Dragon Fire - Softcover

Hawksley, Humphrey

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0330391569 ISBN 13: 9780330391566

Publisher: Pan, 2001

Synopsis

At 0500 on Tuesday 3 May 2005, a lone Antonov-32 transport flies through the dawn light over the Himalayas and approaches the Tibetan capital, Lhasa. Its destination is the notorious Drapchi Prison, where some of the most revered Tibetan leaders are being held. The aircraft's loading bay is lowered. The sky is filled with mushroom grey parachutes. In a few minutes, troops of the People's Republic of China are fighting invaders. Far to the West, Paskistani FCI multi-role combat aircraft roar across the Line of Control and pound the strategic outpost of Kargil. Heliborne troops follow to raise the national green crescent flag on Indian territory.Suddenly the three-sided war so dreaded in Asia - India versus China and Pakistan - is happening. Nuclear arsenals are being readied in all three countries.

Dragonfire is a totally gripping thriller with a horrifying and wholly believable conclusion. Humphrey Hawksley's tense prose bristles with knowledge and insight into the most explosive political area in the world. But what makes it all the more terrifying is that it's all based on fact.

'...takes the thriller in an important new direction' Craig Thomas

About this title

Review:

A novel that describes a Chinese nuclear attack on India should not be dismissed as fiction. -- Associated Press

Dragon Fire cannot be dismissed as a mere invention of an imaginative writer -- John Elliott, New Statesman

I hope nobody dismisses Humphrey Hawksley's book, Dragon Fire, as one more book of fiction... -- George Fernandes, Indian Defence Minister

It's fiction, a gripping but terrifying tale of escalating conflict told by former BBC staffer Humphrey Hawksley... -- Reuters

The book should be compulsory reading for politicians, military brass and civilian strategic analysts -- Prof. RVR Chandrasekhara Rao, Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies

The fictional scenario of Chinese nuclear strikes on New Delhi and Mumbai was termed as plausible by leading defence experts. -- Press Trust of India

From the Author:

In a perfect world, communities aspiring to development should not go to war. But time and time again common sense is turned on its head. Even societies whose standards of living are rising rapidly use the excitement of nationalism to balance either the treadmill of economic growth or the weakness of corrupt leadership. Yugoslavia, Iraq and swathes of Africa at once come to mind and danger signals are flashing in Pakistan, India and China.

In May 1998, both India and Pakistan carried out nuclear tests, elevating hostilities to a new, more menacing level. Asia, still wracked with poverty and conflict, now had three declared nuclear-weapons powers.

India and Pakistan had been in conflict for half a century. Pakistan and China had a long-standing military alliance. India and China had already fought one war and disagreed on how to handle restless nationalism in Tibet.

But a far more forceful momentum was also sweeping across those two enormous countries, a sense that as empires come and empires go, at some stage the power of the United States would wane and another great power would rise up to move into the vacuum. This ambition, and an impatience to force events, has made Asia an unpredictable and dangerous place for all of us.

It would be perfectly sensible to argue that China and India are incapable of becoming serious military threats in the near future.

China's naval advances into the Indian Ocean and occupation of islands in the South China Sea are evidence that it is willing to anger its neighbours in order to test its military reach. India's determination to press ahead with its nuclear programme and name China as its main long-term enemy suggests a deeper degree of hostility than at first thought.

Both countries have weak conventional military systems and only minimal nuclear forces. But either one could achieve victory in a regional conflict if its leadership was willing to risk the consequences and showed the resolve to do so.

In Dragon Strike: The Millennium War (Sidgwick & Jackson 1997), Simon Holberton and I described a scenario in which China takes control of the South China Sea. It attacks its long-standing enemy, Vietnam, occupies the Spratly and Paracel groups of islands, and deploys submarines in the sea-lanes to the Indian Ocean. When the United States intervenes by sending a warship into the area, it is sunk by a Chinese submarine with heavy loss of life.

Pacifist Japan reacts by carrying out a nuclear test, uncertain that it can continue to count on American military protection. Much of South East Asia, looking to the long term future, gives tacit support to China.

American, British, Australian and New Zealand warships fight their way into the South China Sea. As China's fleet faces destruction, American satellite imagery shows nuclear missiles being prepared for launch.

The prospect of a nuclear attack on an American city is enough to force a re-think in Washington about how to deal with China.

Simon Holberton and I described Dragon Strike as a future history. Dragon Fire is even more so. Developments in Asia are moving so fast that on several occasions my writing was overtaken by events. What was fiction one day, became historical fact the next.

The characters of the novel are more the individual countries than the people who run them. Loyalties, betrayals, aspirations and scars of history are played out on a political and military stage through the eyes of India, Pakistan, China and others.

If China and India's security aspirations for Asia converge with each other and with those of the United States and Japan, there is no cause for alarm. That, however, would be an ambitious formula. If either China or India's intentions are being under estimated and the danger signs are swept under the carpet, the impact on world peace could be the most catastrophic since the end of the Second World War.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pan
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0330391569
• ISBN 13: 9780330391566
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448