Richard Shirreff - War with Russia

He nodded to the German ambassador, who looked back as if the Greek was something unsavory the restaurant cat had brought in.

“Greece has always been a loyal member of the Alliance but, on this occasion, we find that our ties of Orthodox brotherhood and the support we have been given by Russia in our recent troubles must take precedence. Greece believes it would be totally unjustified to provoke the situation further by any form of NATO deployment. Greece cannot accept that recent events… and my government sends its condolences to the families of those students murdered by this lone madman… constitute an attack on Latvia or any of the Baltic states. What we have heard is a totally unjustified and hysterical overreaction by these warmongering generals. The NATO Military Authorities overreach themselves. There must be no declaration of Article Five.”

McKinlay saw Kostilek begin to drum his fingers on the table.

And then the Hungarian spoke—or rather read his statement.

“Hungary recognizes no threat from Russia to any NATO country. Hungary cannot support any declaration of Article Five.”

Kostilek held his hand up. “I regret that I have to exercise my prerogative as Secretary General to intervene.” His voice was even and carefully modulated, but he was clearly angry. “The bedrock assumption of this Alliance is collective defense… What we have just heard from Germany, Greece and Hungary strikes right at the very heart of that assumption. There is a clear and present danger facing one, if not three NATO allies. The fact that the solidarity of NATO is being undermined by three nations who are only too ready to accept that American taxpayers should continue to underwrite their defense, without being prepared to pay their way, only adds insult to injury. Worse than that, I detect a degree of posturing to domestic politics in these statements.”

He got no further. The German ambassador erupted with a roar of anger, stood up, gathered up his papers and stormed out of the chamber. The Greek followed, knocking over his chair as he did so. The Hungarian sat there, mouth open like a fish gasping for air, gesturing for one of his aides to tell him what had been said, for his English was not up to understanding the Secretary General’s words.

There was stunned silence in the chamber. This was unprecedented.

Kostilek took the floor again. “I suggest we adjourn for thirty minutes and then return in ambassador-only format.”

Relieved, the remaining ambassadors concurred.

“I see there are no objections. We return in thirty minutes.”

LIEUTENANT GENERAL BALDERIS, the Chief of Defense, kept a small, functional office manned by a PA in the National Armed Forces Joint HQ and had just arrived for a briefing. “I’m glad to see you, Captain Morland,” said the general, shaking hands.

Lieutenant General Raimonds Balderis was a former Special Forces officer; robust and exceptionally fit for a man in his late fifties. He spoke good, albeit accented English, the product of a year spent at the US Army War College in Carlisle, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. “I’ve always enjoyed my dealings with the Brits, so it’s good to have you with us. These are dangerous times and we need all the help we can get. The Prime Minister and Cabinet have this morning ordered the mobilization of our National Armed Forces, including the National Guard, as a precautionary measure after yesterday’s events in Riga and the Latvian Russian Union’s call for Russian protection. I’m about to start a briefing in the Joint Command Center. I’d like you to sit in. And Miss Krauja, it’s important that you are there too. We need to maintain the closest links with your Service.”

Here, Morland could see, was a man who would remain steady under pressure. Latvia was going to need such hands on the tiller in the days to come.

Shortly afterward he was sitting with Krauja and just behind Balderis in the newly completed, high-tech briefing room, a product of Latvia’s recent modernization as a result of NATO membership.

The Joint HQ Chief of Staff, an impressively sharp, young-looking colonel, started his briefing. Morland asked Krauja why the colonel was speaking in English and she pointed out the staff and liaison officers from Latvia’s Baltic neighbors, Estonia and Lithuania, as well as two non-NATO neighbors, Finland and Sweden. English, she explained, was the only language that they all readily understood. And it was, of course, NATO’s lingua franca.

The Chief of Staff described the build-up of Russian forces on Latvia and Estonia’s borders under the guise of a “snap exercise,” with concentrations of armor from the lead elements of 1st Guards Tank Army now arriving in assembly areas west of Opochka and Velikeye Luki, near the Latvian border. He then confirmed the information Morland had heard from PJHQ, that two Spetsnaz brigades had arrived in Pskov, the base of 76th Guards Assault Landing Division.

He also confirmed that the Division’s lead regiment, 23rd Air Assault Regiment, had just completed an airborne exercise in the area of Nevel on the Belarus border, around fifty minutes’ flying time south of Pskov, sixty kilometers east of the Latvian border, making it a similar distance to Riga. Even more ominously, despite returning to its base at the end of the exercise, the Division was being maintained at high readiness and satellite surveillance was picking up signs of the outloading of ammunition and other logistic preparations.

During the initial phase of the exercise it had dropped its paratroopers, together with their newly issued BMD-4 amphibious infantry fighting vehicles. These were armed with the powerful 100-millimeter, 2A70 low-pressure rifled gun; a 30-millimeter 2A72 coaxial auto cannon, capable of firing high-explosive fragmentation rounds; and laser-guided anti-tank missiles, as well as its 7.62-millimeter PKT coaxial machine gun.

“That’s an impressive bit of kit,” said Balderis, turning to Morland. “I did two years as a conscript with Soviet airborne troops and the Russian airborne troops are good. Never forget, the Russians invented airborne forces. They’re the only airborne troops in the world equipped with integral armored vehicles. The BMD-4 can be parachuted direct from an Il-76 transport plane with the entire crew and passengers sitting inside the vehicle as they float down. That allows for instant target engagement after landing. They literally hit the ground moving and firing. And if that’s not enough, they’ve recently added a company of T-14 Armata tanks to the division to give it extra firepower.”

“And we shouldn’t forget,” added Balderis, raising his voice to the room generally, “76th Guards Assault Landing Division is battle hardened and well led. Its current commander, Major General Aleksei Naumets, was my platoon commander when I was a Soviet conscript and he was a mean bastard even then. It took part in the invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and fought in the Donbass. They took casualties. All buried in Ukraine to avoid negative publicity back home. After Afghanistan and Chechnya, the Russians liked the sight of returning body-bags no more than the Americans. But these guys are good soldiers. And tough as hell… They know what they are doing.”

He turned back to Morland. “We’ve been seeing regular incursions by fifteen to twenty Ilyushin Il-76, four-engine, heavy lift ‘Candid’ aircraft flying out of Pskov. That’s easily a battalion’s worth of airborne troops with light armored vehicles. They fly up to the border, alert our radars, and then fly north along the border before heading back to Pskov. They might do that three or four times just to rattle us. It doesn’t. But it shows just how quickly they could get significant numbers of troops on the ground if they wanted to. And, of course, they monitor our response times and positions of our radars.”