Borrowed

I find that the most interesting aspect of these 30 year old military thrillers is to compare them with known reality. It's clear that for every book, Dale Brown had to rewrite some of the past as real world events overtook his imaginary reality, but he does it in a seamless fashion.

This book is centered around tension in the South China Sea, tension that is still there. China, Vietnam and several other neighbouring countries to different degrees claim ownership of the sea, using occupation of reef-like islands as proof. In this book Philippines and China clash over those island in a way that escalates and goes out of control.

I think the book was 20% completely unrealistic already when it was written, but what are these books, but a way to run "what if" scenarios and then it's hard to stay on the right side of the border.
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Storyline
- Dispute between China and Phillipines over Sprattly Islands

China invades Sprattly Islands and Patrick McLanahan and the heavy bombers of the U.S. Air Battle Force leads the American counterattack against a Chinese invasion of the Philippines.

Characters
General Brad Elliott - Commander of Dreamland
Lieutenant Colonel Pat McLanahan - Project director - EB-2 project - upgrade to B-2 bomber
? Master - inventor ( )

An abridged version that lasted barely two hours. It was so tactical that it would have made a good CONOPS vignette for a new weapon system -- 25 years ago. LtCol McLanahan fights a B2 with more fantastic capabilities than a 50 plane gorilla strike in a SE Pacific scenario. ( )