Space Wars: The First Six Hours of World War III | 
| Authors: Willliam Scott, Michael Coumatos, William Birnes
Publisher: Forge Books
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $5.70
You Save: $20.25 (78%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 74859
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 0765313790
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780765313799
ASIN: 0765313790
Publication Date: March 17, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Hardcover, 2007 copyright, forge publisher, dj has shelf wear.
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Product Description
Michael J. Coumatos is a former U.S. Navy test pilot, ship’s captain, and commodore; U.S. Space Command director of wargaming; and a government counterterrorism advisor. William Scott is a retired bureau chief of Aviation Week and Space Technology and a nine-year Air force veteran who served as aircrew on nuclear sampling missions. He is a six-time Royal Aeronautical Society "Journalist of the Year" finalist, and won the Society's 1998 Lockheed Martin Award for the "Best Defense Submission." He also received both the 2006 and 2007 Messier-Dowty awards for "Best Airshow Submission." With the help of New York Times bestselling author William J. Birnes, these renowned experts have joined forces to grippingly depict how the first hours of World War III might play out in the year 2010. Coumatos, Scott, and Birnes take the reader inside U.S. Strategic Command, where top military commanders, space-company executives, and U.S. intelligence experts are conducting a DEADSATS II wargame, exploring how the loss of critical satellites could lead to nuclear war. The players don’t know that the war they are gaming has already begun, miles above them in the lifeless, silent cold of space. Jam-packed with the actual systems and secret technologies the United States has or will soon field to protect its space assets, Space Wars describes a near-future nuclear nightmare that terrorists will relish but politicians prefer to ignore. In a quieter, more peaceful time, Space Wars would be an exciting work of fiction. But with the United States now at war, Space Wars is all too real. .
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| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
Not far from the truth.... June 13, 2008
While some readers may find this somewhat SciFi-politico, it is strickingly up-to-date and scary.
About half way through I found myself wondering where I was and slowly picked up that the games were still in play. It did leave me concerned enough to really start watching the global, political issues that seem even now to follow the book; weeks after finishing the book.
 Military Space Technologies & Strategy June 12, 2008
This book although fiction, is based on hard facts with a view to the next big war in which the military's use of space and adversarial counter-space could very well be big issue. I especially like the "war gaming" aspects. The book takes the reader through decision making processes and war gaming of scenarios.
 Good Concept, Not-so-good Writing May 9, 2008
I'm torn about this book. I want to like it - the topic is timely, and it's an excellent example of the importance of space to the world economy and American military (along with a cogent warning about how vulnerable our space assets and associated terrestrial elements are). Unfortunately, as a novel it is at best only adequate.
The book is essentially the novelization of a military wargame. Indeed, some bookstores list it as non-fiction. Presumably in an effort to make the book more attractive to general audiences (and sidestep restrictions on publishing classified after-action reports on the wargame), the authors made it into a novel and created characters on all sides of the conflict.
Unfortunately, all of the characters are cliched stereotypes, with the exception of the military wargamers, who are perfect humans and brilliantly insightful: they're better intelligence analysts than the intelligence officers, better operational planners than the operational planners, and better strategists than the professional strategists. If the book had gone on a few more pages, I'm sure one or more of the wargamers would have demonstrated the ability to walk on water (note that the book was written by military wargamers).
In addition, there is an astonishing lack of attention to detail: The world population of Muslims is many times said to be "several billion," or "billions," which is off by a stunning amount (actual number, about one billion). They display, at best, a facile awareness of the Iranian military and political system (referring, for example to Iran's "Republican Guard," once in the book, when Iran has no such institution). The heroic Air Force space plane pilot inexplicably wears Navy white rank on his flight suit instead of Air Force black rank. Classified cover sheets are the wrong color, F-16s and F-15s are described as dual seat aircraft (in reality, the training models are two-seat, but the other 98% of the F-15 and F-16 fleets are single-seat) etc.
Readers of this review might be tempted to ignore those mistaken details, viewing them as trivial matters. This would be a mistake. Since the "novel" is intended as a warning about the import of space assets and the vulnerability of same, the incorrect details about military matters call into question their entire thesis about how space assets work. If they get the small stuff glaringly wrong, can they be trusted to be accurate with the big issues?
Readers with an actual interest in these matters would be better served to read the 2000 Rumsfeld Commission report on space.
 What World War III? May 8, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
O'kay techno-thriller. To much politics and game theory for me. Realy slowed down to plot. Intersting insight into the space command and world of techno spies. But other then that there is no world war III as the title claims. It seems more like a day in the life of usual intrigue of us versus them. If you are interested in the workings of space command then buy this book, but if you are looking for a techno-thriller, move on!
Entertaining, plausible, but dated technology February 18, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
The book was very entertaining and offered a possible future scenario which was quite possible. The author attempted to mimic Tom Clancy's early style of writing but wasn't quite there. There was an over-abundance of adjectives at times but it wasn't too bad. The story flowed well and was believable but there were some added twists to the story that didn't make sense.
SPOILER (Don't read if you don't want to spoil the story)
1)If 4 GPS satellites were messing up the whole GPS network, just blow them out of the sky, very easy.
2)If another Shahab4 was getting ready to launch in 48 hours, why not just send another SpcOps team in to neutralize it. Shooting down French Galileo sats was not a good idea.
3)Two F-15's on the runway at Eglin with ASAT missiles going out to shoot down a French satellite and the French testpilot taxiing out at Eglin doesn't recognize the missiles and put two and two together after the Galileos are destroyed... :(
Other than those issues, I enjoyed the story, the book was quite an interesting look at 1980's technologies.
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