Although wars had always been unpredictable, and there were always a chance of things going wrong—Just ask the Australians, who had managed to lose more than one “war” against large flightless birds—the situation between China and Taiwan had gone completely counter to everyone’s expectations thanks to the overwhelming destruction that Eden had laid upon China. And not only that, it had happened so suddenly that observers didn’t even have a chance to figure out what was going on before it, well, went on.