Cat 5

Learn from losing three warsor lose the next one in 2033.Bing West is the only historian to serve on the front lines in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistanand at the highest levels of government. He fought in the battles he writes about, and he explains with firsthand insight why our grunts won the fights, but our presidents lost the wars. The cause, he argues, was hubris. Presidents and policymakers believed the nation was too powerful to fail. That same conceit now threatens America itself. Our elected leaders have hollowed out the military while expanding entitlements to buy votes. The result is a weakened defense and a debt approaching collapse. By 2033, two forcesour unsustainable debt and China's ambitionwill collide in a Category 5 storm. Drawing on six decades of combat and policy experience, West shows how America arrived at this perilous moment and how to deal with a disaster of our own making. Cat 5: The 2033 War is a soldier's warning and a historian's verdictan unflinching account of national pride, political failure, and the storm closing in. For the first time in our history, we face economic convulsion and confrontation with a mortal adversarybefore a single shot is fired.