Let’s Do Something About War, OK? : WAR AND ANTI-WAR: Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century, <i> By Alvin and Heidi Toffler (Little, Brown: $22.95; 304 pp.)</i>

The future is coming fast. Intellectuals can’t dally as they once did, particularly not the “Future Shock” Tofflers, who have been prognosticating for a quarter-century that we’re about to be late for tomorrow.

The topic of their new book: War and Anti-War, known in olden times as War and Peace.

War? It’s awful and it kills people, maybe 47 million people since WWII, and future wars are upon us and they’re going to kill people, too, only not enough of us are thinking deeply about this, but, oh, did we mention that the future is going to change the nature of work and all the smart people are going to get the jobs if they are quick enough about it? So in the Gulf War weapons got smarter but just wait until you see the dastardly stuff they’re cooking up for tomorrow, like infestations of micro-robots the size of ants crawling around the Pentagon or Teflon sprays that will make soldiers fall down stairs, and how about sleep spray that will make the drug lords drowsy; but anyway, the world is dissolving into a new order and it’s going to be complicated but too much information threatens us with analysis paralysis, but don’t you know that CNN changes the whole way we at home will watch wars so beware of the khaki-clad spin doctors because propaganda is speeding up too, so meanwhile practically anyone can build an A-bomb, and oh those chemical weapons, and just think: Our global electronic network is vulnerable, but CNN defeated Bush and elected Clinton, and the poor of the world are tried of it and we should worry about that, too.

That brings us to Peace, and this is a rush order as well because everything is changing really fast and if we lean back and tug on our chins we’re going to be left far behind, so: Why don’t we divide up the globe and franchise Peace Corporations to make profits by reducing casualties, all it would take would be license to bribe and engage in “limited military intervention”; and along with those surrender leaflets we drop on the Iraqis let’s bombard them with tiny radios so they can listen to a “peace frequency,” and how about dispatching some radio broadcasting ships over to the Balkans so these poor confused folk can get the straight poop and quit all their quibbling, and meanwhile everyone from bankers to golfers have interests that transcend national boundaries because these are fascinating times to those of us living them, but remember that little problems have a way of becoming big problems so as for peace how about a $1 million bounty for anyone who turns in a nuclear smuggler, and while we’re at it--listen up, Hollywood--how about “a television miniseries that, instead of drug dealers, pimps, gang members and corrupt cops, makes a hero out of a U.N. Blue Helmet--or out of the heroic individuals who stand against ethnic cleansing at the risk of their own lives?”