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*JOE BUFF'S "VISION 2006" BRIEFING AND UPDATE: Summer, 2006*

August, 2006 Library of Congress ISSN number: 1545-7761

Copyright © 2006 by Joe Buff, All Rights Reserved.

GREETINGS, FRIENDS AND READERS! I hope you've been having a safe and terrific summer! This issue will bring you up to date on the impending release of the SEAS OF CRISIS paperback. I've also been doing a lot of research, writing, and public speaking about the longterm threat posed by rising sea power of the People's Republic of China. So the usual non-fiction newsletter parts below all form a "Special Issue" devoted to China.

A reminder: If your e-mail address changes, please remember to inform me via a new ADD ME submission thru my website, or by an e-mail directly to readermail@joebuff.com.

Much obliged, and best wishes to all!
...Joe.

USEFUL AND VALUABLE WEBSITES, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED --

More:

http://www.joebuff.com/newsletter/news23.htm

JOE BUFF'S "SEAS OF CRISIS" PAPERBACK DUE OUT August 29, 2006

"The underwater adventure story of a lifetime. Well done Joe."
-- Chief S. Bronson, USN(Ret.), Tactical Equipment Review, re SEAS

"Unrelenting action, clever plotting, gut-wrenching... Attention all military thriller fans, report to battle stations, flank speed, superior entertainment ahead."
-- Publishers Weekly, re SEAS

"I loved this book that is a tense techno thriller. The plot is absolutely ingenious.... The author handles the delicate situation with a tense well thought scenario that is a very chilling tale of what governments really do."
-- Midwest Book Review, re SEAS

Joe is pleased to announce that the hardcover edition of SEAS OF CRISIS was a bestseller at the Military Book Club. The Club's official book review had this to say about SEAS:

"Seas of Crisis is the best kind of fiction: accurate in its real details, imaginative in its premise, and grippingly relevant in its implications.... Combine that with its frightening, all-too-real glimpse of the near future, and this is a book you'll want to read again and again."
--Austen Farrell, Assistant Editor, Military Book Club.

The Military Writers Society of America loved SEAS OF CRISIS too:

"One actually begins to believe the story line--which means that the author hooked us right in once again. There is something very special about Joe Buff's newest novel. The MWSA gives it its HIGHEST RATING - FIVE STARS!"
-- Bill McDonald, President of Military Writers Society of America

See cover of SEAS OF CRISIS:

http://www.joebuff.com/books.htm

Read more about SEAS OF CRISIS (plot summary, excerpt):

http://www.joebuff.com/book06.htm

FOREIGN RIGHTS AND BACK-TO-PRESS NEWS (Partial List):

THUNDER IN THE DEEP recently came out in Japanese edition.

STRAITS OF POWER rights have been purchased by Joe's publisher in France, Fleuve Noir.

THUNDER IN THE DEEP's American paperback edition, which first appeared in 2002, has gone back to press yet again. (List price raised from $6.50 to $7.50)

E-BOOKS: My first two books with Morrow/HarperCollins, CRUSH DEPTH and TIDAL RIP, will soon be out for the first time in e-book editions. (I don't have exact release dates yet. I just signed the contract amendments needed to finalize terms of these electronic-format editions.)

AND NOW, FOR SOME OF JOE'S RECENT NON-FICTION WORK --

"A knowledgeable commentator on issues of undersea science, strategy, and operations."
-- CAPT Jim Hay, USN(Ret.), editor of THE SUBMARINE REVIEW

"I found Joe Buff's material insightful [and] most interesting."
-- Congressman Rob Simmons, CT 2nd District (Groton Sub Base)

JOE'S ARTICLE IN THE JANUARY, 2006 ISSUE OF THE SUBMARINE REVIEW, ENTITLED "WILL CHINA RULE THE WAVES?", ON 8 JUNE 2006 WON FIRST PRIZE IN THE NAVAL SUBMARINE LEAGUE'S ANNUAL LITERARY AWARDS

Read "Will China Rule the Waves?":

There are a lot of things each of us knows about the People’s Republic of China, at least at the level of unconnected dots or unassembled pieces of a puzzle. To properly assess the level of danger that China can in the future present to burgeoning global freedom and America’s way of life, it helps for clarity to put such factoids together in one place, gathered from wherever they sit in history books and daily newspapers.

China has an extremely bad human rights record, which isn’t getting any better. Restiveness is violently repressed, often using lethal force. This has ominous implications. Beijing places a much higher premium on rigid centralized control than they do on the value of rank-and-file human lives among their own citizenry. We may thus reasonably conclude that in a military context, modern China would not be (and would not become) the least bit casualty-averse. That alone suggests a significant asymmetry between the U.S. and the PRC in any future saber-rattling or actual “hot” armed conflict.

http://www.joebuff.com/essay89.htm

AN ESSAY, ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MILITARY.COM.

"China: Good, Bad, Ugly?"

It’s not surprising that American media coverage of China’s military intentions, and of the China/Taiwan conflict in particular, has skyrocketed in recent days – with said reporting and editorializing coming across as alarming, reassuring, or just downright confusing by turns. Consider two recent events that are being reacted to as highly provocative by one or more of the players in this volatile international-relations triangle.

The U.S. Department of Defense 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review Report directly identified the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the foreign country with “the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States,” and the threat to Taiwan is specifically mentioned (pp. 29 – 30). Beijing formally complained to Washington immediately, yet the U.S. Navy is right now starting to swing more of its operational strength to the Pacific.

Read more:

http://www.joebuff.com/essay92.htm

AN ESSAY, ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MILITARY.COM

"What China Says, and Does"

“Watch what I do, not what I say” is an old and ominous adage. Nowhere today does it apply more forcefully than to the military intentions of the People’s Republic of China. The PRC is on a virtual rampage of modernizing and strengthening the personnel expertise, hardware technology, and warfighting doctrine of all its armed forces –- everything from subs to ICBMs to conventional air power. The Pentagon’s new annual report to Congress poses a crucial question: What do China’s non-transparent leaders see as the “end state” of this manic buildup?

Read more:

http://www.joebuff.com/essay99.htm

AN ESSAY, ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MILITARY.COM

"Subs and the New Arctic"

Two crucial tasks for the U.S. Navy are to provide security for sea lines of communication (SLOCs), and to defend the U.S. Homeland from afar. But the shape of the landscape for 21st century sea power is changing fast, figuratively and literally. China’s growing naval strength –- especially submarine strength –- has already been widely discussed by many defense analysts and the Pentagon. The resurgence of Russia’s nuclear sub fleet, both fast-attacks (SSNs) and boomers (SSBNs), is also getting headlines of late, not reassuring ones. And while the U.S. Navy’s newest sub classes sport quantum leaps in stealth and sensors, in “green water” or land-strike combat payloads, and in counter-terror capabilities, the too-slow build rate of those great subs is quickly reaching a crisis state for future national security and our current shipbuilding industrial base.

Read more:

http://www.joebuff.com/essay105.htm

AN ESSAY, ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MILITARY.COM

"The Long-Off War"

“The Long-Off War” is my shorthand way to refer to that other conflict which America needs to seriously prepare for: not the Long War on Terror (expensive and brutal enough as it is), but the potential (likely?) direct armed confrontation with China around 2030ish. By that timeframe, regardless of the then status of Taiwan (fully independent? conquered? re-absorbed voluntarily?), wannabe superpower Beijing, self-proclaimed challenger to “American global hegemony,” will possess a submarine fleet –- including modern nuclear subs –- that vastly outnumbers our own. The People’s Republic will also have had, by then, plenty of opportunity to go from their current reverse-engineering and experimentation with aircraft carrier design, to having a handful of front-line carriers actually in commission, with excellent planes and well-trained pilots to fly them.

Read more:

http://www.joebuff.com/essay106.htm

JOE BUFF'S READERMAIL PRIVACY POLICY --

I consider all your messages to me to be confidential.

I respond to them individually, as time permits.

No readermails will be published in my Newsletter or posted to my Web site.

JOE BUFF'S NON-FICTION "BOOK PICKS" --

(Great ones I've read myself lately, that influenced my thinking):

More:

http://www.joebuff.com/newsletter/news24.htm

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Ahead flank, aye! ...Joe.

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Joe Buff's books (with review excerpts):
SEAS OF CRISIS -- "Clever plotting, gut-wrenching"
STRAITS OF POWER -- "You. Are. There."
TIDAL RIP --"White-knuckle, hair raising"
CRUSH DEPTH --"Far above the standard"
THUNDER IN THE DEEP --"Out-Clancys Clancy"
DEEP SOUND CHANNEL --"Superb"
http://www.joebuff.com
readermail@joebuff.com
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If you love peace, prepare for war. Why?
Because we don't need more dead heroes,
and appeasement just never works.
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JoeBuff.Com / Joe Buff Inc. Joe Buff, President Dutchess County, New York E-Mail readermail@JoeBuff.Com