Word: hackett
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...WELL BE RIGHT. But his eagerness to prove a point blinds him to several important factors on which NATO political leaders (if not their military counterparts, Hackett inadvertently suggests) base their thinking. First, he assumes that generals on both sides will exercise self-restraint in the use of tactical nuclear weapons. No fighting force in history has ever believed it should not make full use of all available weapons, and battlefield nuclear equipment is abundantly available to both sides. Hackett avoids considering what effect the use of tactical nukes would have on the land war, on international public opinion...
...Hackett really loses his credibility, though, when he shyly evades the issues which should be at the core of any "third world war" scenario. Nuclear deterrence is a distasteful and outmoded phrase to General Sir John. In his rush to prove that "flexible response" makes a 1980s European land war a possibility, he conveniently forgets that this policy evolved to meet Soviet threats, real or perceived, in odd corners of the world. Places like Vietnam, not West Germany. European strategic thought should still be based firmly on the existence of nuclear stockpiles on both sides. If Hackett represents a style...
...MIGHT FORGIVE Hackett his misunderstanding of modern strategic thought if he had turned out a well-written, entertaining tour of the next Armageddon. His account instead reads like a repair manual for a Chieftain tank upgraded for use on all NATO forces, with a simple refrain liberally repeated throughout--"What was done in the years between 1978 and 1984" (that is, Hackett nudges us in the ribs, what we should be doing right now) "was enough to prevent Soviet victory...
Some glimmer of literary understanding must have penetrated the fog of war in Hackett's brain, enough anyway for him to understand the need to place some human beings among the Phantoms and stereotyped initative-lacking Soviet junior officers in his narrative. Every so often he clumsily inserts a phony "personal recollection," most embarrassingly in a letter home from an American sailor...
Towards the end The Third World War degenerates into pure fantasy, the pipe-dream of Cold Warrior too old to stay on the front line but too fevered to give up the good fight. China and Japan have formed a "co-prosperity sphere" in Hackett's rosy future, and play no part in the war. Valiant Afrikaaners defend their homeland from the incompetent assaults of Soviet-supplied Namibians and Zimbabwians. As the Soviet drive into West Germany falters, Soviet satellites rebel, soldiers stop fighting, and a high-level coup in the Kremlin leads to a break-up of the entire...