by Tom Clancy
It took us a while to see that we were in a conflict, and longer to begin to recognize its nature. The signs weren’t instantly obvious, we were feeling very good about ourselves after our great victory in the fifty-year war, and we were starting to enjoy the benefits of the emerging globalization. Globalized businesses, information technologies, borderless nations — all the webs that were increasingly linking everyone and everything in the first world did not inspire the same sense of hope and opportunity in the third world. They didn’t see the wonder. They saw inside the palace doors and knew they weren’t allowed in.
We took a stab at doing something about that. We began to invite them to our party… but without allowing them a place at the head table. (They saw this as patronizing and prejudiced.) We thought we were bringing in people who were seeking democracy, capitalism, freer trade, and a better life. We didn’t realize we were at the same time very subtly putting down a third world that already felt alienated, oppressed, and suppressed, and wanted to take on the first world.
The conflict that resulted is not primarily a fight between state and state — third world states versus first world states… Yes, we’ve seen state-against-state wars (such as those with Iraq); but that’s not where the serious action is. Again, we have to understand that this is a different kind of conflict. That is to say, it’s not a conflict born out of the ashes of some system that failed; namely, the former Soviet Union (as World War Two was born from the ashes of World War One). It’s a conflict with non-state entities.
By non-state entity, I’m not just referring to terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and other violent adversaries but also to globalized corporations and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that have significant clout and power.
The global information revolution we’re now entering enhances the growing power and influence of non-state entities. So does the fading away of national boundaries (we’re becoming a borderless society) and the migration of vast numbers of third world people into first world nations (we’re becoming a transient society). Meanwhile, globalized extremist networks are doing everything in their power to bring down the structures that hold our societies together.
This whole new world was simmering underneath the Cold War. And we’ve had to meet this challenge unprepared. We should have gone full throttle into a visionary program like the Marshall Plan that would have injected energy, education, money — and hope — into the third world. Nothing like that happened.
The first changes to affect me as deputy J-3 involved the struggle over “peace dividend” troop reductions and the reshaping of NATO. These were soon followed by efforts to create new and productive relationships between NATO and the militaries of the former Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact.
In the summer of 1990, when we had perhaps 300,000 troops in Europe, forces back in Washington were already saying, “It’s over. NATO’s an anachronism. It’s dead. Let’s close it down. We’ve got to bring back troops. We’ve got to close military bases. We’ve got to start getting rid of troops — taking them off the payroll.” Within weeks, these hazy words had gone from thought to action. No real thought had been given to consequences — what we were losing, what we actually needed militarily, what these troops were actually doing for us both inside and outside Europe. It was all a matter of numbers: So many bodies equal so many dollars. The more bodies we can axe, the more dollars we free up. All for the sake of a vague “dividend.”
Over the next weeks, I watched the disintegration of the Army in Europe. It really worried me. All of a sudden all kinds of career officers and NCOs were simply told to pack up and find other employment.
One day, twenty-four lieutenant colonels got RIF (Reduction in Force) orders: “Go home. We don’t need you anymore.” Great young sergeants, with careers ahead of them, who wanted to stay in, were given an ultimatum: “Get out now and we’ll give you fifteen thousand dollars. Stay in and take your chance. You could be riffed, cut, and get nothing.”
“What to do?”
The officers were all in the same boat. “I don’t know what to tell you,” they said to the NCOs when they asked.
By good luck, the thoughts about disbanding NATO remained only thoughts. Though NATO had been born out of the conflict with the communists, it had come to fill many other essential needs. The alliance had to be maintained not just for the defense of the participating countries, but because it had become an organization where competent, responsible nations working closely together could actually get important things done that they could not accomplish on their own. In so doing, they were showing the rest of the world how to do it. NATO had become an irreplaceable model for everyone else.
Disbanding it was exactly the reverse of what had to be done. We needed to enlarge it. Fortunately, we did that. Later events in the Balkans and the NATO expansion to the east proved the continued importance of this vital institution to the stability of Europe.
Thank God for General Galvin. This World War Two enlisted man who’d risen through the ranks had the wisdom, experience, and prestige to keep us ahead of the dynamic challenges. Of all our leaders facing the new, post-Soviet world, he was the one who came closest to the vision George Marshall had given us fifty years before.
General Galvin did what he could to stop the slide in our troop strength: “We’re still going to have troop requirements in Europe,” he said, in essence. “Let’s figure out what they are going to be before we bring everybody home. Let’s figure out what new missions we are going to have. Maybe we ought to think about leveling off at 150,000 troops. Wait awhile, think everything through, maybe readjust NATO’s structure.”
The people back in Washington hit back at him: “Bullshit. 150,000’s nothing. That’s just a point on the way down. We’re cutting a lot deeper than that.”
“Wait a minute,” he replied. “We can’t go down to zero here. We have a position in Europe and NATO that we can’t abandon. How many troops do we need to make that credible? Is it 100,000? Is it a corps? Is it part of a corps? Should these forces be integrated?” (That is, for example, a corps composed of both German and American divisions.) “What’s the purpose of NATO? What do we need it for? How do we have to support that?”
The debate went back and forth, the Washington end of it was real down and dirty (as is the custom too often in Washington)… and the effect on our forces in Europe was devastating. With all the disruption and uncertainty, you could forget about morale.
But General Galvin kept plugging away. He was always the gentleman, yet always relentless, in the best Army tradition.
He knew NATO could not remain as it had been. It had to be reshaped. But he had a clear idea what form that should take (and it eventually took that form): He saw that NATO would grow to include the Eastern Europeans, that it would restructure its mission and begin to look at “out of area” operations — operations away from what had been its main objective. [36] He saw the importance of a continuing American leadership role in the alliance.
Meanwhile, he worried about Russia. The situation there remained troubling. The challenge from Russia was no longer about global hegemony but about the continued uncertainty over what was actually going on there, and what would come out of that. He felt the growing desperation in the former Soviet Union. He was deeply concerned that cutting it off from the West and letting it go adrift to sort itself out could bring serious problems.
His solution: First, to use NATO and the NATO context to connect with the FSU — and particularly with the military (to ensure the process of change was orderly and headed toward democratization). NATO had been their enemy. But that was no longer the case. Now NATO would be their guide on the road to positive change. Second: He realized that we needed a new Marshall Plan for the FSU. This would not have been a gift but an investment in future peace, stability, and prosperity.
Tragically, much of his vision was ignored. Washington was initially blind to his ideas about connecting with the Russians and the Warsaw Pact, the new Marshall
Plan, and the restructuring of NATO… though later, in a different environment, many of his ideas were realized. They should have listened. He had his finger firmly on what had to be done.
A remarkable individual.
WEST MEETS EAST
In the fall of 1990, General Galvin realized his goal of connecting NATO with the military of what was still (just barely) the Soviet Union, by arranging a series of conferences — primarily in Moscow — between NATO flag officers and their Russian counterparts to discuss the role of the armed forces and military service in a democracy. The DCINC, General McCarthy, was tasked to lead the U.S. delegation, and to pick one other flag or general officer to assist him. Zinni got the call.
General Galvin had both overt and unspoken aims in this:
Because he wanted to communicate to the Russians that the real winners of the Cold War were the Soviet peoples, he did not want the NATO representatives to approach their counterparts like gloating victors dictating surrender terms. This wasn’t a victor-and-vanquished situation. This was fellow soldiers helping their new friends make the adjustment to democracy and a better, peaceful existence.
Galvin’s unspoken aim was to get a read on the role the Russian military intended to play in the fluid and erratic situation that was emerging in Moscow.
While the western side of the collapsing Iron Curtain enjoyed a peace dividend, the eastern side suffered a peace catastrophe. The sudden reductions in overseas deployment and the base closings that seemed such a windfall on one side were a potential source of political instability to the other. The Soviets were bankrupt. There was no dividend, because there was no capital… no money for the military, no money even for paychecks. High-status military officers had become nonpersons.
The Russian troops in Germany could not go home because there was no place to go. Back in Russia, families of senior officers were living in boxcars or begging on the streets.
This very unstable situation could easily blow up. There was a real worry that the once-proud Soviet military, fearing they were losing control over a country turning increasingly chaotic, would go into the streets and snatch back power from the obviously shaky Russian democracy, either returning the country to communism or instituting a hard-line military dictatorship.
The first of the conferences was held in Moscow late in 1990. It opened in the Russian Ministry of Defense (the Russians’ Pentagon). The visit — a first for American militaries — was a thrilling moment for Zinni.
The delegation entered the building through the ceremonial entrance, which opened into an enormous marble-walled hall. White marble tablets along the sides displayed the Order of Lenin and all the other awards of the Soviet Union. After a brief wait, tall doors at the far end of the hall swung open and out came an impressive phalanx of uniforms, Russian generals and marshals, led by the Defense Minister, Marshal Shaposhnikov, all large men, all marching in unison, their stomping tread making loud echoes as they approached. They were so formal and official, Zinni wondered for a moment if they hadn’t gotten their script wrong and come expecting a surrender ceremony. But the thought passed.
There were formal greetings and Russian-style handshakes (very stiff, very deliberate, and very hearty), and then the NATO officers were ushered into a conference room and seated at a long table.
The initial discussions, led by General McCarthy, focused on General Galvin’s message: The NATO delegation had come to celebrate a great victory for the Soviet people and to work hand in hand with the Russian military.
The Russians seemed to accept this gesture of goodwill… though without much visible enthusiasm.
Later, McCarthy and the others in his delegation subtly probed to detect if the Russians saw their role as being agents of political change or if they intended to take a more commanding part in the new Russia. It very quickly became apparent that they didn’t have much enthusiasm for politics, either.
After the initial, formal presentations, the Russian and NATO officers split up into more specialized groups, and later transferred to a conference center outside Moscow. Zinni was paired off with the Russian director of operations (the counterpart of the J-3 at the Pentagon); they talked cordially about operations issues[37].
As the day wore on, Zinni began to pick up strange vibes from this impressive collection of senior Russians. Not the vibes you might expect: He had zero sense that the Russian leaders were dangerous, or posed a threat. Far from it. They were not hostile; they were not unfriendly. Though they recognized that their system was defeated, they did not seem defeated or crushed or resentful. On the contrary, they were welcoming. Marshal Shaposhnikov and his senior staff were cordial and pleasant. But they never probed, never took initiative, never showed the slightest curiosity. If there had ever been fire in this group, the fire was dead.
At first, Zinni wondered why they didn’t seem especially enthusiastic about the NATO visit, or get immersed in any way in the discussion, but it soon became clear that they weren’t very enthusiastic about anything. Neither did he see any burning resistance… or any burning sense of cooperation; yet they proved to be as cooperative as the Americans wanted them to be.
For all their unresponsiveness and lethargy, the Russians were amazingly open… and this from some of the most secretive people in the world. Though none of them would take the initiative, they would certainly respond — and with astonishing candor. If asked about the change to democracy, they’d spill their guts. If asked about problems in their military, they’d show their dirty laundry. They didn’t blink at talking about the severe hazing in the ranks or the epidemic of alcoholism.[38] And Zinni was shocked to see the openly permitted dissent and criticism of the senior leadership by junior officers.
And yet — again — the unexpected openness did not carry with it a burning sense that “We have to do something about our problems.” There was no sense that these senior leaders expected to do much of anything.[39]
The truth, Zinni concluded later, was that the Russian military leaders were just there. Events had blown by them, and they were going through the motions. They had no plan. They had no vision — good or bad — about where they fit, what they would do. They were just along for the ride. Their message to the NATO delegation: “This is happening. You’re here. Okay. This is what we do today. And fine, you’re nice people, we like you. But don’t expect us to give a damn.”
The organization had resigned itself to being passengers in the car. The car was going wherever it was going, and they were along for the ride. They didn’t intend to drive it, steer it, or put the brakes on. They were just in there.
To Zinni, this was simply an astonishing mental state. It was beyond his experience. He couldn’t figure it out.
The good news, he realized, was the younger officers. The open dissent and criticism he’d noticed was a sign of hope. Many colonels proved to be fiery, outspoken reformers, railing at the collapse of the military and the corruption of senior officers. The younger officers were far more curious than their elders. They asked questions about America and Europe. They made it clear that they hadn’t bought the line they’d been trained to follow, that NATO was the enemy they were supposed to hate. “You guys are not bad guys,” they told the delegation. “We need to change things and learn from you.”
The most outrageously outspoken of the younger officers turned out to be the aide assigned to Zinni, a cadet from the Propaganda Corps named Vlad. Vlad, who had learned to speak English by watching Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, salted his conversations with Schwarzenegger clichés — and Schwarzenegger-type attitudes. His irreverence got him in constant trouble with the stern, hard-nosed, never smiling, but extremely beautiful, female captain who supervised the aides. She was always shooting him with killer looks, but he never seemed to notice them. Zinni came to call him “Vlad the Impaler,” after his ability to skewer himself.[40]
In his comic Austro-Russian American accent, Vlad gave Zinni the low-down on life for the troops in the barracks: There was n
o morale. There was no unit cohesion and unit pride. There was no leadership (the senior leadership spent much of the time drunk). Vlad’s pay was so low (he got the equivalent of $4 U.S. every month) that by the end of the month he had no money; if his mother didn’t send him food, he was in trouble. He laughed: The old indoctrination had tried to promote the belief that America and the decadent West were on the edge of collapse, where the truth was the reverse. Everything he’d been led to believe about communism had been a lie.
It was hard to believe how far the great Soviet military machine had fallen.
But they were still capable of grand, old-style Russian hospitality, highlighted by lavish banquets for the NATO delegation. For Vlad these were a gift from the gods. He had never seen such meals. He wolfed them down like a starving man (which was not far from the truth), and drank with no less fervor; he never left a banquet sober. “For God’s sake,” he pleaded with Zinni, “I’ve gotta eat. Keep your toasts and speeches short. If you make them long, I’ll have to translate, and I’ll starve.”
On a trip one evening to the famous Moscow Circus, Vlad grabbed the tour bus microphone and performed a politically incorrect monologue aimed at the Russian leaders. This did not amuse the senior Russian officers on the bus. When Zinni told him to cool it, he just laughed, “Hey, man, no pain, no gain.”
Vlad was always in trouble, but he was also shrewd and a survivor; and it turns out that he had what amounted to an escape clause from the Russian Army. Though his father was Russian, his mother was Latvian. This meant he’d be able to choose his homeland in the emerging breakup of the USSR — Latvia or Russia. Since Latvia was becoming independent and would have its own military, he could, if he chose, join the Latvian Army… This was not an easy decision. The Russian Army was obviously a very bad fit; but did he want to make the big leap to Latvia? (Zinni never learned what happened to his irreverent young aide.)