Tom Clancy - The Bear and the Dragon

Bondarenko nodded as he sipped his tea. This was mad, and the maddest part of all was that he was playing the role of a NATO commander from 1975-maybe a German one, which was truly insane-faced with adverse numbers, but blessed, as the Germans had not been, with space to play with, and Russians had always used space to their advantage. He leaned forward:

“Very well. Comrades, we will deny them the opportunity for decisive engagement. If they cross the border, we will fight a maneuver war. We will sting and move. We will hurt them and withdraw before they can counterattack. We will give them land, but we will not give them blood. The life of every single one of our soldiers is precious to us. The Chinese have a long way to go to their objectives. We will let them go a lot of that way, and we will bide our time and husband our men and equipment. We will make them pay for what they take, but we will not-we must not-give them the chance to catch our forces in decisive battle. Are we understood on that?” he asked his staff. “When in doubt, we will run away and deny the enemy what he wants. When we have what we need to strike back, we will make him wish he never heard of Russia, but until then, let him chase his butterflies.”

“What of the border guards?” Aliyev asked.

“They will hurt the Chinese, and then they will pull out. Comrades, I cannot emphasize this enough: the life of every single private soldier is important to us. Our men will fight harder if they know we care about them, and more than that, they deserve our care and solicitude. If we ask them to risk their lives for their country, their country must be loyal to them in return. If we achieve that, they will fight like tigers. The Russian soldier knows how to fight. We must all be worthy of him. You are all skilled professionals. This will be the most important test of our lives. We must all be equal to our task. Our nation depends on us. Andrey Petrovich, draw up some plans for me. We are authorized to call up reserves. Let us start doing that. We have hectares of equipment for them to use. Unlock the gates and let them start drawing gear, and God permit the officers assigned to those cadres are worthy of their men. Dismissed.” Bondarenko stood and walked out, hoping his declamation had been enough for the task.

But wars were not won by speeches.

President Grushavoy arrived in Warsaw with the usual pomp and circumstance. A good actor, Ryan saw, watching the arrival on TV. You never would have guessed from his face that his country was looking at a major war. Grushavoy passed the same receiving line, doubtless composed of the same troops Ryan had eyeballed on his arrival, made a brief but flowery arrival speech citing the long and friendly history shared by Poland and Russia (conveniently leaving out the equally long and less-than-friendly parts), then got into a car for the city, accompanied, Ryan was glad to see, by Sergey Nikolay’ch Golovko.

In the President’s hand was a fax from Washington outlining what the Chinese had in the way of war assets to turn loose on their northern neighbors, along with an estimate from the Defense Intelligence Agency on what they called the “correlation of forces,” which, Jack remembered, was a term of art used by the Soviet army of old. Its estimate of the situation was not especially favorable. Almost as bad, America didn’t have much with which to help the Russians. The world’s foremost navy was of little direct use in a land war. The United States Army had a division and a half of heavy troops in Europe, but that was thousands of miles from the expected scene of action. The Air Force had all the mobility it needed to project force anywhere on the globe, and that could give anyone a serious headache, but airplanes could not by themselves defeat an army. No, this would be largely a Russian show, and the Russian army, the fax said, was in terrible shape. The DIA had some good things to say about the senior Russian commander in theater, but a smart guy with a.22 against a dumb one with a machine gun was still at a disadvantage. So, he hoped the Chinese would be taken aback by this day’s news, but CIA and State’s estimate of that possibility was decidedly iffy.

“Scott?” Ryan asked his Secretary of State.

“Jack, I can’t say. This ought to discourage them, but we can’t be sure how tight a corner they think they are in. If they think they’re trapped, they might still lash out.”

“God damn it, Scott, is this the way nations do business?” Jack demanded. “Misperceptions? Fears? Outright stupidity?”

Adler shrugged. “It’s a mistake to think a chief of government is any smarter than the rest of us, Jack. People make decisions the same way, regardless of how big and smart they are. It comes down to how they perceive the question, and how best they can serve their own needs, preserve their own personal well-being. Remember that we’re not dealing with clergymen here. They don’t have much in the way of consciences. Our notion of right and wrong doesn’t play in that sort of mind. They translate what’s good for their country into what’s good for themselves, just like a king in the twelfth century, but in this case there isn’t any bishop around to remind them that there may be a God looking down at them with a notebook.” They’d gone out of their way, Adler didn’t have to say, to eliminate a cardinal-archbishop just to get themselves into this mess.

“Sociopaths?” the President asked.

Secretary Adler shrugged. “I’m not a physician, just a diplomat. When you negotiate with people like this, you dangle what’s good for their country-them-in front of their eyes and hope they reach for it. You play the game without entirely understanding them. These people do things neither one of us would ever do. And they run a major country, complete with nuclear weapons.”

“Great,” Ryan breathed. He stood and got his coat. “Well, let’s go watch our new ally sign up, shall we?”

Ten minutes later, they were in the reception room of the Lazienski Palace. There was the usual off-camera time for the various chiefs of government to socialize over Perrier-and-a-twist before some nameless protocol official opened the double doors to the table, chairs, documents, and TV cameras.

The speech from President Grushavoy was predictable in every detail. The NATO alliance had been established to protect Western Europe against what his country had once been, and his former country had established its own mirror-image alliance called the Warsaw Pact right here in this very city. But the world had turned, and now Russia was pleased to join the rest of Europe in an alliance of friends whose only wish was peace and prosperity for all. Grushavoy was pleased indeed to be the first Russian in a very long time to be a real part of the European community, and promised to be a worthy friend and partner of his newly close neighbors. (The military ramifications of the North Atlantic Treaty were not mentioned at all.) And everyone present applauded. And Grushavoy pulled out an ancient fountain pen borrowed from the collection at The Hermitage in St. Petersburg to sign in the name of his country, and so bring membership in NATO up by one. And everyone applauded again as the various chiefs of state and government walked over to shake their new ally’s hand. And the shape of the world changed yet again.

“Ivan Emmetovich,” Golovko said, as he approached the American President.

“Sergey Nikolay’ch,” Ryan said in quiet reply.

“What will Beijing think of this?” the chief of the Russian intelligence service asked.

“With luck, we’ll know in twenty-four hours,” Ryan answered, knowing that this ceremony had gone out on CNN’s live global feed, and positive that it was being watched in China.