Book Review: Against All Enemies

Reviewed by Warren Maxwell

This action-packed naval thriller comes ominously close to reality in imagining the events leading up to, and into, a third world war.

“The ship shuddered out of rhythm with the gun. In eighteen years of naval service, he’d never heard nor felt something like it.”

A surprise attack on San Diego harbor, the Pentagon, and all of America’s military infrastructure sets off a deadly chain-reaction. A weakened United States engages in bloody naval battles with China, Russia takes the chaos as an opportunity to launch full scale invasions of Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic states, and NATO is left in shambles. At the helm of these three great-power countries, populist leaders who bear a striking resemblances to their real-life counterparts fan imperialist and xenophobic flames, eagerly launching their countries into all out war. 

As the threat of nuclear missile strikes mount and with cities around the globe burning, individual decisions in offices and on battlefields will either lead to a diplomatic resolution or a nuclear holocaust.

“Funny, he mused. He’d just called it the enemy ship. How quickly he’d adapted to a new reality.” 

Captain Bill Wilkins is among the first Americans to realize what is going on when a Chinese frigate opens fire on his destroyer in the South China Sea. Unbeknownst to him, his older brother has already been killed in a massive bombing campaign on San Diego’s military installation. Tracking Captain Wilkins and a large cast of characters as they respond to unprecedented destruction, the novel moves from war zones to the boardroom machinations playing out in Washington and Moscow. Action and political intrigue are woven into a taught story that equally draws from world-domination strategy games and blockbuster war films. 

The story’s ambitious scope, swinging from missiles exploding over European cities to chain of command conflicts and nerve-racking surface warfare, leaves little room for character development or the creation of rich, charismatic personalities. Instead, the individuals who populate these pages rely on torn-from-the-headlines characterizations. The U.S. president is described thus: “Donnelly hadn’t run to govern. Like everything else he did, he’d run for prestige and fame. And to increase his wealth;” real world foreign policy concerns are also injected into the story with the official recognition of Taiwan and deteriorating U.S.-China trade relations playing a foundational role in this imagined conflict. These direct borrowings have a double-edged effect, giving Against All Enemies the gravity of a top secret war-game played out with literary flare while reducing international complexities and cultural differences to partisan talking-points. The result is both fascinating and perhaps superficial.

“It had always surprised her that civilians with no ties to the military believed so strongly that military people, especially senior officers, wanted war. She’d never found that to be true.” 

Wing’s first-hand experience in naval combat and decades of service as a Navy Surface Warfare officer are on full-display in immersive combat scenes that lean into the technical language and detail of real-world fighting. The combination of chaos and calm that unfolds in the command center of a naval destroyer fighting for its life is captured with uncanny reality. The compartmentalization and decentralization of each military role on a ship creates enormous efficiency while leaving the captain as a mere figurehead, suddenly “feeling useless” in the heat of battle. These clear, authentic description of modern warfare practices are thrilling. 

An eerie depiction of the contemporary world sliding from an imaginable military conflagration to war of an unimaginable scale, Against All Enemies is a thrilling exercise in political prophesy.

---

Thank you for reading Warren Maxwell’s book review of Against All Enemies by Thomas M. Wing! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.