Sci fi and national security

The Forever War by Joe Haldeston is directly about war; but in his introductions to various editions he describes it as the direct counter to Starship Troopers. He also says it is his way to describe his experience with the Vietnam War. If Starship Troopers is the way Cold Warriors saw science fiction, than The Forever War is the way Vietnam Veterans did.

As for Speculative Fiction that is not seemingly about war, Lord of the Flies is the best example that comes to mind. It describes power, anarchy, realism and idealism all in the context of children.

As a sci-fi junkie, I find speculative fiction as an incredible tool. While mirroring our modern world, it also can act as case studies for the student of war. It can ask what if questions that fiction cannot. These what ifs help our thinkers prepare for the next war. If we had asked more questions in the nineties, perhaps we would have seen Iraq/Afghanistan coming.

SM Stirling's Dies the Fire sequence is about a series of small wars in the context of a postapocalyptic world. It's more medievalist warfare than anything, but fascinating from a politcal-historical view.

But a little more recent, the television program Kings (cancelled last year, out now on DVD) posits an alternate-reality adaptation of the life of biblical King David, complete with modern interpretations of tribal warfare. More politic than warring, but it makes some interesting allegories about contemporary Israel-Palestine, and is thirteen episodes of Shakespearean glory. Highly recommended, not only because Ian McShane is incredible.

The bookstores are full of military scifi books these days. It's almost all the rage. Gordon R. Dickson or Jerry Pournelle was one of the first authors I knew of besides Robert Heinlein who wrote about war, but Pournelle's best war novels were about mercenaries (Falkenberg's Legion) as was Dickson's (Dorsai!, Tactics of Mistake). Dickson was one of the best writers of his day. Haldeman's truthful work has already been mentioned in a previous comment. David Drake (also mentioned above) practically made the field what it is today with his Hammers Slammers which were based upon his Vietnam tank unit. Drake also writes some good short story fiction about a Roman centurion (Vettius and His Friends (1989)). Then there's David Weber, who's practically surpassed Drake in sheer numbers of books written by now it would appear. I've always had a soft spot for the original Bolo short stories by Keith Laumer. But the best author who wrote about war was Roger Zelazny. His Lord of Light is about one man who changes his world. It's also about war, but then war is about change through violent means.

John

Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_R._Dickson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Pournelle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Drake
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranks_of_Bronze
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Weber
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Laumer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_Light

A classic on power struggles, and a low level gang war, is the original Godfather by Mario Puzo. Essentially, it describes one of the most irregular of wars possible and how different sides struggled to overpower their enemies with both soft and hard power.

Michael C

The corpse haunted marshes were likely based on the Irish and British peat bogs. The Celts sacrificed people and threw their bodies into the marshes where the corpses were preserved due to the anaerobic environment and the tannins from the decaying plant matter. They are still digging people and artifacts up from the bogs to this day. Tolkien just amplified the number of bodies, but those numbers reflect any of the numbers of casualties from Roman Wars all the way to the Great War.

Dune has to be the ultimate book about our desert wars-of course the Jihadists win in the end.