This book follows our Now Or never Global Forecaster Review that was published in October 2020 and sent to the UK Treasury, The Ministry of Defence, and 10 Downing street, 3 weeks before Boris’s historic announcement to reverse three decades of defence attrition and to turn and face the clear and present danger from an aggressive Russia and expansive China. Boris's announcement surprised everyone including ourselves, as it contained much of the language of the Now or Never report.
However whilst the direction of Britain’s national defence has once more turned to face the obvious threats of Russia and China. This measure is too late and too little. Indeed it follows a similar awakening in Britain post the German invasion of the Rhineland in March 1936. Which was also too late and too little to deter the outbreak of War 2. Chamberlain and his advisors failed to understand some of the keys to the new focuses of the German armed forces strategy, such as Blitzkrieg even though it had been the British Army that had invented the combined arms strategy in WW1. Similarly from the moment, the German Navy turned away from plan Z, which directly challenged British battleship supremacy to one of building U boats on mass,the battle of the Atlantic was inevitable. Yet the Royal Navy found itself poorly prepared with far fewer destroyer escorts than required to protect the Atlantic shipping lanes. Almost loosing the war during two distinct happy times for the U boats.
So today once more we are repeating history. First Britain and the West have been preoccupied with the asymmetric wars against fundamental Islam which have distracted them from the rise of a direct peer-to-peer military challenge by Russian, especially in China. Next, now we have awoken to the threat, Britain is focussing on the grey zone conflict that we should have been alert to a decade ago. But meanwhile, we are once more behind the threat curve by neglecting the ultimate kinetic capabilities that win world wars, that are being deployed by our enemies today.
Today the scenario described in Red lightning is almost as certain to be our main risk, as was the battle of the Atlantic once Dornitz started building U-boats en mass in 1937. Thus Red lightning is the story of WW3 before it happens. Hopefully warning the UK and Western leaders to deploy kinetic weapons systems that will deter such a conflict.
With the recent highly belligerent meeting between US Secretary of State Blinken and Chinese counterpart over the weekend. Coupled with the news that the PLAN has deployed DF-26s to the Tibetan plateau, from where their 5000km range can control the Indian ocean and and the Gulf. In a clear strategy to counter India and America's strategy to cut off China’s access to oil in the event of war. To counter this the PLAN is to extend the anti-access/area-denial strategy ( A2/AD) that has negated US Naval power out to the second island chain in the South China Sea. Now this PLAN strategy is being extended to the Indian ocean and will soon extend to the all world's oceans, once longer range DF-41 missiles are deployed with hypersonic ship killing missiles. Exactly the scenario that Red Lightning describes.
Since the end of the Cold War, the majority of the populations of the West have lived with the assumption that World War III (WWIII) would and could never take place. However, what if an aggressive and expansive hegemonic challenger believed that the combination of the West’s collapse in collective moral fibre and resolve and the use of powerful and decisive new weapons deployed en masse, could make WWIII winnable? This is the story of how the past ten years and the next five years comprise the road to war in 2025 and the moment that China mounts surprise attacks on the free world. Red Lightning then precisely details how the PLAN wins WW3 in only a few days and ends the rule of democracy globally.
This is not just another book, but a warning to peoples and leaders of the West that unless we act now, we face the destruction of global democracy within five years.
© David Murrin 2025. All images courtesy of Getty Images. |