Peter Apps’s latest work is published at a time of global geopolitical turbulence and a growing concern that we are on the precipice of a third world war. The Trump presidency has amplified these fears with an acceleration in his increasingly authoritarian and transactional demands of friend and foe alike. In this time of great uncertainty and flux, Apps’s dedication at the start of the book is sobering, “Dedicated … particularly to my grandparents and great-grandparents who went through all of this before".
The book examines what the US Naval War College in 2024 described as “simultaneity” or “poly-crisis”, a world “not at peace”, with growing hybrid and “grey-zone” attacks taking place internationally at the same time as major conventional conflicts such as Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Apps’s analysis is comprehensive and detailed, providing an objective if worrying intellectual framework within which to locate European – and Irish – security and defence concerns.
Apps covers a great deal of ground, from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) painstaking replication in the Gobi desert of Taiwan’s principal Taoyuan Airport – where they openly train for a pre-emptive military strike on Taipei – to the deployment of a Nato “enhanced forward presence battle group” to Narva, Estonia, in anticipation of a “likely” Russian invasion of that Baltic state. The book painstakingly inventories the world’s current brutal wars and flashpoints, from Europe to the Middle East, Africa and Asia, and teases out the linkages and interconnectedness of each conflict in terms of an emerging new world order.
The detail is remarkable and Apps’s ability to predict the likely trajectory of future conflict – particularly in terms of the use of artificial intelligence in mass target acquisition and a new generation of autonomous unmanned weapon systems, on land, sea, air and in space - is not for the faint-hearted. Apps identifies a nascent “alliance” or, as Putin describes it, “a partnership with no limits” between Beijing, Moscow, Tehran and Pyongyang. This so-called “Axis of Upheaval” consisting of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea – or Crink – is competing for global dominance against the United States and its allies.
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Apps observes that the Crink alliance is not a partnership of equals, with China dominating Russia and the others through its sheer economic might and relentless process under Xi Jinping of “hyper-militarisation” and his so-called “wolf-warrior diplomacy”. The author describes how China’s growing assertiveness and coercive projection of power is viewed as “threatening” by most Russians – who ae fearful of Chinese “colonisation”, particularly in the far east of the Russian Federation. Indeed, in uncovered documents from Russia’s intelligence agency, the FSB, China is referred to as the “enemy”.
For their part, the United States’s “permanent government” of top generals, diplomats and intelligence professionals has been monitoring and charting the growing rivalry – and potential for armed confrontation – that they believe the Axis of Upheaval represents, with it being a “clear and present danger” to the interests of the US. Apps catalogues the belief among the international intelligence community and among defence intellectuals worldwide that the emerging threat posed by this axis has the potential for direct hybrid and conventional attacks on Europe and the United States – with the attendant risk of nuclear escalation.
In this context, Apps describes the consistent messaging from consecutive US administrations from Bush to Obama, Biden and Trump on the requirement for European member states of Nato to increase their military spending to 5 per cent of GDP and to assist the US in the “heavy lifting” of military capability and deterrence.
Apps cites the Finnish model as the ideal templates for deterrence and national survival in the 21st century
While these are worrying developments, and history demonstrates quite clearly that hyper-militarisation and arms races generally lead to catastrophic outcomes, Apps is cautiously optimistic. At the outset he states: “I instinctively reject the view [of renewed world war] firstly because I dislike the idea that endless escalation is inevitable, but secondly because the death, destruction and disruption we have seen so far, horrific though it is, would be dwarfed by the consequences of a true, new global conflict”.
Complicating this cautious belief in humanity and common sense, however, is the startling and provocative posture of the current Trump presidency. Apps quotes former UK foreign secretary David Miliband’s observation, “Trump was elected as a disruptor. The message is, ‘Buckle Up’.”
Events in recent weeks have indeed been a rollercoaster ride of uncertainty, pre-emptive use of force, extra-judicial killings and threats to Nato allies. As quoted by Apps, Trump probably sums himself up succinctly in his remarks about US-China relations, “President Xi respects me and he knows I’m f***ing crazy”.
That being the case, as the song goes, “there may be trouble ahead”. In the context of future conflict – whether it be grinding, low-intensity hybrid warfare or a full-scale conventional war with a risk of nuclear escalation – Apps is clear that each and every country must ensure it is self-sufficient and resilient when it comes to defence and simple survival. He cites the Norwegian model of “whole-of-society defence” and, in particular, the Finnish model, with a “small regular military element … and a part-time reserve capable of a long-running and brutal insurgency", as the ideal templates for deterrence and national survival in the 21st century. He predicts that “the second quarter of the 21st century is likely to be extremely unforgiving for those nations who are not willing and able to defend what they hold dear, whether that applies to territorial integrity or values like free speech and democracy”.
Ireland, with a similar population to Finland, would ideally benefit from a massive expansion of our voluntary reserves, to allow tens of thousands of Irish citizens to undergo basic military and tactical combat casualty care training while deploying Ireland’s unique skill sets in cyber, digital and AI-enhanced defence measures – a precise match with likely future challenges from man-made or natural crises.
In this febrile environment, Apps predicts a return to “cold war” era expenditure on defence and security, hopefully avoiding an unintended escalation into a full-blown world war. He concludes: “Like the first cold war, if luck and common sense could hold, [a world war] might be postponed and deterred indefinitely”. As a British analyst, Apps’s worldview of the potential catastrophe of global conflict echoes the “Keep calm and carry on” philosophy of Londoners during the Blitz.
If common sense is a key factor in determining whether we avoid a nuclear exchange, a look at the current cast of world leaders, from Trump to Putin, Binyamin Netanyahu, Xi, the ayatollahs and Kim Jong Un, provoke in me “fears for the worst”, while I cling to a “hope for the best”. As traditional peace-makers, perhaps Ireland can play a role in encouraging reconciliation and the values of mutual respect and basic humanity as trusted neutral interlocutors for communication and de-escalation.
Tom Clonan is a Senator, security analyst, author and retired Irish Army captain.
