Can these guys really mean this bullshit? It did not work the first time so they're trying again? They sounded like they'd been reading the press releases of the left wing of one of America's political parties. I didn’t know whether to be worried because these guys were so stupid or insulted because they thought I might be stupid enough to believe them.
There were two briefers and they took turns saying nothing about the Russian forces on the border and the Chinese forces they face, and then dodging or filibustering the questions I tried to ask.
This is useless. I’m going to fall asleep if this nonsense continues. These people have either been ordered to tell us nothing or are totally ignorant about the state of affairs along the Chinese border and don’t want to admit it.
Finally, I have enough of the briefers’ historical reminisces and stories of Russian superiorities and interrupted, rather sharply.
“Enough of this bullshit. We’re not asking about the latest official version of Russian history, Colonel, We’re asking about the Chinese forces you face and how you think they might attack and, much more importantly, where and when and how the Russian General Staff thinks Russia will need our help in responding.
“And even more importantly, much more importantly,” I emphasized, “what military preparations and support can we and our allies contribute that will discourage the Chinese from attacking Russia in the first place?”
After a brief pause and a wave my hand to disperse a plume of smoke that was drifting in front of me, I continued.
“If you don’t know the answers, say so. But stop the bullshit about how your bureaucrats and political theories are better than theirs and everybody else’s. It has nothing to do with your military situation and, quite frankly, no one in the world, including me, believes a word you’re saying.”
I coughed as I said it. I know a lot of soldiers smoke but this is really carrying things too far. I’ve been in smoke filled rooms before but never like this. Could this be a deliberate effort to drive us off for some reason or are these guys just crude and rude?
Then I added a somewhat sarcastic comment. “Listening to you two,” I said while shaking my head in disgust at the two briefers, “I’m beginning to think that there is no reason for me to be here and I’m insulted that you think I’m so stupid that I would believe you.
"What you are doing is convincing me that Russia’s new treaty with America is of no importance to Russia, just the best excuse you could find to end a war you were losing badly and never should have started. If that’s the best information you’ve got for me, I’m going to call it a day, get on my plane, and go home.
“General,” I said, turning and addressing a now somewhat disturbed Petrov who was sitting across from me with a translator constantly whispering in his ear. “Don’t these men understand that my government, at the request of your new president, has ordered me to find out what America, and particularly our forces in Europe, can do to help Russia prevent a Chinese attack and defeat it if it occurs?”
Then I leaned forward and continued very pointedly before he could answer.
“We can’t do that unless we know how you think the Chinese will attack and how Russia would like us to help if they do. And why are we even sitting here wasting our time if Russia doesn’t want us to help discourage the Chinese from attacking Russia?”
I spoke harshly because I was more than a little pissed at the Russian rudeness and having my time wasted. Prior to leaving Washington I’d sent a request for a Russian briefing as to how the Russians evaluated the ability of the Chinese to invade Eastern Russia and how and where they thought such an attack would occur. I also asked how the Russian military thought we might be able to help them prevent it or repel such an invasion if it came.
What I’d been handed by one of the minister’s military aides when we arrived is a folder containing a sightseeing schedule for our visit to Moscow’s tourist attractions and a long shopping list of supplies and equipment the Russians would like us to provide “to help deter the Chinese.”
I scanned the Russian shopping list again when I finished speaking. It looks more like a list of office equipment and consumer electronics that would make life more enjoyable for some Russian bureaucrats and their wives rather than what the Russian military might need to fill in their supply gaps so they can fight the Chinese.
Then I quickly scanned the list again, and sort of shook it at Petrov a little, and rather sarcastically asked him a question.
“If we provide this, and I am certainly not saying we can or will since it doesn’t seem to have much military significance and looks more like a shopping list for your wives. But if we do, how and where will it be used and by whom and what are the priorities for its delivery?”
“That will have to be worked out by General Danovsky and his staff,” was the elderly general’s answer through the young Russian officer doing the translating. “He is in command of our forces in the East.”
Okay, that makes sense. He’s obviously the general who will lead the fight if the Chinese invade. I nodded in agreement.
“Okay. That makes sense. But then why am I here listening to this bullshit and being offered guided tours of Moscow’s tourist attractions instead of having a meeting to discuss military matters?”
Then I could not contain myself any longer and became quite sarcastic.
"I am beginning to understand why you lost the war so quickly."
******
Our schedule was altered. There was a knock on my door and one of the minders in the hall, the bald one with yellow teeth, handed me a new schedule.
Things have changed. Tomorrow morning, instead of taking us to see Moscow’s tourist attractions, the Russians are flying us out to visit General Danovsky at his headquarters at Khabarovsk in Russia’s Far Eastern Military District. It’s Russia’s biggest military district because it covers the entire eastern half of Russia, everything west of Lake Baikal including Russia’s borders with China and North Korea.
So much for touring Moscow to see stuffed long-dead communists.
And then the plan change again when I called everyone into my hotel room and informed them that the Russians would be flying us out in the morning to meet General Danovsky, their commander in the east.
Barry Goldman, the air force brigadier who had flown to Russia with us, shook his head negatively and strongly advised against flying in any Russian military plane with Russian airforce pilots. He was quite convincing.
“The damn things are not safe; they’re poorly built and poorly maintained and their pilots are badly trained. You can go if you want to but I’ve still got a couple of children at home and I’m not going. I’ll resign first.”
A response like that from a pilot who twice flew combat tours of more than a hundred close-support missions over Afghanistan and Iraq was more than good enough for me; we’d either go in the old Starlifter or we wouldn't go at all.
******
Our minders pretended to be quite upset and astonished when I informed them of my decision the next morning at the hotel's breakfast buffet. I did not say why, only that we would either fly out to Khabarovsk to see Danovsky in our own plane, or we wouldn’t be going at all. The minder who could speak English immediately assured me that their planes were well built and their pilots’ training was excellent and so was their aircraft maintenance.
The briefers in Washington were right. The hotel rooms are bugged.
Things got resolved when I put a face saving spin on it for them.
“Look at it this way,” I said to the interpreter of the seedy looking guy with the chin stubble who seemed to be the most senior minder of all. “Our plane is relatively large and part of the interior is configured for passengers. We have seats available and can take some Russian troops with us.
“That means you can take some pictures of the United States Air Force carrying Russian troops to the border and use them to let the Chinese know the treaty is in effect.”
Their
eyes lit up.
Five boring hours later, about forty Russian officers and half a dozen photographers arrived at the boarding stairs next to the Starlifter. They had been bused in from a military field south of Moscow to go with us. They would be flying with us to Khabarovsk instead of going there in their own transports.
It was probably my imagination but I thought some of them were greatly relieved to be flying with us in addition to being extremely curious.
Our old air force Starlifter was ready to go as soon as the Russian photographers stopped flitting about taking pictures and got on board. It was going to function as our office with its crew and our protection detail sleeping on board in sleeping bags even if other accommodations were offered. The plane's single real bed in a separate and elegant sitting room compartment would not be used. It was reserved for me.
The Air Force had been emphatic about the crew never leaving the plane. The story I got from Goldman is that the Air Force didn’t want the Russians to get a look at its avionics.
Why the Air Force was so concerned about the plane’s avionics escaped me, but I did not bother to ask. The Russians got more than enough samples of our avionics a couple of months ago when more than a hundred of our planes went down on their side of the battle line. It must be something else.
It was a long and boring trip except for the absolute astonishment of the Russians when they discovered the Starlifter’s toilets actually worked and our flight attendant sergeants brought them hot meals from the galley. They were also totally amazed, and did a lot of chattering and pointing, when they realized that all the Americans, even the enlisted men in the aircrew and the Marines, had cell phones and were talking to their families in America.
******
Our reception at the Khabarovsk airport was very different from Moscow’s. General Danovsky, the Commander of the Far Eastern District, all of Siberia east of Lake Baikal in other words, showed up with a band and honor guard at the airport. He appeared to be truly pleased to see us. Two hours later it was abundantly clear as to why he was so pleased—his army was literally falling apart.
Danovsky’s problem was simple: The Russian army in the east, which was primarily dispersed all along the Chinese border, had not been paid or resupplied for months. It was running out of food and many of his men and their families have been reduced to eating their awful combat rations. If you think ours are bad, and they are, you ought to try eating the Russians’ sometime.
Danovsky couldn’t get any food for his men and their dependents because nothing had been shipped in from Western Russia for months, ever since we cut the Trans-Siberian Railroad during the recent war. They couldn’t even truck it in because the road system, even after all these years, still had unbuilt gaps in it in the middle of Russia. And he couldn’t get food from China because the Chinese never reopened the border after the 2003 Sino-Russian mini-war over the Ussuri River islands. In other words, his command was truly fucked and rapidly disintegrating.
There was still some food left in the stores and warehouses of the civilian sector, Danovsky reported. But he couldn’t buy any because none of the merchants would accept his promises that they would sooner or later be paid.
“My men, even the officers,” Danovsky reported with a resigned sigh, “are beginning to trade their fuel and their trucks for food and cigarettes.”
The only thing the Russians had in abundance, he told us, was ammunition and very large quantities of diesel, gasoline, and aviation fuel located in a number of large underground storage depots that were scattered about in the Russian East.
“And that is the only thing that has saved us—my men along the border are trading gasoline to the black marketeers for food and cigarettes for themselves and their families; my men in the interior and their families cannot even do that. They have been reduced to eating old combat rations, many of which, if you can believe it, date back to the Great Patriotic War.”
Jesus, the situation is much worse than we thought. The Chinese can just waltz in here and these people will fall apart if even half of this turns out to be true
First things first. I immediately sent off an encrypted report to Bill Hammond describing the situation with a request that he have his staff begin a full court press to come up with a fast fix for the Russians’ food and payroll problems.
I also forwarded a copy to Jack Flanigan with a request that The Detachment work the problem of a Chinese invasion from the perspective that the Chinese would probably have to use the railroads in northern China, the ones that used to connect to the Trans-Siberian Railroad, to move their tanks and heavy equipment up to the border.
Our signals team, a couple of warrant officers headed by a Mr. Hanson, sent the reports via satellite and seriously scrambled it to avoid any possibility of a Chinese or Russian interception. I labeled them preliminary and tentative. Mentioning a possible Chinese use of their railroads was more than enough to tell Jack what our people needed to start planning and organizing.
******
Meetings of the Military Committee of the Chinese Communist Party were going much better these days, Xi Jinping mused to himself, as the speaker droned on. It first begun to change years ago when Mao died and his successors finally retired. Now, under the party’s new and better leadership, meaning himself, China could finally begin to take its rightful place as the leader of the world. And I, as the Chairman of the party, will lead the way and be famous forever.
Our tool, of course, will be the Red Army. And the first step will be to regain the Chinese territories the Russians illegally occupied years ago while we were busy fighting to make the revolution, all of them.
Victory will be doubly sweet because it will avenge the defeat we suffered in 2003 when Chairman Hua ordered our army to retake some of the Russian-occupied lands along the Ussuri River. The Central Committee had to go along with that moronic decision despite it being doomed to failure because China was too weak and the Russians too strong.
Yes, this time things will be different. Then it will be India’s turn in the Himalayas and America’s turn in Korea and Taiwan.
“Oh…. I am very sorry, comrade Bo, I was distracted by thinking very deeply about what you said about our wheat supplies. Would you repeat that last bit about the Russians please?”
******
On our first evening in the Russian east, Generals Goldman, Woods, Safford, and I, along with our interpreter, Colonel Lindauer, had dinner with General Danovsky and his deputy, General Turpin. We talked for hours. Lindauer and a young Russian lieutenant named Basilof, who looked about fifteen and had incredibly bad teeth, acted as the interpreters. I wonder how Lindauer learned Russian.
It was an interesting evening. Danovsky laid on quite a spread for someone who claimed to be running out of food. And there were several bottles of vodka and packs of cigarettes on the table and more on a sideboard. The Russians chain smoked; the Americans did not smoke at all except for General Woods—he matched the Russians puff for puff.
All the vodka and liquor on the table surprised me. That was because before we left Washington I had made it a point to have our embassy in Moscow inform the Russians that I was unable to drink due to a recent medical problem. Obviously that word had not reached Khabarovsk—which made me wonder what else Danovsky had not been told.
Danovsky apologized when I explained my problem.
“I am sorry, my friend, I didn’t know.”
“But don’t let my problem stop you, Yuri Andreovich,” I said. “Here, let me pour a glass for you.”
Everyone except me drank a lot and the Russians and General Woods smoked until a smoke-filled haze filled the room.
It wasn’t true that I have a medical problem and could not drink. But the Russians’ consumption of alcohol is legendary, so before I left the States I decided that, if it turned out to be true about their drinking habits, it would be better if I kept a clear head while everyone else was losing theirs.
After a bit we settled into a long
discussion of the Chinese order of battle Danovsky expected to face and the Russian troops and planes he had available to counter them. As you might imagine, we were particularly interested as to where his units were currently located and where and how he though the Chinese would hit him, and with what.
There was no question about where Danovsky and Turpin thought the Chinese would attack: They expected to be hit right here in Khabarovsk where their headquarters and the administrative offices for the Russian East were located. And, because they knew all the Chinese officers were taught to be followers of the strategies and tactics of Sun Tzu, just as the Russian officers were, they thought it would happen soon because their defenses and logistics were so weak.
At one point Danovsky drew himself up into a pose of fake pomposity and laughed and poked fun at himself and Turpin.
“And we are sure it will be here because, being highly trained military men who remember exactly word for word what they taught us at the military academy many years ago, Eugene Eugeneovich and I have been able to apply the superior aspects of Marxist-Leninist reasoning to foretell the future even better than Gypsy fortune tellers. On the other hand, Kharbarovsk seems the most likely place.”
He and Turpin responded to his speech by absolutely roaring with laughter at each other and clicking their glasses. Even Basilof smiled. It was contagious and we all smiled with them.
Then, after a pause for another sip, Danovsky continued with a sigh and a disgusted shake of his head as if he couldn’t believe it.
“Fortunately, we also have spies in China who say the Chinese are coming and satellites that sometimes work long enough for Moscow to take pictures of their preparations and send them to us.
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