Tom Clancy is Scary

The man can predict the future.

Russia invading Georgia?

Sound familiar to anyone?

How about the original

Ghost Recon?

Ghost Recon begins in April 16, 2008, with civil unrest in Russia. Ultra-nationalists have seized power in Moscow, with plans to rebuild the Iron Curtain. Their first step is clandestine support of rebel factions in Georgia and the Baltic States.

This was written back in 2001.

During the first few missions of the game, the Ghosts battle South Ossetian rebel forces from the north of Georgia, who are harassing the legitimate government and its allies. The Ghosts fight in the forests, on farms, and in villages while assisting their NATO allies in fighting the enemy.

The Russian government complains to the United Nations that the Americans have interfered in their affairs, and eventually they send in their army to aid the South Ossetian rebels. The U.S. cannot hope to stop the Russian Army from invading Georgia, so the Ghosts slow down the invading forces so that their allies can evacuate.

Eventually, the Ghosts are all that's left of the U.S. forces in Georgia, and they evacuate by SH-60 Seahawk helicopter on the rooftop of the American Embassy in T'bilisi, just barely avoiding the Russian forces. The Georgian government flees to Geneva and sets up a government-in-exile. With the fall of T'bilisi, Georgia surrenders and is forcefully incorporated into the RDU.

Clancy is pretty good at this shit. I recall reading some of his earlier books and thinking to myself about how realistic his outlook of the world was, and how the events he wrote about could really possibly happen.

Which brings me to his latest book (though not one he authored). End War, which I recently finished. Based on the game that is coming out soon, this book is very interesting. Set in 2020, Saudi Arabia and Iran have gone nuclear, in fact, they nuked each other! However, this upsets an already volitile oil market, and soon, Russia is the #1 supplier of natural gas and crude oil in the world.

With their economy sky-rocketing Russia modernizes their military and seeks to get a stranglehold on any remaining sources of crude oil in the world. This includes Alaska and the shale oils of Canada.

This leads to an invasion of Canada, with an immediate United States response, and soon, pretty much all out war.

With the exception of the very high tech weapons and equipment, I found this story line somewhat scary, as again, I can see it easily happening.

Anyways, Tom Clancy always seems to be one step ahead of what is really going on in the world. Scary.