A rather large sub-genre of military fiction and the
Techno Thriller,
Possible War works are works dealing with a hypothetical, but semi-plausible conflict in the world at the time they were written. Accuracy may vary, as many of these tend to be
works trying to increase defence spending.
Can be split into the more plausible techno-thrillers and the more alarmist "invasion literature".
There are a number of popular settings for this, depending on who the relevant "main enemy" was at the time of work.
Alien Invasion is basically this
IN SPACE!
UK vs. Germany or France
Published between 1871 and 1914. Started with
The Battle of Dorking. Before 1903, the invader was France. With
The Riddle of the Sands (not one of these, technically speaking), switched to Germany (the Entente Cordiale and all that).
NATO vs. Warsaw Pact
World War Three in Europe, a very popular genre, especially in the 1980s. Nuclear weapons here will be rather restrained in their use, if used at all.
- Red Storm Rising
- The War That Never Was
- The Third World War
- Team Yankee, set in the same scenario, which focuses on a U.S tank company.
- Chieftain, Also set in the same scenario, focusing on one British tank.
- Red Army
- Wargame: European Escalation the two factions are NATO and Warsaw Pact, which are later subdivided into four countries. NATO(USA,France,UK,West Germany) Warsaw Pact(USSR,Poland,East Germany,Czechoslovakia).
- World in Conflict where the Soviets out of desperation decided to invade America.
- Codename Panzers Cold War a Soviet fighter collides with a US cargo plane which gives the Soviets an excuse to invade Germany.
North Korea vs. South Korea and the US
The "Second
Korean War".
note Very technically, it'd be the same Korean War as the one from 1950-53, as technically that war is still ongoing; the war stopping in 1953 was via an armistice that has never been formalized into an actual treaty. On the other hand, it's likely that in practice, it probably would be called the "Second Korean War": we call the armed conflicts between Israel and the Arab states in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973 different names (many different names), but until 1979 none of the Arab states signed peace treaties with Israel.
- Larry Bond's Red Phoenix
- Dale Brown's Battle Born
- Homefront North Korea has conquered South Korea and is now Greater Korean Republic, and invades the USA when it launched a EMP attack on it.
- In the 2012 remake of Red Dawn, the U.S. is invaded by North Korea.
- Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory has war break out on the Korean Peninsula. One notable mission has Sam sneaking through the streets of war-torn Seoul; Sam being an unlawful combatant who doesn't officially exist, both North and South Korean soldiers are hostile to him.
China vs. Taiwan and the US
US vs. Iran
- Just before The Great Politics Mess-Up, Harold Coyle (who also wrote Team Yankee) published Sword Point, which featured a three-way war between the USSR, Iran, and the USA. USSR invades for the oil US opposes USSR, and Iran doesn't want either of them.
- In Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Executive Orders', Iran has taken over Iraq and renames itself as the United Islamic Republic. They soon plan to attack Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to gain control over the worlds oil supply. But the UIR makes a bad choice when it commits terrorist attacks against the USA and its new president Jack Ryan, who has the US strike back against the UIR and its leader assassinated.
- Battlefield 3 the USA goes to war with Iran to track down a terrorist leader.
Others
- The War of the Worlds was written as one of these.
- The Great Pacific War is about a naval contest between the United States and Japan. It was written 16 and set 8 years before those two countries actually did go to war.
- Lightning In The Night written in 1940 after the fall of France, it serialized a Germany-USSR-Japan invasion of the USA in the mid 40s after the surrender of England. An anti-isolationism propaganda piece. Actually suggested the war would start with an attack on Pearl Harbor, and end with atomic bombs.
- Larry Bond's Cauldron (1993): France and Germany vs. the former Warsaw Pact states, the UK and the US
- Tomorrow When The War Began and its sequels
- The Sixth Battle (1992): South Africa and vs. the neighbouring states of South Africa and the Eurasian Republic (a largely reconstituted USSR)
- The End War series of the "Tom Clancy's" franchise is a scenario of what might happen if humanity created a system of lasers that made nuclear weapons obsolete, the E.U. and Russia emerged as superpowers equal to the United States, and we all had a great big war. Oh, and there's peak oil too as a reason, which is how Russia managed to regain power in the world.
- Motofumi Kobayshi's manga Battle over Hokkaido and Tokyo Wars with Japan vs. USSR.
- Cuban Missile Crisis: The Aftermath the game takes place on a What If? the Cuban Missile Crisis resulted in a nuclear exchange between the West and the Soviets. Which results in the Northern Hemisphere of the world to be a nuclear wasteland, with the Anglo-American Alliance, the French-German Alliance, the USSR and the Chinese in a four way war for whats left of the world.
