Third World War (61 page)

From Aralsk in Kazakhstan to Cuidad del Este in Paraguay to Bouake in the Ivory Coast, I have been privileged to talk to people from all walks of life and political leanings and feed their views into this book. They are far too numerous to name, but their insights have been just as valuable as those of the politicians, academics and members of the classified world who have been so helpful with their time and knowledge.

My very special thanks to my publisher William Armstrong, who published the first best-selling Third World War, by General Sir John Hackett, in 1978 and has presided over Dragon Strike, Dragon Fire and The Third World War. Without his great intelligence and love for ideas, these books would never have been written; to my agent, David Grossman, who has been with me since the beginning; to Simon Lipskar in New York for his guidance; to Nick Austin, Cressida Downing, and Cait Murphy for their work on the text; and at Macmillan Nicholas Blake, and to Nicky Hursell, my editor who sorted out the manuscript for publication before an actual Third World War broke out.*

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