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Tennessee World Affairs Council
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Thanks to quiz masters Keira Larson and Patrick Ryan and @TNWAC News Editor Campbell Lahman for this week’s quiz.
LAST WEEK’S QUIZ WINNERS
Marcus Murphy, Sewanee, TN
Tim Stewart, Nashville, TN
Patricia Miletich, Nashville, TN
David Hillinck, Huntsville, AL
Thomas Day, Peoria, IL
Charles Bowers, Nashville, TN
Rich Buck, Peoria, IL
Christine Laemmar-Faber, Brookfield, WI
Steve Freidberg, Boston, MA
Leslie Fort, Atlanta, GA
Catherine Kelly, Nashville, TN
Tim Douglas, Nashville, TN
Roger French, Washington, IL
Keira Larson, Huntsville, AL
Donald McKenzie, Nashville, TN
Brett Kmied, Nashville, TN
Austin Travis, Nashville, TN
Barbara Gubbin, Jacksonville, FL
Joseph Mendenhall, Bedford, TX
Bernie Drake, Peoria, IL
Basil Smith, Jacksonville, FL
Laurie Bergner, Normal, IL
Peter Sharadin, Blandon, PA
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August 2021 – Quiz Prize
2034: A Novel of the Next World War
Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Starvidis, USN
From two former military officers and award-winning authors, a chillingly authentic geopolitical thriller that imagines a naval clash between the US and China in the South China Sea in 2034—and the path from there to a nightmarish global conflagration.
On March 12, 2034, US Navy Commodore Sarah Hunt is on the bridge of her flagship, the guided missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones, conducting a routine freedom of navigation patrol in the South China Sea when her ship detects an unflagged trawler in clear distress, smoke billowing from its bridge. On that same day, US Marine aviator Major Chris “Wedge” Mitchell is flying an F35E Lightning over the Strait of Hormuz, testing a new stealth technology as he flirts with Iranian airspace. By the end of that day, Wedge will be an Iranian prisoner, and Sarah Hunt’s destroyer will lie at the bottom of the sea, sunk by the Chinese Navy. Iran and China have clearly coordinated their moves, which involve the use of powerful new forms of cyber weaponry that render US ships and planes defenseless. In a single day, America’s faith in its military’s strategic pre-eminence is in tatters. A new, terrifying era is at hand.
So begins a disturbingly plausible work of speculative fiction, co-authored by an award-winning novelist and decorated Marine veteran and the former commander of NATO, a legendary admiral who has spent much of his career strategically outmaneuvering America’s most tenacious adversaries. Written with a powerful blend of geopolitical sophistication and human empathy, 2034 takes us inside the minds of a global cast of characters–Americans, Chinese, Iranians, Russians, Indians–as a series of arrogant miscalculations on all sides leads the world into an intensifying international storm. In the end, China and the United States will have paid a staggering cost, one that forever alters the global balance of power.
Everything in 2034 is an imaginative extrapolation from present-day facts on the ground combined with the authors’ years working at the highest and most classified levels of national security. Sometimes it takes a brilliant work of fiction to illuminate the most dire of warnings: 2034 is all too close at hand, and this cautionary tale presents the reader a dark yet possible future that we must do all we can to avoid.
LAST WEEK’S QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
What in the World? Quiz – Week of August 16-22, 2021
1. “The war is over,” according to a Taliban spokesman after forces of the “Islamic Emirate” entered the Presidential Palace unopposed in THIS capital after a lightning campaign to complete the takeover of Afghanistan. (#WACquiz)
A. Islamabad
B. Kandahar
C. Mazar-i-Sharif
D. Kabul
Correct Response: D. Kabul
2. The Afghan government collapsed on Sunday when THIS president fled the country. (#WACquiz)
A. Ashraf Ghani
B. Hamid Karzai
C. Abdullah Abdullah
D. Zalmay Khalilizad
Correct Response: A. Ashraf Ghani
3. By the weekend Taliban forces controlled all border crossings from Afghanistan. WHICH one of these countries border Afghanistan? (#WACquiz)
A. India
B. Kyrgyzstan
C. Tajikistan
D. Kazakhstan
Correct Response: C. Tajikistan
4. The United States and NATO allies launched the attacks that routed the Taliban government WHEN? (#WACquiz)
A. July 1998
B. November 2001
C. January 2009
D. April 2013
Correct Response: B. November 2001
5. The return of a Taliban government concerns Western officials who fear THIS group may be reconstituted within Afghanistan’s borders. (#WACquiz)
A. Islamic State
B. Boko Haram
C. Mujahadeen
D. Al Qaeda
Correct Response: D. Al Qaeda
6. The Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, of THIS nation is connected to the 1996 rise of the Taliban prior to their takeover of Afghanistan, as a bulwark against its rival, India. (#WACquiz)
A. Myanmar
B. China
C. Iran
D. Pakistan
Correct Response: D. Pakistan
https://www.npr.org/2021/08/14/1027375958/taliban-afghanistan-takeover-the-world-humanitarian-china-pakistan
7. The Taliban leadership has been courting several countries in an effort to establish international relationships. Among them has been THIS country which is anxious to invest in road networks and energy projects and exploiting Afghanistan’s vast rare-earth mineral deposits, and may be among the first to recognize the Taliban government. (#WACquiz)
A. Russia
B. Iran
C. Saudi Arabia
D. China
Correct Response: D. China
8. The “Freedom Bridge” across the Amu Darya River, connecting Afghanistan to Uzbekistan was again the scene of flight from the war-torn nation that saw famous photos of forces from THIS occupying country withdrawing in 1989. (#WACquiz)
A. India
B. United Kingdom
C. Soviet Union
D. China
Correct Response: C. Soviet Union
9. Observers have been comparing the evacuation of Americans from Kabul to iconic images of helicopters on embassy rooftops during THIS hasty escape. (#WACquiz)
A. Beirut, 1985
B. Mogadishu, 1993
C. Saigon, 1975
D. Phnom Penh, 1978
Correct Response: C. Saigon, 1975
10. Taliban ideology holds that THIS sector of society is restricted from most of public life. (#WACquiz)
A. Journalists
B. Women
C. Municipal workers
D. Former government officials
Correct Response: B. Women
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THE MISSION of the nonprofit, nonpartisan Tennessee World Affairs Council is to promote international awareness, understanding and connections to enhance the region’s global stature and to prepare Tennesseans to thrive in our increasingly complex and connected world.
THE VISION of the Tennessee World Affairs Council is a well-informed community that thinks critically about the world and the impact of global events.
