Richard Shirreff - War with Russia

And now, the President had just ordered General Gareyev to put Major Vronsky, his lead operative in Latvia and the man currently charged with hunting down the leaders of these Forest Brother terrorist cells, to finding a lowly British captain of infantry; a man so unimportant that he hardly even counted as a pawn in the deadly game of geopolitical chess they were now engaged in. That more than anything made Komarov wonder whether the whisperers might be right; that the President was losing his sense of perspective and with it his grip. He prayed he was wrong because, as the President’s enabler, it would be a very exposed place to be if the President insisted on making any more poor decisions.

At that point the President’s mistress entered the room. “Darling,” she purred as she ruffled the President’s sparse hair. “Have a glass of champagne. Our dinner is nearly ready…”

Komarov promptly stood up and left the room. The fact that the War Cabinet had not warned him that Gareyev would give the President this very downbeat briefing meant that they were talking to one another, but no longer to him. The tectonic plates looked as if they might be shifting. It was time to start making some new alliances.

PETE CHIARINI, THE President’s Executive Assistant, walked through the door and sat down in the easy chair by Colonel Bear Smythson’s desk.

“Jeez, Bear,” he said to Smythson, who did the same job for General Abe MacWhite, the chief in-house adviser to the President of the United States on national security issues. “There’s been one hell of a change in British attitudes. The President has just come off the phone with Oliver Little, the new Prime Minister. What a change from that fag who was there before. This new guy’s seriously on the war path. Whatever you say about the Brits—and their bullshitty Downton Abbey accents and stiff-upper-lip crap don’t fool me—they take some time to get going. But when they decide to get serious, boy do they go for it.”

Bear leaned back in his chair. “So, they’re rethinking things after the Queen Elizabeth ?”

“Too right, Bear. The President is pretty wound up about the Queen Elizabeth , specially coming on top of the killing of US Air Force troops in the attack on Lielvārde air base. She sees the return of the survivors and the bodies as rank cynicism by the President. Sort of damned if he did return them and damned if he didn’t. And the fact that the Russians are hanging on to the Ukraine Four, as the press are now calling them, as they continue to insist they are Special Forces, has got her even more riled up.

“The Russians are playing this all wrong. Even if President Dillon wanted to find a way to avoid further conflict, she’d be hard pushed to. Don’t forget, there were CNN and Fox News crews on board and a couple of journos… Some of them still missing, presumed drowned, like the rest of those poor bastards. Killing our boys and girls in Lielvārde was not clever. But killing fellow journalists? That’s sacrilege. The press is talking about the Special Relationship and meaning it for once. Throw in the shared tragedy and the new empathy between her and the Brit prime minister and this is certainly rekindling our link with the Brits. She and Little are now totally aligned on the need to take the offensive against the Russians. The Brits are putting everything they can into the mix. The new UK Chief of Defense is pushing hard for an attack on Kaliningrad to unhinge the Russians and force them to swap the Baltics if they want it back. And the Prime Minister’s right behind him. The President wants to discuss the idea with NSA at the two-thirty meeting.”

“Thanks for the fast ball, Pete!” exclaimed Bear. “I’ll brief the boss now, so he’s warned off. But don’t expect anything but first thoughts. The General is the most aggressive soldier I’ve ever served under, but only once he knows a plan will work. This is going to need some serious thinking and planning, but we’ll have something for the President in the Woodshed shortly.”

There was no answer. Chiarini was already out of the office and Bear started firing up his computer.

Forty minutes later President Lynn Turner Dillon walked into the Situation Room, elegant and poised as ever, with not a hair out of place. As the door was closed behind her by the Secret Service agent on guard, she exuded the energy and freshness that a daily combination of gym and Pilates sessions ensured.

Standing up with all the others as she entered, Bear felt an almost physical sense of the power she gave off. The graver this crisis became, the more assured became her leadership.

I know how lonely command in war can be , he thought. But, dammit, she’s just thriving on it . What was the saying? Cometh the hour, cometh the man? This time it was firmly cometh the woman… and what a woman.

With the President seated, MacWhite, the tall, lean former Special Forces general, who looked as if he’d be more at home riding the range somewhere out West than inside the Washington beltway, led the President through the agenda. They would start with the intelligence update before considering the strategic options.

MacWhite let the Int briefer run through a series of PowerPoint slides: the latest positions of the Russian Baltic Fleet at sea; Russian troop dispositions in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, calculated at upward of 200,000 men and climbing; estimated strengths of the Forest Brothers—initially some thousands, but already rumored to be climbing toward their 1950s apogee of about 50,000 men and women under arms, including many Russian speakers who had remained loyal to the Baltics and had been outraged by this assault on their much-prized freedom—and the latest digest of attacks against their Russian occupiers. This was followed by an analysis of Russian strength levels in Ukraine and Kaliningrad. For once, the Middle East was relegated to another meeting.

Briefing concluded, MacWhite leaned forward, elbows on the table, a thoughtful frown chiseling deep lines on his leathery, sunken cheeks. “Ma’am, we’re getting a strong sense that the Russians have bitten off far more than they can chew in the Baltic states. The people are responding magnificently and, by God, are refusing to roll over. Thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, have taken to the forests to pursue the fight and the Russians are having ever more problems each day that passes. So it’s interesting that we’ve picked up they may be on the point of thinning out in Kaliningrad, that’s the little Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania. Their Iskander nuclear armed missiles are there in force, but recent signal traffic plus a lot of vehicle movement from Kaliningrad into Lithuania that we’re seeing on satellite imagery, all indicates that something odd is happening there. The only conclusion we can draw is that they’re getting well and truly pulled in by the Baltic insurgency and they need reinforcements fast, if they are to stamp it out before it gets out of control. It’s what I would do if I was the Russian commander: concentrate resources on the main effort while accepting risk elsewhere.”

“What can we do to support the insurgents?” asked Dillon.

“Simple, ma’am—weapons, equipment, training. We’re preparing to insert liaison detachments of Special Operations Forces from European Command to coordinate support. With your permission, of course.”

“I’m happy with that,” replied Dillon crisply. “Now, tell me what you think of the British idea of getting onto the offensive with an attack on Kaliningrad?”

MacWhite was cautious, the hallmark of a veteran with vast combat experience who knew that once embarked upon, war frequently developed a dynamic of its own; difficult to foresee, impossible to control.