Blackout, by Marc Elsberg

I enjoyed this one for a couple of reasons.  The first was that it was a fiction piece that took on what was one of our Carlisle Scholar's Program group assignments- identify some event that could be considered a strategic shock and then walk through some of the impacts to national security.

In this case, the strategic shock is a deliberate and persistent, not temporary, takedown of the electric grid for all of the European Union. Later in the book it spreads to the U.S., but the book focuses on a story in the EU.

So this was a whole book about one potential strategic shock. For the book, it was done by some anarchy/new world order type terrorists. What we looked at in our Carlisle Scholar's program, was regardless of the shock, what were impacts to national security- so what would other nation states do when other nation states were dealing with such shocks.

Which brings me to the second reason I found it interesting. We are dealing with what might be considered a strategic shock right now with the COVID-19 pandemic, the associated economic shock, and the U.S. failure to get on top of the problem relative to most other countries.

And what do other nation states do while we are focused inward?

Russia continues to "meddle"- violate our sovereignty and that of other countries- because they know we're not really in a position to do much about it (not just because of COVID-19, but it is a factor), as indicated by recent reports of their continued efforts at influencing our elections through divisive disinformation campaigns as well as technology warfare relative to our COVID-19 research:
https://www.npr.org/2020/07/16/891834251/u-s-says-russian-hackers-are-trying-to-steal-covid-19-vaccine-research

China feels emboldened also to accelerate their process of increasing control over Hong Kong, and other signs of increasing aggression or shows of power, knowing we're really not in a position to do much about it.
https://theweek.com/articles/925903/chinas-growing-belligerence

Was proud to hear that some work that I had participated in relative to the U.S. Army and how it should be positioned in the INDOPACOM region was recently published, a major part of which were considerations about how to best address potential threats from China as a rising major power.

Most reviews of Blackout on Goodreads were fairly positive. I read through a few of the negative ones, with the primary criticisms being about the 800 pages being too much (my version, bought at the local Ollie's for $2 was just over 300 pages, and was to me an enjoyable read); and that it moved too slowly, wasn't "thriller" enough. I was fine with the pace, I'm not trying to feel like everything is a Jason Bourne speed rush.