out?
Bruce Schneier used to run a contest on his blog where he challenged readers to come up with the most plausible "movie plot" security threat--something that could potentially threaten the US, but that's so implausible that it would only happen in a movie. His point was that there are any number of plots (or scenarios) which might pose threats, but since we can't possibly plan to prevent all of them, dwelling too much on any one of them is pointless. It would be more productive to invest in things that are broadly useful, rather than things which would only avert a single, specific threat.
One scenario in this book deals with a deadly pandemic flu outbreak which topples the Mexican government and sends millions of panicked, potentially infected refugees swarming toward the U.S.'s southern border. The author bemoans the fact that neither Democrats nor Republicans ever secured the border--Democrats because they wanted to offer amnesty to illegal immigrants in exchange for their votes (why this particular bit of electoral chicanery is a uniquely Democratic phenomenon is not discussed) and Republicans because they wanted a source of cheap labor. The author also points out there aren't nearly enough Border Patrol/National Guard forces to stop a mass migration, and without sufficient supplies of "non-lethal" armaments, their only option would be the use of deadly force against unarmed refugees.
What the author doesn't point out is that any definition of "securing the border" which would halt an army of millions of desperate refugees would require an absolutely massive expenditure: physical barriers, surveillance options, an army of Border Patrol agents. While that might be a worthwhile investment when national survival is at stake, it would be an insane waste of resources when a much smaller level of security is adequate to control historical levels of migration and drug trafficking. In short, if you buy into the movie plot threat, a massive response is warranted; if you don't, it's not. Relatively little is said in the text about the fact that spending on public health infrastructure, disease surveillance, and rapid vaccine manufacturing capacity would help reduce the risk of refugees carrying the plague into the U.S., presumably because none of those things go 'pew pew' and are sold by Raytheon.
In short, if you want to read a couple of hundred pages about a crisis probably caused by Muslims (6 of the 7 scenarios involve Muslims wanting to kill Americans) against which the might of the American military is powerless then this might be the book for you, but you'd probably be better off getting the new Vince Flynn novel. At least he doesn't pretend to be bound by reality.
The author's premise is that accurately predicting the future is hard, and because military planning lead time measures in years, if we make bad guesses now about future risks, we'll have the wrong tools and the wrong training in place to deal with things when they happen. He proposes the use of scenarios to prompt military planners to consider how things might develop and what responses they might require. He then describes several possible future scenarios in which international crises threaten the U.S.
One problem I see immediately is that all of his scenarios are themselves dependent on a fair amount of prediction--one scenario predicts a slowdown in the Chinese economy due to current demographic and environmental trends which in turn leads to conflict over Taiwan. But this all assumes you're correctly anticipating how those trends will play out, and how other parties will act as they do. Is the scenario, then, anything other than one guess at how the future might play out?
Bruce Schneier used to run a contest on his blog where he challenged readers to come up with the most plausible "movie plot" security threat--something that could potentially threaten the US, but that's so implausible that it would only happen in a movie. His point was that there are any number of plots (or scenarios) which might pose threats, but since we can't possibly plan to prevent all of them, dwelling too much on any one of them is pointless. It would be more productive to invest in things that are broadly useful, rather than things which would only avert a single, specific threat.
One scenario in this book deals with a deadly pandemic flu outbreak which topples the Mexican government and sends millions of panicked, potentially infected refugees swarming toward the U.S.'s southern border. The author bemoans the fact that neither Democrats nor Republicans ever secured the border--Democrats because they wanted to offer amnesty to illegal immigrants in exchange for their votes (why this particular bit of electoral chicanery is a uniquely Democratic phenomenon is not discussed) and Republicans because they wanted a source of cheap labor. The author also points out there aren't nearly enough Border Patrol/National Guard forces to stop a mass migration, and without sufficient supplies of "non-lethal" armaments, their only option would be the use of deadly force against unarmed refugees.
What the author doesn't point out is that any definition of "securing the border" which would halt an army of millions of desperate refugees would require an absolutely massive expenditure: physical barriers, surveillance options, an army of Border Patrol agents. While that might be a worthwhile investment when national survival is at stake, it would be an insane waste of resources when a much smaller level of security is adequate to control historical levels of migration and drug trafficking. In short, if you buy into the movie plot threat, a massive response is warranted; if you don't, it's not. Relatively little is said in the text about the fact that spending on public health infrastructure, disease surveillance, and rapid vaccine manufacturing capacity would help reduce the risk of refugees carrying the plague into the U.S., presumably because none of those things go 'pew pew' and are sold by Raytheon.
In short, if you want to read a couple of hundred pages about a crisis probably caused by Muslims (6 of the 7 scenarios involve Muslims wanting to kill Americans) against which the might of the American military is powerless then this might be the book for you, but you'd probably be better off getting the new Vince Flynn novel. At least he doesn't pretend to be bound by reality.
I picked up this book upon realizing that there was a chapter about pandemics. At the time, I had been out of work a week because of the current pandemic sweeping the world and was curious about the insights Krepinevich made when the book was written/published versus what the situation in the world was like today.
Overall it was an enjoyable read. I don't think I gained any fascinating insights into how the future will be/the present currently is. What was most interesting, besides just the hypothetical scenarios and their creativity, was how much the world has changed in the time from publication to now. What I mean is that there were some predictions about how the international system would function that I can understand why they were considered back then, but they are in fact quite inaccurate now.
At the end of the day, it's an enjoyable quick read. I got it from a used bookstore so I feel no guilt about having spent a couple bucks on it. If you have in your collection or have access to it, I recommend reading it if only to understand, not how much the world has changed, but how accurate or inaccurate our predictions were.
Overall it was an enjoyable read. I don't think I gained any fascinating insights into how the future will be/the present currently is. What was most interesting, besides just the hypothetical scenarios and their creativity, was how much the world has changed in the time from publication to now. What I mean is that there were some predictions about how the international system would function that I can understand why they were considered back then, but they are in fact quite inaccurate now.
At the end of the day, it's an enjoyable quick read. I got it from a used bookstore so I feel no guilt about having spent a couple bucks on it. If you have in your collection or have access to it, I recommend reading it if only to understand, not how much the world has changed, but how accurate or inaccurate our predictions were.
informative
reflective
slow-paced
A bit slow. Very confusing as the author ads real and fake footnotes. Some interesting points but the Afghan story was dull and drawn out.