The war veteran angle worked for Fleming. But a modern iteration of Bond might better drop that because every war after WWII was tinged with questionable motives.
It would already be difficult to explain Bond‘s feelings towards his country and its leadership if one set a story in the present.
He still should come from the military, I think, but the focus should be on his work as a Mi6 agent.
I see where you’re coming from and I respect that. It could be a short story or a subplot in a novel. Akin to Carte Blanche and Bond’s parents during the Cold War.
I’d like to see Horowitz tackle a modern day Bond novel. Be it a sequel to Carte Blanche that we sadly never got or a completely new entity. He’s done very well with Fleming’s timeline, but I’m ready for a modern set Bond novel again.
Horowitz said that he’s done, and he’ll only write Bond in the past. As I’ve said before, he probably wants to go out on a high note.
Plus, while I’m a hypocrite for restarting this thread, the adult Bond novels NEED to be more modern. Charlie Higson did ok, but IFP needs to bring Bond to modern day. Give the next author time to plan out their story (possibly stories) to escape the short deadlines that Higson was stuck with King Charles the 3rd. In my continuation novel author thread, my realistic choices for writing Bond in the modern day are Guy Adams, Charles Cumming and Phoebe Waller-Bridge.