The Bear and the Dragon

“They don’t expect that to happen. Maybe if it does, it’ll make them think over the error of their ways.”

“I wouldn’t bet much on that card, Scott.”

“Sooner or later, common sense has to break out. A hit in the wallet usually gets a guy’s attention,” SecState said.

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” POTUS replied. “’Night, Scott.”

“’Night, Jack.”

“So what did they say?” Cathy Ryan asked.

“They told us to stick it up our ass.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Jack replied, flipping the light off.

The Chinese thought they were invincible. It must be nice to believe that. Nice, but dangerous.

The 265th Motor Rifle Division was composed of three regiments of conscripts-Russians who hadn’t chosen to avoid military service, which made them patriotic, or stupid, or apathetic, or sufficiently bored with life that the prospect of two years in uniform, poorly fed and largely unpaid, didn’t seem that much of a sacrifice. Each regiment was composed of about fifteen hundred soldiers, about five hundred fewer than full authorized strength. The good news was that each regiment had an organic tank battalion, and that all of the mechanized equipment was, if not new, then at least recently manufactured, and reasonably well maintained. The division lacked its organic tank regiment, however, the fist which gave a motor-rifle division its offensive capabilities. Also missing was the divisional antitank battalion, with its Rapier antitank cannons. These were anachronistic weapons which Bondarenko nonetheless liked because he’d played with them as an officer cadet nearly forty years before. The new model of the BMP infantry carrier had been modified to carry the AT-6 antitank missle, the one NATO called “Spiral,” actually a Russian version of the NATO Milan, courtesy of some nameless KGB spy of the 1980s. The Russian troops called it the Hammer for its ease of use, despite a relatively small warhead. Every BMP had ten of these, which more than made up for the missing battalion of towed guns.

What worried Bondarenko and Aliyev most was the lack of artillery. Historically the best trained and best drilled part of the Russian army, the artillery was only half present in the Far East’s maneuver forces, battalions taking the place of regiments. The rationale for this was the fixed defense line on the Chinese border, which had a goodly supply of fixed and fortified artillery positions, albeit of obsolete designs, though with trained crews and massive stocks of shells to pour into predetermined positions.

The general scowled in the confines of his staff car. It was what he got for being smart and energetic. A properly prepared and trained military district didn’t need a man like him, did it? No, his talents were needed by a shithole like this one. Just once, he thought, might a good officer get a reward for good performance instead of another “challenge,” as they called it? He grunted. Not in this lifetime. The dunces and dolts drew the comfortable districts with no threats and lots of equipment to deal with them.

His worst worry was the air situation. Of all the Russian military arms, the air forces had suffered the most from the fall of the Soviet Union. Once Far East had had its own fleets of tactical fighters, poised to deal with a threat from American aircraft based in Japan or on aircraft carriers of their Pacific Fleet, that plus what was needed to face off the Chinese. No more. Now he had perhaps fifty usable aircraft in theater, and the pilots for those got perhaps seventy flight hours per year, barely enough to make sure they could take off and land safely. Fifty modern fighter-class aircraft, mainly for air-to-air combat, not air-to- ground. There were several hundred more, rotting at their bases, mainly in hardened shelters to keep them dry, their tires dry-rotted and internal seals cracked from lack of use because of the spare-parts shortage that grounded nearly the entire Russian air force.

“You know, Andrey, I can remember when the world shook with fear of our country’s army. Now, they shake with laughter, those who bother to take note of us.” Bondarenko took a sip of vodka from a flask. It had been a long time since he’d drunk alcohol on duty, but it was cold-the heater in the car was broken-and he needed the solace.

“Gennady Iosifovich, it is not as bad as it appears-”

“I agree! It is worse!” CINC-FAR EAST growled. “If the Chinks come north, I shall learn to eat with chopsticks. I’ve always wondered how they do that,” he added with a wry smile. Bondarenko was always one to see the humor in a situation.

“But to others we appear strong. We have thousands of tanks, Comrade General.”

Which was true. They’d spent the morning inspecting monstrous sheds containing of all things T-34/85 tanks manufactured at Chelyabinsk in 1946. Some had virgin guns, never fired. The Germans had shaken in their jack- boots to see these tanks storm over the horizon, but that’s what they were, World War II tanks, over nine hundred of them, three complete division sets. And there were even troops to maintain them! The engines still turned over, serviced as they were by the grandchildren of the men who’d used them in combat operations against the fascisti. And in the same sheds were shells, some made as recently as 1986, for the 85-mm guns. The world was mad, and surely the Soviet Union had been mad, first to store such antiques, then to spend money and effort maintaining them. And even now, more than ten years after the demise of that nation-state, the sheer force of bureaucratic inertia still sent conscripts into the sheds to maintain the antique collection. For what purpose? No one knew. It would take an archivist to find the documents, and while that might be of interest to some historian of a humorous bent, Bondarenko had better things to do.

“Andrey, I appreciate your willingness to see the lighter side of every situation, but we do face a practical reality here.”

“Comrade General, it will take months to get permission to terminate this operation.”

“That is probably true, Andruska, but I remember a story about Napoleon. He wished to plant trees by the side of the French roads to shade his marching troops. A staff officer said, but, Marshal, it will take twenty years for the trees to grow enough to accomplish that. And Napoleon said, yes, indeed, so we must start at once! And so, Colonel, we will start with that at once.”

“As you say, Comrade General.” Colonel Aliyev knew that it was a worthwhile idea. He only wondered if he would have enough time to pursue all of the ideas that needed accomplishing. Besides, the troops at the tank sheds seemed happy enough. Some even took the tanks out into the open to play with them, drive them about the nearby test range, even shoot the guns occasionally. One young sergeant had commented to him that it was good to use them, because it made the war movies he’d seen as a child seem even more real. Now that, Colonel Aliyev thought, was something to hear from a soldier. It made the movies better. Damn.

Who does that slant-eyed motherfucker think he is?” Gant demanded out in the garden.

“Mark, we laid a rather firm note on them this morning, and they’re just reacting to it.”

“Cliff, explain to me why it’s okay for other people to talk like that to us, but it’s not okay for us to talk that way to them, will you?”

“It’s called diplomacy,” Rutledge explained.

“It’s called horseshit, Cliff,” Gant hissed back. “Where I come from, if somebody disses you like that, you punch him right in the face.”

“But we don’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re above it, Mark,” Rutledge tried to explain. “It’s the little dogs that yap at you. The big powerful dogs don’t bother. They know they can rip your head off. And we know we can handle these people if we have to.”

“Somebody needs to tell them that, Cliffy,” Gant observed. “Because I don’t think they got the word yet. They’re talking like they own the world, and they think they can play tough-guy with us, Cliff, and until they find out they can’t, we’re going to have a lot more of their shit to deal with.”

“Mark, this is how it’s done, that’s all. It’s just how the game is played at this level.”

“Oh, yeah?” Gant countered. “Cliff, it’s not a game to them. I see that, but you don’t. After this break, we’re going back in there, and they’re going to threaten us. What do we do then?”

“We brush it off. How can they threaten us?”