coonts - 1, 2
SMP: Is it safe to say biological weapons have now become our gravest threat on this planet as we turn
the page into a new millennium?
SC: Biological weapons are certainly horrific, but to my mind, the forty thousand nuclear warheads lost
somewhere in the former Soviet Union are the most dangerous items on this planet today. Control of these weapons
ought to be America's Number One foreign policy objective, and it isn't. Slick and Madeline have forgotten about
these weapons: it will probably take a nuclear explosion somewhere to wake them up.
SMP: In your most recent novel, Fortunes of War - currently a New York Times and USA Today bestseller -
you portray a changing international landscape as the U.S. aids, in a wartime situation, our major nemesis of the
20th century: Russia. Could the same situation take place with a "new" Cuba?
SC: Change is inevitable and constant. I think Cuba, with eleven million people, just ninety miles south
of Key West, is going to be the great American vacation and retirement mecca in a few years, when Castro has finally
gone to his reward.
In the decades to come, America's natural antagonist will be the next superpower, a United Europe, which already
has a larger GNP than the U.S. The first shots in the fight for the markets and market share have already been
fired. I see a democratic Russia trying to come to grips with its problems as a natural ally of the United States.
SMP: When the wall came down in Germany, and the Cold War seemingly ended ten years ago, where did that
take you as a writer in this genre?
SC: The end of the Cold War sent thriller writers scurrying to find some new villains. They weren't hard
to find. The collapse of communism didn't lower the level of tension in the world, it raised it. Communism collapsed
because it couldn't take care of the people, who lived in its shadow. Those people are still hungry, naked and
cold. We plump, comfortable, warm people should contemplate that hard fact. Chaos is a dramatist's dream but a
darn uncomfortable place for humans to live.
SNP: Could the current conflict in the Balkan States, the former Yugoslavia, lead to a return of a Cold
War-type scenario?
SC: I fearlessly predict that the Balkan crisis will lead to a diminution of U.S. influence in Europe and
a speeding up of the natural processes that will eventually create a united Europe. Clinton has wagered the American
leadership position of NATO and, to a lesser extent, the free world, on NATO's ability to win in the Balkans, and
frankly, I don't see how it can be done. We're going to spend the budget surplus trying, however. The irony of
the Vietnam draft-evader repeating Lyndon Johnson's mistake of going to war without the support of the American
people boggles my mind.
SMP: You are an accomplished pilot and fly often. In what way has this influenced your writing?
SC: Flying is an escape for me. My flying articles and the nonfiction book, The Cannibal Queen, have come
from my civilian aviation experience.
SMP: What is rolling around on the keypad of your computer that we can look for next from Stephen Coonts?
SC: Working title: The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. A stolen American submarine. Los Angeles in flames.
Traitors. Jake Grafton. Publication in August, 2000.
Want more?
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