Riveting Behind the Scenes Events in Washington DC, Ukraine Invasion, and October 2023 Hamas Attack of Israel

I started reading War by Bob Woodward on a Saturday afternoon, and continued throughout the night until finishing it the following morning. The glimpses of behind the scenes action starting with the earliest intelligence reports indicating Russia was primed to invade Ukraine, the disbelief this would happen on the part of Ukraine leaders, developing concerns as the invasion initiated and progressed, expanding into war, the strategies employed by Ukrainian fighters, later events related to Hamas’ attacks in Israel October 7, 2023, and both those conflicts continuing simultaneously, made for riveting reading, and I didn’t want to sit the book down! The thrust of the story concerned trying to avoid war on both those fronts, and once military engagements arose, the Biden administration efforts to minimize damages and prevent world wide global involvement. This was a much more interesting book than I’d expected with respect to these specific aspects of the narrative.

Woodward states in his Note to Readers, “All interviews for this book were conducted under the journalist ground rule of “deep background.” This means that all the information could be used but I would not say who provided it…President Biden and former president Trump declined to be interviewed for this book.”  

Much of the balance of this book, released 22 days before the 2024 Presidential election, was Woodward preaching about who he thought needed to win the November election and why. These passages detracted from the adrenalin rush in the action portions of the narrative, and weighed the book down. In terms of the bird’s eye view of all the background diplomacy, strategy, local and international travel and meetings related to the Ukraine invasion and the October Hamas attack, those parts of the book were absolutely fascinating.