The Mouse That Roared - Leonard Wibberly

A tiny duchy on the French border decides to lose a war to the United States as a way to receive enough money to keep their country going. The only problem being, because all their declarations of war are either ignored or misplaced, the United States has no idea they're at war (other than with the Soviets of course). And because the invasion force of 25 people lands during a simulation of an enemy attack, everyone in New York is huddled indoors somewhere. Which makes losing a war a little tricky, but does provide an opportunity to actually win the war. All it takes is finding the right man with the right bomb.

It's all very tongue-in-cheek, while making fun of the completely absurd notion of maintaining world peace by building bombs that can end all life on earth. Hey, a peaceful world doesn't necessarily mean a live one. The small nations deciding they'll be the one to enforce the peace, because they're tired of all these big nations just deciding to do things that can affect everyone without consulting anyone else first.

I've read too many history books because when I got to that part, I thought, "Man there's no way Mao agrees to that. He'd dare them to use the bomb, because he'd be in his underground bunker."

Wibberly uses the notion that Grand Fenwick has mostly remained in the 1400s technologically to good effect. When the Soviets threaten to broadcast fiery speeches to the duchy's proletariat over the radio, they're bluntly told the duchy has no proletariat, and no radios. The fact that people have no idea what to do when confronted by men in suits of armor with arrows, and either think they're hallucinating, or just chalk it up as a curiosity.

'Few in the history of human warfare have been so difficult to convince that they had been taken prisoner by an enemy as was Dr. Kokintz when captured by Tully Bascomb in the name of Grand Fenwick. He had, it is true, good reason for his disbelief. For one, he had been expecting sandwiches, and had got instead, broadswords.'