A book you have to read

Plot summary

Islamic terrorists from Azerbaijan destroy a new oil-production facility at Nizhnevartovsk, USSR, crippling Soviet oil production and threatening to wreck the Soviet economy. Seemingly needing to make crippling concessions to the West to survive the crisis, the Politburo chooses a different path: war. The Politburo decides to seize the Persian Gulf oil fields by force. (It is unknown if Tom Clancy was inspired by, or even knew about, the Siberian pipeline sabotage explosion for this key plot item).

According to the Carter Doctrine, any attack on the Persian Gulf is an attack on a vital strategic interest of the United States, and will be treated as such, meaning a military response. To prevent NATO's combined reaction, they first launch a KGB operation to split NATO by making it appear as if West Germany had launched an unprovoked terrorist attack on the Soviet Union, followed by an invasion of Europe in response to that “attack.” With West Germany occupied, and NATO defeated, it is hoped that the United States will not feel the need to rescue the Arab oil states, as it can meet its oil needs with Western Hemisphere sources. In order to mobilize popular support within the Soviet Union specifically against West Germany, the Politburo arranges a bomb blast in the Kremlin, killing, among others, some visiting children from an elementary school in Pskov, publicly pinning the blame on a West German exile who is in fact a Soviet agent.

The KGB operation has limited success: the coming Soviet attack on West Germany is detected only a few days in advance when a Spetsnaz major is captured in Aachen. The officer's capture gives NATO time to start mobilization and providing sufficient evidence to prevent the complete fracturing of the alliance. Nonetheless, it scores some success, as several governments, notably those of Greece and Japan, publicly claim that this is a “German-Russian disagreement” that they refuse to be involved in. Thus, the Soviets have a quiet Pacific theater due to political pressure on Japan, and are also able to avoid a southern front in the coming conflict in Western Europe as Turkey is unable (or unwilling) to launch an offensive alone.

Probable Axes of Attack of Warsaw Pact.

NATO aircraft manage to reduce Soviet ground superiority on the first night of the war by using first-generation stealth planes and tactical fighter-bombers to eliminate five Soviet Mainstay AWACS aircraft, several bridges, bridge equipment and crews, and Soviet Air Force tactical fighters, achieving air superiority. The Soviets still advance, but at great cost to themselves. Germany becomes the epicentre of the conflict; here, NATO forces are slowly driven west while inflicting significant damage to the Soviet Army.

One of the strategic master-strokes of the Soviet Union's opening moves in the war is its seizure of Iceland, capturing the NATO air station at Keflavík. This disrupts the GIUK SOSUS line (American seabed hydrophones), expected to prevent the Soviet Navy from operating effectively in the Atlantic by making it impossible for their ships and submarines to enter the Atlantic undetected. In addition, the Soviet Navy isolates and protects its ballistic missile submarine fleet, freeing its attack submarine force to engage and destroy NATO shipping. The Soviet Navy is able to act as an offensive weapon, and the Warsaw Pact seriously damages NATO's war effort by interdicting resupply convoys coming from North America with both aircraft and submarines. This advantage is put to immediate use, as a NATO carrier battle group, led by USS Nimitz,USS Saratoga and the French carrier Foch, is successfully attacked by Soviet Badger and Backfire bombers, the latter firing long-range anti-ship missiles. A noteworthy tactic is the launch by the Bagders of Kelt missiles as drones set to transpond as if they were Backfires, far out from the main air fleet. The US carriers' F-14 squadrons erroneously fire on the drones, leaving an insufficient number of SAM missiles for the real bombers and the Foch's Corsairs. Foch is sunk, the amphibious assault carrier Saipan explodes, taking 2,500 Marines with her, and the two American carriers are forced to spend several weeks in drydock atSouthampton, England.

In West Germany, the battle becomes a war of attrition that the Soviets expect to win, having greater reserves of men and materiel. NATO holds the Warsaw Pact forces to small but continual advances, but only through unsustainably high ammunition usage, and as the Soviet success in attacking the Atlantic convoys is maintained NATO's prospects appear bleak. With the death of the Soviet political favorite CinC-West in a NATO air attack on the Soviet rear lines, the more competent CinC-Southwest and his second-in-command, General-Colonel Pavel Leonidovich Alekseyev take over on the German front. Alekseyev commands a successful Soviet attack on the town of Alfeld, finally giving the Soviet Army the breakthrough it needs. As the OMG (Operational Manoeuvre Group) forces start to deploy, NATO looks likely to lose all of Germany east of the Weser River.

When a brilliantly timed naval attack on Soviet bomber bases with submarine-launched cruise missiles cripples the Soviet bomber force, the Soviets lose their most effective convoy-killing weapon. The Soviet Army proves unable to capitalize on its breakthroughs in Germany, as they have already lost too many troops for the amount of territory they have gained. The U.S. Marines stage an amphibious assault on Iceland backed by NATO navies, retaking the island and closing the Atlantic to Soviet forces. Finally, a failed bomber raid on the NATO naval forces attacking Iceland (in which the remaining Soviet naval cruise missile bomber fleets are nearly wiped out) leaves Soviet prospects of victory through conventional war all but hopeless.

This leads the Politburo to consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons at the front to regain the initiative. Alekseyev, realizing that a tactical nuclear exchange would almost certainly lead to a strategic nuclear exchange, seeks and obtains control of his theatre's nuclear weapons in order to ensure they are not used. A captured Soviet pilot from the Iceland campaign also reveals to the NATO forces why the war was started: oil. The NATO forces immediately re-evaluate their bombing tactics over the front and begin a campaign to locate and destroy as many Soviet fuel depots as possible; this cripples the Soviet tanks, keeping them from launching at least one major attack which would have caught the NATO forces shorthanded and allowed reinforcements to arrive prior to the battle.

With the Politburo contemplating the use of strategic nuclear weapons, General Alekseyev joins forces with the head of the KGB and the Energy Minister, Mikhail Eduardovich Sergetov, in staging a coup d’état, replacing the Politburo with a troika consisting of Sergetov, Agriculture Minister F. M. Krylov, and longtime Politburo member Pyotr Bromkovskiy (an elderly and respected World War II veteran) whilst the Head of the KGB is allowed to be executed by a Major revealed to be a parent of one of the children that was killed in the Kremlin bombing. A ceasefire is sought by the Soviets and accepted by an exhausted NATO, and the aftermath of the war is left unwritten.