Dragonfire

by Humphrey Hawksley

  ‘Will you retaliate?’ asked Wada.

  ‘We will,’ said Mandip Singh. ‘But the question is, will it be nuclear – and I won’t know that until you do, Prime Minister.’

  ‘Don’t do it,’ said Wada with uncharacteristic bluntness. ‘For many years we have suggested that we strengthen ties, but your governments haven’t listened. Now that this has happened, we have no choice but to insist you do not retaliate. If you do, we will withdraw all aid, Japanese investment will naturally follow and your economy will collapse within months.’

  ‘Unfortunately, millions of Indians don’t see it like that. Territory and honour are more important than life and a full rice bowl. Besides, it is out of my control.’ The Ambassador was exhausted and didn’t mind showing it. ‘But I will say one thing. China has decided to use this conflict to become the undisputed regional power. If it succeeds, India’s influence will have to diminish, and that will not be in Japan’s strategic interest. We believe it is an apt time to examine the strategic ramifications.’

  Wada nodded: ‘We don’t have the academic luxury of diplomatic evaluations. So I will tell you this in confidence, Ambassador, and use it how you wish. Our intelligence tells us that China is determined to win. They have just activated a military plan called Operation Dragon Fire.’

  Briefing

  Russia

  Russia retains an impressive order of battle on paper, but its military power is far less than that once wielded by the Soviet Union. Cohesion, morale and operational effectiveness are all reduced. Throughout the Cold War the Soviet Union retained a strong relationship with India. In the 1990s Russia also began what was called a Strategic Relationship for the Twenty-first Century with China. Russia now supplies substantial amounts of weaponry to both countries. It continues to struggle with its own political and economic reforms. If events go badly in Russia, autocracy could be strengthened, reviving a new era of tension and confrontation with the West and other powers. In the first months of the twenty-first century, Russia made a series of announcements centred on increased military spending and modernizing its nuclear arsenal.

  The Kremlin, Moscow, Russia

  Local time: 0330 Monday 7 May 2007

  GMT: 0030 Monday 7 May 2007

  Russian President Vladimir Gorbunov did not need to be woken up. He was an insomniac who often made crucial decisions for his country in the early hours of the morning. In the past few months he had been working on strengthening the alliance between Russia, China and India. His aim was to create a military and political force which would curb the power of the United States and NATO.

  A former commander of the Pacific Fleet, Gorbunov was acutely attuned to the undercurrents of the Asia–Pacific. Far more than his counterparts from Moscow and St Petersburg, Gorbunov looked east for his models of development. He admired China, in particular, for the determined way it was pulling itself into the modern age, viewing it more as a role model than a threat.

  India was a long-standing ally, as at ease with its democratic institutions as China was with its authoritarianism. Only two months earlier, Gorbunov had been in Delhi to extend the military technology pact with India, which was giving it the weaponry needed to counter the superior forces of China. In 1999, India and Russia signed a Military Technology Co-operation Treaty lasting until 2010.

  Gorbunov believed if power between India and China could be balanced, he could lead a population bloc of 2.5 billion people, with a formidable array of nuclear and conventional weapons to limit the United States’ influence in international affairs. Many thought of this strategic triangle as a seductive aspiration, but too far-fetched. Gorbunov believed that a military alliance between China, India and Russia was far less ambitious than the chaotic union pushed through within Europe. If he did not try, the second-power countries of the world would forever remain weak against the Western democracies.

  It was Gorbunov’s initiative, long before he was President, to give away the 30,000 tonne aircraft carrier Gorshkov to India in exchange for the purchase of the equipment and aircraft for it, including the SU-27M. Gorbunov had personally authorized the transfer of technology for India’s Rajendra phased-array radar system and Akash long-range surface-to-air missile system, making up a limited integrated theatre-defence system against the threat of Pakistani M-11 ballistic missiles.

  Although the Rajendra was mostly Indian-built, the Akash was made up of the formidable Russian mobile S-300V Anti-Tactical Ballistic Missile system, code-named the SA12 Giant by NATO and considered superior to the American Patriot system. It was effective against planes, including those equipped with Stealth technology, and various types of missiles, including tactical and cruise.

  Each system could protect an area of more than 320 square kilometres, including major cities, from missile attacks.

  Before becoming President, Gorbunov had hosted Indian delegations at the Kapustin Yar test grounds, 1,300 kilometres south-east of Moscow. He persuaded them to abandon their national pride and take technology for the Rajendra as well. It could detect ballistic missiles more than 1,200 kilometres away, track sixty-four missiles and aircraft simultaneously and give warnings of at least five minutes to activate the anti-ballistic missile defences. The Rajendra was just what India was looking for.

  Gorbunov also strengthened the role of the Indo-Russian Joint Working Group (JWG), which was looking at rearming India’s aircraft carriers, upgrading both the T-72 and advanced missile-firing T-90 tanks, providing India with Msta-B guns and KA-30 attack helicopters and purchasing the new MiG-AT advanced jet-trainer aircraft.

  But the Russian President’s main achievement had begun more than ten years earlier when he was co-chair of the JWG and later a deputy Defence Minister.

  ‘No navy can be considered a force to reckon with unless it has nuclear submarines to control oceans,’ he repeatedly told the Indians, while at the same time pushing for Russia to release more technology for India’s beleaguered attempts to build a nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed submarine.

  He arranged for the Russian submarine-design bureau, Rubin, to cooperate with Indian scientists on the hull and the reactor. The result was a 6,000 tonne displacement hull of titanium steel to give extra diving depth.

  Gorbunov’s final initiative was the technology for the submarine-launched Sagarika cruise missile, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and derived from the Prithvi, with a range of 320 kilometres. The Sagarika had put India’s navy in a different league. The nuclear-powered submarine had unlimited endurance and mobility. There was no place for a surface ship to hide from torpedoes, and the Sagarika could be fired from outside territorial waters with the capacity to destroy a city.

  The obvious targets from the South China Sea would be the Chinese cities of Guangzhou, the southern commercial capital, the southern naval headquarters at Zhanjiang and the coastal bases at Shantou, Xiamen or Fuzhou.

  As far as Gorbunov knew, the submarine was still called simply the Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV) and it had not yet gone out for public trials for fear that other navies would pick up and copy its signature for future recognition.

  Gorbunov was still authorizing limited help to the Surya intercontinental ballistic missile programme, aimed at creating a vehicle with a range of 12,800 kilometres, capable of reaching the United States. The programme was veiled in secrecy. Not even Gorbunov knew how far advanced it was. But if it ever worked, a missile launched from Delhi would be able to target an area bounded by Raleigh in North Carolina, Omaha in Nebraska and Eugene in Oregon. If it was launched 500 kilometres north of New Delhi, the range could go much further south.

  If India declared the Surya, it would then equalize China’s DF-32 solid-fuel 12,800 kilometre range missile, whose technical guidance system had been supplied by Russia.

  India and China would have only a handful of missiles compared to Russia, which would remain the undisputed leader of the bloc. When all three powers lined up against the United States, Washington would think again about
humiliating the developing world and committing another Balkan-style campaign.

  But now, suddenly, unity within Gorbunov’s tripartite bloc was threatened. Pakistan, China’s ally, had carried out the first nuclear attack since Hiroshima. India would respond within a matter of hours. If China became involved, it could take generations for the strategic alliance to recover.

  The Russian President postponed meetings with his Defence and Foreign Policy teams, then personally telephoned the Chinese Ambassador, Kang Suyin, who was at the residence but awake. Gorbunov asked her to come straight round. They met alone in Gorbunov’s sprawling office, just off the cabinet room. Kang was a graduate from Moscow University and they spoke in Russian.

  ‘I urge you not to get involved,’ began Gorbunov. ‘If you do, there will only be one winner, the United States.’

  Kang nodded cautiously: ‘Possibly you are right. But it is more complex.’

  ‘We don’t have time for complications,’ urged Gorbunov. ‘You shared with us the outrage of the Kosovo operation in 1999. You watched as American missiles reduced your Embassy in Belgrade to rubble. We watched as NATO seized territory from one of our closest strategic allies in Europe. All of us, including India, were appalled and have tailored our defence needs to meet future threats from the United States. Against such a global policy, it is not worth defending Pakistan.’

  ‘It isn’t Pakistan,’ said the Ambassador. ‘It is mostly Tibet, and partly Central Asia.’

  ‘Tibet is a wart. She is too small to cause any real damage. We are all concerned about Central Asia . . .’

  ‘Can you persuade India to stop interfering?’

  ‘I don’t have time. We need decisions within the hour. But what I can promise you is another six Typhoon-class nuclear-powered submarines, ready armed with nuclear missiles, if you stand back.’

  ‘And if we don’t?’

  ‘I will have no option but to consider ending military cooperation.’

  ‘That is a small carrot and a big threat.’

  ‘Suyin,’ said Gorbunov, ‘I have known you for many, many years as we have witnessed the emergence of our two countries. I have envied China in its economic determination. You covet our military arsenal. As I have encouraged Russians to take a lead from you in economic policy, please impress upon your President to take a lead from us on military policy. We have the experience of the Cold War and we know the bitter taste of defeat. If you take the carrot, China will be a formidable naval power in the region. If you fight India over Tibet right now, you will be hauled back fifty years.’

  ‘You’re wrong, Vlad,’ said Kang, leaning forward in her chair. ‘At the end of the Cold War, you stood isolated. The industrialized democracies were against you, as was China. We have gone about our development with greater patience. We experimented with Dragon Strike and found that the United States did not have sufficient backbone for an all-out war. There is a view in Beijing, which I agree with, that this might now be the time to test the challenges on our western borders.’

  ‘You’ll play into the American’s hands and get the Russian people worried as well.’

  Kang laughed: ‘You have nothing to worry about!’

  ‘All right,’ said Gorbunov. ‘But you’ll reinforce the view that China, like we were, is ideologically bent on regional, if not world, domination. Once that is believed, co-existence with the United States will be impossible. The pressures to contain the last major one-party state will be immense until you transform yourself into a democratic society. No American president can be seen to be weak with you.’

  ‘But they have been and always will be,’ said Kang. ‘Your Marxist ideology was very different to ours. You avowed its determination to maintain Communist parties in power, by force if necessary. You intervened in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, threatened to do so in Poland and even in China. We have no such ambitions, no international network of Communist parties to undermine Western positions. They may think we run a repressive one-party state, but we threaten no Western democracy and we are hauling tens of millions of people out of poverty.’

  ‘So you’re going to . . .’ Gorbunov paused.

  ‘It’s called Operation Dragon Fire. Yes, Vlad, we’re going to do it. What will you do?’

  ‘Confine it to Tibet and the border, and it will be business as usual.’

  As soon as he had walked Kang to the steps of the building and shown her into her car, Gorbunov telephoned the American Ambassador, Milton Ashdown. Ashdown arrived at the President’s private office within fifteen minutes.

  ‘Please tell President Hastings that Russia would like India and Pakistan to solve this problem without outside interference.’

  Ashdown had made significant contributions to Hastings’s election campaign and the two men were personal friends. But he was primarily a businessman who was finding the intricacies of diplomacy difficult. Ashdown also had little time for academic theorists who argued for any alternative system of government which opposed democracy and the free market.

  ‘I will pass on your message. No doubt the President will want to speak with you directly. But, with all respect, if the free world is threatened by nuclear war, the United States will do everything within its power to stop it – not minding whose sovereign territory we violate.’

  ‘That’s what I feared,’ said Gorbunov.

  Newsroom, BBC Television Centre, London

  Local time: 0030 Monday 7 May 2007

  The midnight radio bulletin had just finished. On the second floor, BBC News 24 interrupted its sports news to flash the Pakistani nuclear attack. In another part of the BBC’s giant newsroom, World Service Television News had broken into its programming fifteen seconds earlier. Only a handful of staff was on duty in the main news-gathering area, a horseshoe of desks, computers and banks of television screens. The World Duty Editor had made one telephone call to the home of the World Assignments Editor, who was on stand-by.

  He then called the Asia hub bureau in Singapore, from where correspondents, producers, camera crew and technicians were despatched to the BBC bureaux in Islamabad and Delhi. They left from Hong Kong, Singapore and Beijing. Reinforcements joined them from Jerusalem, Cairo and London.

  Satellite transmission dishes, satellite telephones, portable edit packs, flak jackets and nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) warfare protection suits were loaded on commercial flights with the reporting teams. Within a few hours, the BBC would have the most formidable news reporting system in place to cover what could become the world’s first nuclear war.

  Briefing

  Burma/Myanmar

  Burma, or Myanmar, is a cultural and geographical buffer between East and South Asia. From 1885 until the 1930s, Burma was governed as part of British India. It was occupied by Japan from 1942 to 1945, and won independence in 1948. After just fourteen years of democracy, the army seized power and Burma went into a state of self-imposed isolation. Troops brutally repressed democracy demonstrations in 1988. The regime ignored a landslide election victory for the opposition party in 1990 and jailed its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Increasingly shunned by the international community, Burma was courted by China. Chinese engineers built roads and military bases. The army was equipped with Chinese weapons. By the turn of the century, the Hanggyi Island naval base and the Cocos Islands were being built to take Chinese naval ships, threatening India’s predominance in the Indian Ocean region.

  India–Burma border, Tirap Frontier District, India

  Local time: 0600 Monday 7 May 2007

  GMT: 0030 Monday 7 May 2007

  The attack from the south came as a complete surprise, not least because the enemy troops broke into Indian territory, not from China, but from Burma.

  Air support came from Dongkar and Orang in Tibet and Sinkaling, Myityina and Putao in Burma, laying down a devastating gauntlet of fire on the unprotected Indian positions. The main infantry advance came up from Namya Ra, twenty-five kilometres south of the border.

  For almost twenty
years, since minor skirmishes in 1987, Chinese and Indian troops had successfully and peacefully protected their borders. At the most tense times, almost half a million troops had faced each other. India deployed eleven divisions and the Chinese PLA deployed fifteen. The mountainous terrain, high-altitude climate and logistical supply difficulties deterred either side from starting a protracted conflict there. India had reluctantly allowed China to continue its occupation of the Aksai Chin area, occupied since 1959, and nestling on the border with Kashmir. China claimed, but had left alone, Arunachal Pradesh, to the east of Bhutan which borders Tibet.

  In 1996, both governments agreed to reduce the size of their armies on the border, allowing India to deploy more men against Pakistan in Kashmir. But as tensions ebbed and flowed, troop levels climbed back up again. In the past week, Indian satellites had picked up images of thousands of Chinese troops pouring in, threatening the northern border positions. India reinforced its own positions with the Kameng, Subansiri, Siang and Lohit frontier positions.

  Neither side seemed to want conflict. This front was cold, inhospitable and bereft of glory. Even though it was May, conditions in the mountains were appalling and no modern army would want to fight there.

  The Chinese build-up, carried out in broad daylight, was a massive decoy to the operation planned to the south. The deployment in Burma had been carried out at night to avoid satellite surveillance. India’s concentration was primarily on Kashmir. An eye was being kept on the China front. The Burmese border was virtually being ignored.

  Troops from the Indian 2nd Mountain Division were unprepared. They tactically withdrew and consolidated enough to stop the Chinese advance five kilometres from Ledo. Once there, both sides secured their positions, but the Chinese army was dug in on Indian territory.