War with Russia: An Urgent Warning from Senior Military Command Paperback – October 4, 2016

Sir Richard Shirreff is right about many things in this book. The way in which the war was initiated by the Russians is very plausible indeed. Russia rescuing its "oppressed" citizens in Latvia is very believable. Of all the Baltic states, Latvia has the largest population of Russians, and it's obvious that Russians would pick that state to invade first, taking Estonia and Lithuania along with it. The scenario is so real, that after reading the book, it's difficult to imagine that it hasn't already happened. I spent six years in US Air Force Intelligence during the Cold War, and some parts of this book were almost like reading a daily intelligence briefing.Characters in the book are believable, and the reader can imagine the actual person the character is based on in real life. Putin, Clinton, Merkel, and Cameron (written pre-Theresa May) are all there. I have read other reviews that complain about the lack of relationships developing between the characters. Personally, I feel that this would have only taken away from the message that is the book. Having said that, the characters are well developed and each character has its "ghosts."The book is a very good and fast read, hard to put down. The only reason I did not give the book five stars is the ending. The ending happens too perfectly and too fast - and a little far-fetched, leaving the reader a little puzzled. I won't describe it here to spoil the book for you, but what I will say is that I cannot imagine the Russians to be so vulnerable.I recommend this book, especially to leaders if NATO countries. Consider it a warning.

It is a very good action/thriller “a la Tom Clancy”. However several chapters have too much political discussion and repetition (like about the defence cuts in the UK) and should have been made shorter to avoid breaking the action. But the book is still a very good read.I will recommend jumping the first 20 pages and start directly to read the fiction on page 21. The foreword, the preface and the prologue are quite interesting but they could be dissuasive for some readers. But certainly they will be of much interest for most the readers after the reading of the fiction.A last note: The author is making a large use of abbreviations (most of them related to the NATO organization) and it will have been very nice to have a list of them (take notes!).

This is not a good book. The author is a retired general and it shows. Choppy sentences. Disjointed pacing and a weird way of jumping between overly explaining certain concepts while also assuming a lot of deep knowledge of the topics discussed. The books only redeeming quality is that the premise is interesting. Does the current weakness of NATO as a military threat invite an overly aggressive Russia to take action? Good question, and I am sure there are other storytellers able to tackle that question.

This book should be made into require reading for all U.S. military officers in all branches of the U.S military alike.This lay book lays out the perfect example of what a potential futuristic Neo Soviet Russian military Invasion of Europe, looks and feels like the pages of the book jumps and leaps out with lots of action the dialog in the book of all the characters is very crisp I could go on I give it a soild 5 stars all the way.

This was an amazingly well written ww3 what if that I suspect is going to be terrifyingly close to reality if it hits the fan this decade. If not the reasons will still be their I'd bet the farm on it. Those that don't know history are doomed to repeat it. Read Winston churchill's books on ww2. The same mistakes for the same reasons, just new names, some minor changes in geography. Only with the addition of nukes the death toll could make ww2's look like nothing. Ignore the bad reviews, I read most, and after reading this book I can say for sure that either they were reviewing a different book, or the troll population just went way up.

This book was OK. It was clear the author had a message he wanted to get out. But the message got so bogged down in military jargon & politician bashing over defence cuts that the point of the story was lost. I found myself skipping vast sections just to get to the end. And yes, the ending was satisfactory, however, for me this book was a bit of a miss. Had some of the monologues over defence cuts been removed and action demonstrating how woefully unprepared various nations were was put in its place, the message would have been so much more effective. Instead in a short amount of time(after pages and pages and pages) of various flunkies saying that there is no way they can be ready - no soldiers, no equipment etc etc, everything miraculously comes together and voila victory!

A wonderful thriller, eschewing Putin as the abhorrent leader of the new Russia. Shows the quintessential tyrant with never being appeased. Much like the Donald and his subterfuge. No matter what, it is never enough. They have made their own hell, and do not even realize it. They will NEVER be happy.

The general writes fiction that is no fiction. Politicians are no historians nor are they statesmen. Naivity reigns and real safety issues are exchanged for poll results. Read this book to get a feel of what is happening today and then realise that this book has a happy ending which may be the only fiction in the book.

To start off, I think the writing is not as bad as some below have suggested. There is an attempt to add a bit of depth to the main characters, the various character groups give a reasonably variety of viewpoints and the settings are reasonably well pulled together. However, this book has several problems:1. The constant harping on about defence cuts in the UK is incredibly irritating. Practically every character introduced, from the Army Captain, the Russian president, NATO staffers, the PM, the US President etc. etc. complains about it. The author (IMO) has a point that cuts have gone too far, but the repetitive nature of the whining is a major flaw.2. I read this on Kindle - the war 'starts' at around 95% and then the book ends. That's it. Not sure if he ran out of interest having got point 1 off his chest, or perhaps he didn't want to get into the detail of the next phase and development of the war. Having got through the politics I was disappointed how the story just stopped.3. The President is a bit of a lazy, poor caricature of Putin as a Bond villain.4. The descriptions of the weapons are dry and too long. In addition, it seems the author was desperate to not risk confusing lay-readers so there are a lot of acronyms used, then spelt out immediately afterwards which jars sometimes.5. Whilst the author obviously knows more about the military than I ever will, I found one plot point too ridiculous to accept - the new aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth is sent to a warzone without its aircraft. I understand artistic license but that for me went too far – I do not believe a £3 billion ship would be put in harm’s way without adequate defence.

This is why we can't have nice things. This book is a thinly disguised whinge about cuts to Defence spending, its just endless. The author never misses an opportunity to sledgehammer in some jarring comment about poor recruitment by Capita or 'bloody stupid' political decisions. The prose is simply horrible, it's like it's been written by someone who has never spoken to an actual human being, as others have said the baddies are straight out of a badly made American action film, while the goodies are parodies of James Bond, Sharpe and Jason Bourne all rolled into one, with the obligatory love interest. The book labours on inconsequential detail at the expense of actually doing any analysis of the geopolitical situation it claims to do. It's full of the sort of language high ranking officers like to use when visiting the lads cookhouse thinking it makes them seem like one of the boys, it really doesn't, it's just a bit cringe worthy. This could have been a fantastic novel if only they'd used a ghost writer to do the fictional bit and just used the author to add the detail. Don't waste your time.

Yes. Very thought provoking. As in, thinking about which country to move to as this one is going down the proverbial pan!I am not in any way qualified to comment on the technicality of this book.I am, however, reasonably well informed about the state of the U.K.'s offensive & defensive capabilities.This book not only confirms my fears, it surpasses them by leaps & bounds.Extremely well written by someone who actually knows what he is talking about.It should be compulsory reading in secondary schools. It's their future that is being written!

Although a novel a book written by a man in the know about the incompetent working of the European union and NATO whilst reading this well put together book I could not help but feel in sensed and annoyed at the government cuts and decimation of the British armed forces and how successive governments after Margaret Thatcher have ruined and made a laughing stock of a once powerful proud military, ........?well written and captivating

2017 has come and gone, and thankfully so far this scenario has remained in the realms of fiction. Nevertheless the book is still worth reading, not least for Sir Richard's thoughts on how we have reached this stage and how such a scenario could come about. The author is fairly critical of a number of Western statesmen both present and recently past, and also acknowledges that Russia's pride has been hurt since the end of the Cold War, which has led to an understandable sense of grievance even if Putin means to remedy it are inexcusable. This is not a right-wing or militaristic screed: neither pacifists nor Brexiteers or Trump voters will find much comfort here. Obviously nobody wants war - a fact he himself emphasises, mentioning the huge casualties and potential doomsday - but peace at any price could in fact be a heavy price.The book scores heavily by drawing on Sir Richard's military experience, not least his spell as DSACEUR (essentially deputy commander of NATO). The deduction of one star is mainly for a couple of abrupt points in the narrative, but I would encourage the author to produce further work in this area if he feels so inclined.