Don't Forget China Showdowns
Babbin, Jed & Timperlake, Edward
BOOKS IN REVIEW open country towards which we are struggling by inches is capable of entrenched defense at every step, and is utterly devoid of military significance." Gilbert, who is also...
...Though Haig retired with distinction, criticism of all he represented about the war continued, even after his death...
...Douglas Haig...
...Hurl them on and keep slogging at it in the best possible way-that was war...
...I expressed my opinion that such men were too sleepy to fight well, etc...
...The inclusion as an appendix in the book of the 46-page text of the annual Defense Department Report to Congress on "The Military Power of the People's Republic of China," is worth the price of the book itself...
...Here he stood at the head of an army corps, then of an army, and finally of a group of mighty armies...
...essentially loses-as Hillary Clinton is natural enough for authors impatient with liberal dilatoriness on national security issues...
...Otherwise," they warn, "a war with China is a near certainty...
...While there were isolated incidences of cowardice and desertion-the British executed 60 men for related crimes--for the most part these men went "over the top" of their trenches and into No Man's Land knowing full well they would likely never return...
...But must the lily be gilded as well...
...It doesn't have any manpower problems, either...
...Gilbert nicely chronicles the general's attitude toward troops under his command through the use of his own diary entries...
...The following month, in criticizing a Canadian regiment for failing to hold a key German trench, Haig wrote, "I think the cause was that in the hope of saving lives they attacked in too weak numbers...
...T HE NON-FICTION COMPONENT of the book, however, is compelling...
...The shortness of the military narratives, along with their unconnected chronology-several separate Chinese-American military confrontations are featured taking place between 2008 and 2013 and there doesn't seem to be any narrative thread of connection between them-make the fictional component of the book confusing in spite of their vivid scenarios...
...The total losses of this division were under a thousand...
...Authors Jed Babbin (Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe Are Worse Than You Think), a contributing editor to The American Spectator, and Edward Timperlake, coauthor of Red Dragon Rising, are not new to scare 'em writing...
...first must recognize that war with China "has begun" already...
...Many of them would have gone for a Clancyesque pure fiction narrative if there were strong enough characters upon which to hang the tale...
...This is very remarkable, and seems to bear out the idea that the enemy is not fighting so well, and has suffered in morale...
...The U.S., say the authors, must quickly look around East Asia for natural allies in the effort to challenge Chinas relentless pursuit of military primacy...
...military clashes between the U.S...
...Also, the temptation to depict the next president in military confrontations with China-which the U.S...
...administrations might deal with China, Babbin and Timperlake believe that President Bush has gotten it about right...
...We believe that China has already decided in favor of war" with the U.S., the authors declare on page three, getting straight to the point, and the multiple fictional incidents they come up w i t h - a war across the Taiwan Straits, a war between China and Japan, a war with the Chinese over oil in Venezuela, a war with the Chinese over oil in Saudi Arabia, and, yes, a nuclear confrontation with I r a n - j u s t about cover the waterfront of potential U.S...
...In a November 1928 obituary for the general in PallMall magazine, Churchill wrote: He does not appear to have had any original ideas...
...NOVEMSE~ 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 75 BOOKS IN REVIEW on acquiring nuclear weapons, and notwithstanding an escalation of fighting in Afghanistan, and the Pope's angering Muslims by citing from a 14th-century Byzantine emperor on the subject of Mohammed, China has seemingly disappeared from the radar screen...
...The war with China, of course, is not yet a "hot" one, and so the steps the U.S...
...Don't Forget China T HE FIVE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY of 9/11, with its plethora of movies, books, TV docudramas, and agitated oped pieces, along with the ongoing struggle in Iraq and the recent IsraeliHezbollah war hasn't done much for the China news market...
...The book, 115 of whose pages are fictional narratives of complex war scenarios involving China and the U.S., is a sort of Tom Paine Common Sense call for Americans to wake up to what the authors believe is the most dangerous looming war scenario facing the nation...
...I had occasion a fortnight ago to call the attention of the Army and Corps Commanders (Gough and Jacob) to the slackness of one of its battalions in the matter of saluting when I was motoring through the village where it was billeted...
...and China...
...To meet this challenge, the authors believe, the U.S...
...Others, more in the Foreign Affairs magazine mold, might have preferred a straight, admonitory, non-fiction text...
...There were the Germans in their trenches...
...in a word, "containment...
...NOVEB,~BER 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 77...
...A DIFFICULTY WITH SHOWDOWN, however, is the fusion in the book of two not necessarily complementary literary genres...
...That was the Great War when examined from the perspective of tactics and strategy, maneuvers and statistics-and arguably even underlying causes and justifications...
...Japan and India, they suggest, would be good places to start...
...As for the ways that future U.S...
...Whoever succeeds him in the Oval Office, they insist, must be "as decisive, cool, and resolute" as he in their view has been in regard to China...
...China is concentrating on attaining the highest possible technical education level for its soldiers...
...For example, failure to take a key German trench on the River Ancre in early September caused Haig to comment: "The units did not really attack, and some men did not follow their officers...
...Later in the month, after combat southeast of Gueudecourt, Haig wrote in his diaries that "[t]he casualties for the last two days' heavy fighting are just 8,000...
...One way, according to the authors, is focusing on "asymmetric" military devices like cyberwarfare to unbalance the entire U.S...
...No one can discern a spark of that mysterious, visionary, often sinister genius which has enabled the great captains of history to dominate the material factors, save slaughter and confront their foes with the triumph of novel apparitions...
...How might they accomplish this...
...In fact, the weakness of the writing in the fictional element detracts from the effectiveness of the book...
...Pace Ahmadinejad, apocalypse-bent David Aikman is author of Jesus in Beijing (Begnery Publishing) and Man of Faith: The Spiritual Journey of George W. Bush (W Publishing...
...That won't be the case, however, for anyone who picks up Showdown...
...for the possession of pulverized fields and a dense array of shellholes...
...Though both authors are experienced and talented non-fiction writers, neither of them seems particularly gifted in the genre of the conventional novel...
...president Dorothy Clutterbuck and then have a footnote pointing out that the historical Dorothy Clutterbuck headed a coven of witches in the 20th century...
...They (the Canadians) have been very extravagant in expending ammunition...
...It is a Territorial division from the West Riding of Yorkshire...
...A recent scan through Google Showdown: Why China Wants War With the United States by Jed Babbin and Edward Timperlake (REGNERY PUBLISHING, 226 PAGES, $27.95) Reviewed by David Aikman News included two dog stories: an item on awoman in Inner Mongolia who had a traffic accident while trying to teach her dog to drive and an ex-wife suing her husband for-what else?--access to the family pooch...
...Gilbert, who is also Churchill's official biographer, points out in summary that "It]he battle had become a struggle for the possession of woods, copses, valleys, ravines and ruined villages...
...It hasn't been much in the news, which makes it one less subject for Americans to worry about...
...should take, they say, are not too different from the steps taken to stand up to the expansion of the Soviet Union...
...Fast-moving fictionand this certainly is-should not leave a reader impatient with repetitiveness...
...All this, of course, is strong geo-strategic medicine, and it should definitely be taken by anyone seriously concerned about America's global position in the years ahead...
...China, the authors aver, "is engaged in a military buildup that is larger and more intense than anything the world has seen since Nazi Germany's mad dash for arms in the 1930s...
...economy or developing directed-energy resources to nullify U.S...
...She won the access, by the way...
...As for Europe, they dismiss any possible European role in keeping China in its place by derisive references to the "EUnuchs" of old Europe...
...They performed feats of bravery, they fought to exhaustion, and they died in the most frightful of conditions trying to save their fellow soldiers...
...He appeared at all times quite unconscious of any theatre but the Western Front...
...If anyone wants to learn in detail how the People's Republic of China could indeed present a dangerous military threat to the U.S., this bookwill make it clear...
...Readers are left, however, with a certain whimsical regret...
...welcome to litigious heaven, China...
...T HE MILITARY ARCHITECT BEHIND the British war of attrition was Gen...
...There's a feeling of locker-room elbowing in the ribs in all this...
...China, Babbin and Timperlake conclude, "wants to be the most unconventional adversary we have ever fought...
...One is classic non-fictional analysis, sound and detailed enough, of the actual strategic threat that China presents to the U.S...
...They encountered a brigade of the German Marine Corps recently arrived from Ostend, and had not the numbers to overcome them in a hand-to-hand struggle...
...This points rather to nervousness and low morale in those companies which are frequently calling for a barrage without good cause...
...After the fifth occurrence of the expletive "freakin'" in the dialogue of characters in the novel, a certain sense of exasperation creeps over the reader...
...Within 76 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 2006 BOOKS IN REVIEW a few years China will have an excess of young men over women--the result of gender-motivated abortions by millions of Chinese parents-numbering some 23 million, an energy-rich resource for any country mounting a major military challenge to the world's leading superpower...
...Whichever approach might have been preferred, Showdown is a sobering, even frightening read...
...Another is a novel with several rather jerkily constructed military scenes in the style of British General Sir John Hackett's riveting 1978 novel, The Third World War: August 1985, about a putative Soviet army attack through the Fulda Gap in West Germany...
...Is it really necessary to name the next U.S...
...But fortunately Gilbert provides his readers more: the hearts of the brave men who gave all they had in their generation's epic struggle...
...We have to conclude," they add, "that China's military buildup is focused on meeting and defeating American forces in any engagement over Taiwan, the Koreas, or the Pacific Rim...
...military and communications satellites...
Vol. 39 • November 2006 • No. 9
