The Third World War: A Terrifying Novel of Global Conflict

Author's note

My thanks to those who helped me with The Third World War, either in conversations, briefings and on-the-record interviews, or through their writings in books and journals. Among those are Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (Simon & Schuster, 1986); Jonathan B. Tucker, Scourge, The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox (Grove Press, 2001); Andrew J. Nathan and Bruce Gilley, 'China's New Rulers: What They Want' (New York Review, 2002), as well as dozens of others including Jon Cohen's brilliant account in Atlantic Monthly (July/August 2002) on mousepox and interleukin-4.

The concept for this novel — the third in the series of books which have become known as 'future histories' — straddled the attacks of September 11th 2001 and the Iraq War. As I wrote The Third World War, the simultaneous threats of Iraq and North Korea became more and more embedded in the public consciousness.

Weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical warfare, pre-emptive strike are now part of our everyday language. This is the sharp end of a debate as to which political system delivers the most to its people. And it may be settled with bombs. It is as if the Cold War aftermath has finally shaken itself through and this is what is left — a sense that our communities are under threat, that our values are being questioned, and that our lives are no longer as safe as they were a few years ago.

My great thanks, however, to the many colleagues in the BBC who have sent me to far-flung places and allowed me to observe.

From Aralsk in Kazakhstan to Cuidad del Este in Paraguay to Bouake in the Ivory Coast, I have been privileged to talk to people from all walks of life and political leanings and feed their views into this book. They are far too numerous to name, but their insights have been just as valuable as those of the politicians, academics and members of the classified world who have been so helpful with their time and knowledge.

My very special thanks to my publisher William Armstrong, who published the first best-selling Third World War, by General Sir John Hackett, in 1978 and has presided over Dragon Strike, Dragon Fire and The Third World War. Without his great intelligence and love for ideas, these books would never have been written; to my agent, David Grossman, who has been with me since the beginning; to Simon Lipskar in New York for his guidance; to Nick Austin, Cressida Downing, and Cait Murphy for their work on the text; and at Macmillan Nicholas Blake, and to Nicky Hursell, my editor who sorted out the manuscript for publication before an actual Third World War broke out.