2034: A Novel of the Next World War

Elliot Ackerman · Admiral James Stavridis, USN

Mar 2021 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Emily Woo Zeller, P.J. Ochlan, Vikas Adam, Dion Graham, and Feodor Chin

About this audiobook

From two former military officers and award-winning authors, a chillingly authentic geopolitical thriller that imagines a naval clash between the US and China in the South China Sea in 2034--and the path from there to a nightmarish global conflagration.

On March 12, 2034, US Navy Commodore Sarah Hunt is on the bridge of her flagship, the guided missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones, conducting a routine freedom of navigation patrol in the South China Sea when her ship detects an unflagged trawler in clear distress, smoke billowing from its bridge. On that same day, US Marine aviator Major Chris "Wedge" Mitchell is flying an F35E Lightning over the Strait of Hormuz, testing a new stealth technology as he flirts with Iranian airspace. By the end of that day, Wedge will be an Iranian prisoner, and Sarah Hunt's destroyer will lie at the bottom of the sea, sunk by the Chinese Navy. Iran and China have clearly coordinated their moves, which involve the use of powerful new forms of cyber weaponry that render US ships and planes defenseless. In a single day, America's faith in its military's strategic pre-eminence is in tatters. A new, terrifying era is at hand.

So begins a disturbingly plausible work of speculative fiction, co-authored by an award-winning novelist and decorated Marine veteran and the former commander of NATO, a legendary admiral who has spent much of his career strategically outmaneuvering America's most tenacious adversaries. Written with a powerful blend of geopolitical sophistication and human empathy, 2034 takes us inside the minds of a global cast of characters--Americans, Chinese, Iranians, Russians, Indians--as a series of arrogant miscalculations on all sides leads the world into an intensifying international storm. In the end, China and the United States will have paid a staggering cost, one that forever alters the global balance of power. 

Everything in 2034 is an imaginative extrapolation from present-day facts on the ground combined with the authors' years working at the highest and most classified levels of national security. Sometimes it takes a brilliant work of fiction to illuminate the most dire of warnings: 2034 is all too close at hand, and this cautionary tale presents the reader a dark yet possible future that we must do all we can to avoid.

* This audiobook edition includes an exclusive interview with co-author Admiral James Stavridis.

Ratings and reviews

I had to give the book a star to write a comment otherwise it would have received none. I had to stop listen an hour into it. When a nuc sub named Michael Obama came into the story line. I could deal with an all female woke cast but the sub was the straw that broke the camel's back. the old admiral should be ashamed of himself for being apart to this book. with this mentality in the military I feel sorry for my country. I was an underway OOD. I hope this stops anyone from reading this book. this wholeness killed Star Wars and will kill our country too.

Como el autor advierte, es una novela sobre algo que podría pasar. A pesar de ello, los detonantes del conflicto sin altamente improbables, incluyendo un rescate-abordaje no deseado y el posterior e inmediato hundimiento de la flotilla estadounidense. Igualmente, es demasiado increíble un avance tecnológico 100 contra 1, no importa el país. Mientras que China anula toda capacidad estadounidense, India tiene una tecnología de desencriptación, despliegue y ataque muy superior a todos los demás, incluso con unos increíbles submarinos diésel que pueden con todo. Mientras tanto, los rusos siguen actuando a base de fuerza bruta, los estadounidenses abandonan sus posiciones y dejan el campo abierto a esos mismos rusos y Europa directamente existe. Bien el tratamiento de los personajes y sus clichés culturales. Entretenida, pero me ha costado llegar al final.

Very insightful

About the author

Admiral Jim Stavridis, USN (Ret.) spent more than thirty years in the US Navy, rising to the rank of four-star admiral. He was Supreme Allied Commander at NATO and previously commanded US Southern Command, overseeing military operations through Latin America. At sea, he commanded a Navy destroyer, a destroyer squadron, and an aircraft carrier battle group in combat. He holds a PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where he recently served five years as dean. He received 50 medals in the course of his military career, including 28 from foreign nations. He has published nine previous books, including Sea Power: The History and Geopolitics of the World’s Oceans and Sailing True North: Ten Admirals and the Voyage of Character, and is Chief International Analyst for NBC News and a contributing editor of TIME Magazine. He is currently vice chairman, global affairs of the Carlyle Group and chairman of the board of the Rockefeller Foundation.

Elliot Ackerman is the author of The Fifth Act, Places and Names, 2034, Red Dress In Black and White, Waiting for Eden, Dark at the Crossing, and Green on Blue. His books have been nominated for the National Book Award, the Andrew Carnegie Medal in both fiction and non-fiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize among others. His writing often appears in Esquire, The New Yorker, and The New York Times, and his stories have been included in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Travel Writing. He is both a former White House Fellow and Marine, and served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. He divides his time between New York City and Washington, D.C.