COMMANDER-l by Peter George. 253 pages. Delacorte. $4.95.
After giving Hollywood a whole series of Armageddon operasOn the Beach, Dr. Strangelove, Fail Safefiction's doom boom has worn pretty thin. But not too thin for Welshman Peter George, 41, who co-authored the Strangelove script and wrote the novel, Red Alert, on which it was based. In Commander-1, he uses the familiar formulaheadline-fresh immediacy wrapped around a minute kernel of plausibility. Red China, newly armed with a few primitive but potent nuclear bombs, decides to eliminate both Russia and the U.S. by convincing each that the other has launched an all-out war. The Chinese...