capabilities. In short, we estimate that they can continue normal flight and patrol operations for ten days. If, however, they are forced to fight a major battle ? if Dmitriev launches an air strike against the Jefferson, for instance, and they have to beat it off ? that operational window drops to three days. Less if they use mass attacks continued over a period of time, which is traditional Russian strategy.”
“What if operations are rationed?” Waring asked. “You know, not flying any missions at all unless they’re absolutely necessary?”
“Mr. Waring, that ten-day estimate takes into account only ‘necessary operations.’ Minimal CAP ? that’s Combat Air Patrol ? with enough aircraft up at any given time both to give warning of an approaching hostile force and to be able to meet it in the air. Hawkeye and Prowler electronic surveillance flights. We have to have the E-2Cs up round the clock, or we’re sailing blind. Viking and helo ASW flights go off round the clock, too, covering the entire battle group from hostile subs. Anything less…” He stopped and shrugged. “We might as well hang out a sign. “For sale. Used aircraft carrier. You haul it away.’”
“What about hardware?” Waring asked. “Missiles, stuff like that?”
“One major engagement could expend nearly everything they have aboard, sir. But aviation fuel will be their major worry. Even at best, in peacetime with a slow ops schedule, a carrier’s JP-5 stores are only good for a couple of weeks.”
“And Dmitriev knows that,” Scott added. “I don’t believe for one second his claim that the attack on our UNREP tanker was an accident. The bastard was trying to sink her, partly to help block the channel, partly because he knew she represented an additional two weeks of flying time for our carrier planes.”
“How about food and water?” Heideman asked.
“That won’t be a major consideration, at least not for a while,” Magruder told him. “They make their own fresh water. They may run out of fresh fruit and stuff like that, but they can go for a good many months with onboard stores.”
“Look, the fact of the matter is we can’t give in to Dmitriev’s demands,” Scott said. “That’s extortion, pure and simple.”
“Well, what would you have us do?” Reed demanded. “We can’t go in and get them out. You say they can’t last for long without fuel and supplies. The Turks won’t let them into their ports. I see no alternative but to recommend that they cooperate with the Russians!”
“Madam Secretary,” Scott said. “Do I need to remind you that these people have attacked us? Sunk a civilian ship working under charter with our fleet? Blockaded that fleet? Strafed one of our helicopters assigned to UN duty? Fired on our aircraft? Threatened us with an attack against that fleet?”
“Then give me an alternative that I can present to the President!”
“Simple,” Scott said, folding his arms across his chest. “We send in the Marines. Secure the whole of the Dardanelles Straits, from the Aegean to the Black Sea. Send in Seabee units and SEALS to blast the wreckage out of the channel. We move another carrier ? the Eisenhower is already in the Med ? into the Aegean and fly support missions across Turkish territory, and to hell with what Ankara says. We can also fly aerial refueling missions off the Ike and extend the Jefferson’s onboard stores.
“Meanwhile, the Marines hold the channel open against possible repeat Russian attacks until the wreckage is removed and our ships and people are out of that death trap!”
“The Turkish government may take a dim view of our invading their territory,” Heideman said.
“Then they can provide access to our ships,” Scott said. “Also, we have MEU-25 already in the Black Sea, with the Guadalcanal and her escorts. They would be in an excellent position to grab the Black Sea end of the Bosporus and begin clearing operations. I would suggest bringing in MEU-21 for operations on the Aegean coast.”
“The Army should have a piece of this,” General Kirkpatrick, the Army Chief of Staff, said. “Ranger units to seize key airfields. The 101st to grab Istanbul and its approaches. This thing is doable.”
Reed looked at the general with distaste, then turned to Admiral Scott.
“Surely you gentlemen aren’t seriously suggesting we declare war on Turkey? The last I heard, they were on our side.”
“That seems to be debatable, Madam Secretary,” Scott told her, “at least in view of their refusal so far to allow us overflight privileges or access to our battle group. I believe an amphibious operation may be the only way to secure the safe extraction of our people.”
“The worst aspect,” Admiral Magruder pointed out, “is the length of the entire Dardanelles-Bosporus channel. It’s three hundred kilometers ? make that a hundred eighty miles ? from the Aegean end of the Hellespont to the Black Sea end of the Bosporus. Most of that is the Sea of Marmara, in between the two, but we’d still have several hundred miles of coastline to secure, a mammoth operation. And it’s not like we’d be facing some third-rate, minor country, either. We’ve counted on Turkey as NATO’s right flank for so long that we’ve equipped them pretty well. Worse, we’ve trained their people pretty well. An op of this scope would be no walkover.”
“You’re not suggesting that we give up, are you, Admiral?” Scott asked sharply. Magruder heard in that tone a bit of desperation; Scott needed support here and was afraid that Magruder was backing off.
“Certainly not. But there are other governments in the area that we could approach. If we could convince Greece and Bulgaria to go along with us on this, we might manage an air-mobile op against just the Black Sea end of the Bosporus. We could land north of Istanbul just long enough to clear the shipping channel.”
“We’d still have the problem of extracting our ships,” Scott said.
“But it would buy us time and open some new possibilities, I think.”
“There’s also,” Kirkpatrick said, “the option of striking directly at the problem. Hit the Russians, threaten them with an expanded war against a real enemy, not just Ukrainians or other Russians. Hit ‘em and hurt ‘em until they yell uncle and let our people go.”
“Difficult, General,” Scott said, “without a nearby base of operations.
Or are you suggesting we invade Russia from eastern Europe or the Baltic?”
“Unacceptable!” Reed said sharply. “Remember, the whole point of this exercise is to avoid becoming involved in a war over there. It would be easier and cheaper to go ahead and let the Russians have our damned ships!”
“Gentlemen,” Waring said, shaking his head. “I have to weigh in and say that I’m completely opposed to any operations against Turkey anywhere along those straits. There’s historical precedent not to try something like that, you know. Anybody here remember Gallipoli?”
“What’s that?” Reed asked him. “A city?”
“A battle, Madam Secretary,” Magruder said. “In World War I.”
“That,” Reed said with a lift of her chin, “was a bit before my time.”
Gallipoli had been one of the bloodier failures of the First World War, an attack by Great Britain against Germany’s Ottoman Turk allies in 1915. Brainchild of the British First Lord of the Admiralty, one Winston Churchill, the idea had been to land on the Gallipoli Peninsula at the Aegean mouth of the Hellespont and seize the straits, isolating Istanbul from the Asian portion of the Turkish-Ottoman Empire, knocking the Turks out of the war, and opening a new line of supplies to the embattled Russians. Simple in concept, the plan had been wrecked by hesitation and slow-moving commanders. After seizing a beachhead with few casualties against light opposition, the invasion force had failed to move inland off the narrow thrust of the peninsula; the Turks had closed them off, and there’d followed an extended battle by attrition.
Some 252,000 men had become casualties on the Allied side alone. Nearly as many Turks had been killed or wounded as well, and the entire operation had accomplished exactly nothing. The most skillfully handled part of the entire campaign had been the British evacuation of the beachhead at the end, early in 1916.
“Gallipoli failed,” Magruder said carefully, “because of a failure of nerve and of vision on the part of the people running it. It was a fine strategic concept, with a major screw-up in the execution.”
“If you ask me,” Gordon West, the White House Chief of Staff, said, “this whole thing has been one colossal screw-up. I know the President isn’t going to want to get into any major military operation until we know just what went wrong in there. This, this could have an incalculable impact on his image.”
Scott snorted loudly. “We’re not talking about public opinion polls here, Mr. West.”
“We are talking,” West said with a quiet, deadly earnestness, “about the President of the United States, and his perceived effectiveness as a world leader. I’d say that is at least as important as the safety of your precious aircraft carrier.”
