Below The Beltway

As John Birmingham’s Weapons Of Choice opens, it is 2021 and a MultiNational Force is heading for the waters off of Indonesia in response to an Islamist coup. Though Birmingham doesn’t paint the world of 2021, or the 20 years that preceded it, in great detail, we are given enough glimpses to show that the War On Terror has morphed into precisely the type of Long War that some contend we are already in. The enemy isn’t so much terrorism as an entity referred to as The Caliphate — clearly an Islamist regime has established itself somewhere in the Middle East and is trying to spread its brand of Islam around the world. Mention is made of wars in the Persian Gulf, the Phillipines, and of U.S. Marines entering the smoking ruins of a city called Damascus.

The task force is headed by the supercarrier U.S.S. Hillary Clinton named, as the book says, for the most uncompromising wartime President in American history who, it is hinted in the book, was the victim of assassination by Islamist terrorists. Tagging along on the expedition is a research vessel called the Nagoya which was conducting secret experiments in the area before hostilities begin involving some form of teleportation. The scientists on the Nagoya, not content to wait until their return to safer waters to work, conduct another experiment that goes disasterously wrong —- and sends the entire fleet back in time to June 1942 on the eve of the Battle of Midway and in the middle of the American fleet.

The encounter is, at first, disasterous for both sides. Ships are sunk and lives are lost before anyone realizes what has happened. When that happens, an uneasy truce is made and the Clinton and her support ships head back to Pearl with the badly damaged WWII-era fleet.

One of the overriding themes of the book is the clash of cultures that exists between the 21st century crews and their WWII counterparts. At first, the 1940s era Americans don’t come across looking well at all. Racial prejudice and sexist attitudes are prevalent and many are unwilling to accept fighting with, never mind being commanded by, a black man or a woman. In time, though, Birmingham shows that the “21ers” aren’t perfect either. Two decades of war have created people that, by 1940s standards have shockingly little regard for the horrors of war or the destructive power of their own weapons. More than one 1940s-era character worries about the effect “those people” will have on their society.

But that’s not the biggest problem they’ll be facing. Not all of the 21st century ships ended up at Midway. At least two have ended up in the hands of the Imperial Japanese, who are intent on stripping them for their technoloy and, more importantly, for their historical knowledge. And they share that knowledge with their Nazi allies. With the hindsight of eighty years, the Axis may just have what it needs to turn the tide in World War II.

As the book ends, the Axis powers are taking the first steps in a plan that will clearly unfold in the series’ second volume, Designated Targets.

This is Birmingham’s first novel and, though, the initial chapters of the contact at Midway do move slowly, it quickly becomes an engaging read. Well worth your time.