Battlefield Taiwan

Holding the Line

The air outside the Kremlin had finally turned bitterly cold as winter arrived in full strength. While most people who lived in other countries detested the cold, the Russians had learned to live with it, and some even thrived in it. President Petrov swiveled in his chair and looked out the window, admiring the first major snowfall of the winter. The forecasters had said they would receive between 30 and 45 centimeters of snow that day. He watched as the guards near the entrance to the Kremlin began their traditional changing-of-the-guard routine. They were ever the professionals, the ceremonial guards of the Kremlin.

As he observed the ceremony and the snow steadily falling to carpet the ground below in its white wintery blanket, his mind drifted back to the meeting he was about to attend. While the war was not going poorly, it was not exactly going well either. His forces had managed to capture and hold more than 60 % of Ukraine despite multiple attempts by NATO to remove them.

“I had wanted to keep this conflict isolated to Ukraine,” he lamented. “I had intentionally not invaded the Baltic or Nordic states in hopes that NATO would eventually accept the fact that Ukraine, for better or worse, belongs to Russia’s sphere of influence. But obviously, once NATO invaded Belarus, it made that goal impossible. I wish they would have left well enough alone. I couldn’t very well sit by and let NATO build up its forces right on the borders of Russia and wait for them to attack again.”

A knock at the door broke Petrov from his thoughts. A second later, the door opened to reveal his Minister of Defense, Alexei Semenov.

“Good morning, Mr. President,” Semenov began. “Would you like us to come in now, or should we meet in one of the other rooms?”

“The man is clearly excited about something,” Petrov mused. “He’s normally not this chipper in the morning.”

He waved for Semenov to come in as he got up and walked towards the small table he had set up in the ante-room next to his office. The other generals filed in, along with Ivan Vasilek, his FSB director.

“Ivan must have something important to discuss if he is joining this meeting,” Petrov thought, no emotion or concern on his face.

“Gentlemen, please sit down. We have lots to discuss. Our great ally has finally arrived,” President Petrov said as he began to pour a hot cup of tea for each of his trusted advisors.

“I hope you do not mean the tea you are pouring us,” Admiral Anatoly Petrukhin joked, and everyone laughed.

Wagging his finger at his military advisors, Petrov said, “No, not the tea, though it does help on a cold day like this. I mean winter. It is the great equalizer of armies. With the arrival of the snow and cold weather, NATO and the Americans will now have to hold their lines and wait for spring.”

The others in the room all nodded, except for Ivan. He knew something more was afoot but would hold his tongue until the proper time to speak.

Petrov placed the cups of tea on the table for everyone to grab one and then placed a fresh kettle of hot water in the center. “Generals, please begin. Bring me up to speed on what the latest developments are with NATO and where our forces stand.”

Petrov sensed that Ivan had some private matters he would want to talk about with him afterwards, judging by the look on his face. The two men had known each other most of their lives, and Petrov trusted him, which was not something he could say of most people.

General Boris Egorkin, the head of the Army, started the briefing. “Mr. President, we’ve strengthened our lines across the various fronts. As of right now, NATO is not able to break through our defenses; however, that may change by summer. The NATO countries have announced a massive increase in military spending and the raising of a new army. While this is concerning, we are also increasing the size of our army and are focusing our industrial effort on producing the specific weapon systems that are giving our forces an edge,” he explained.

Petrov jumped into the conversation. “What specific weapon systems are giving us the edge we need to hold our ground, or even advance?” he asked.

General Egorkin eagerly responded. “The T-14 Armata tanks and the entire Armata line of vehicles, for one. The second system is the S-400, or as NATO calls them, SA-21 surface-to-air missiles. The S-400s have proven incredibly effective at blunting NATO’s airpower, and while complex, these systems are not terribly difficult for us to build in mass quantities, which we are currently doing. The Chinese are mass-producing these systems as well. Our goal is to continue to saturate the battlefield with S-400s to strip the Americans of the typical advantage they would have in the air,” Egorkin said with a smug smile.

He continued, “Likewise, we have also moved forward with mass production of the Zhukov unmanned aerial vehicles or drones. The Zhukovs are cheap and easy to produce, and more importantly, unlike their American counterparts, they do not rely on satellite communications. We can control them via radio communication or by leveraging an existing cell tower infrastructure. To ensure the transmission signals are not tracked or jammed, we make use of an older technology the Americans pioneered in the 1990s — their single-channel ground and airborne radio system. It’s incredibly hard to jam, as it jumps 111 frequencies a second. So, unless NATO wants to block all of their own radio communications, they are not going to be able to jam this drone,” he explained, beaming with pride.

Petrov smiled at the enthusiasm. “Forgive me, General. I am not as versed in drone technology — are we currently able to jam their drones?”

Egorkin leaned forward. “Mr. President, the Americans rely heavily on satellite communications to control their targeting computers, their GPS, the transfer of large amounts of data and a large portion of their command, control and communications, or C3. While there has been an unspoken agreement that NATO and Russia will not overtly destroy one another’s satellites, or attempt to cripple the other nations’ power grid, it does not preclude us from jamming their ability to use this critical component of their C3. What our cyber warfare division has been doing is analyzing the cypher codes and frequencies their satellites use, and we believe we have a means of being able to remotely jam satellite usage within a specific quadrant.”

Suddenly, the others in the room began to beam broadly as they realized the implications of what this meant.

“When did our cyber-warfare guys figure this out,” Petrov asked, “and when can we start to implement it?”

“For that we have Director Vasilek to thank. It was his agents that infiltrated an American defense contracting company, providing us with the key piece of software code that enabled our people to create this new jamming system. It was only tested for the first time two days ago, and the trial run was determined to be a success. Now that we know it works, we are moving to build these jamming systems and place them around critical sites across the country. We are also working on incorporating them into a jamming pod that can be placed on some of our older Tupolev Tu-95 bombers, which can loiter freely inside our protected airspace as they project a 400-kilometer blackout zone.”

Egorkin paused for a second before continuing, “I suspect the Americans will at some point figure out a way around this vulnerability, but until they do, it will provide us with a bit of a reprieve from their strategic bombers and cruise missile attacks. It will also aid in protecting our ground forces as we look to push NATO out of the Baltic states and expand our perimeter within the Nordic states.”

Petrov grinned. “Ivan, you have outdone yourself yet again. Please pass along my compliments to your agents in America. I want this new technology implemented immediately. I also want it shared with the Chinese, so they can also implement it. If we both use this technology together, we can significantly dent the Americans’ forces.”

“Yes, of course, Mr. President,” Egorkin responded happily.

Petrov’s face darkened as he seemed to realize something. “Changing topics… what are we going to do about the Baltic and Nordic states who are allowing NATO to use their border with Russia as a springboard into our country?”

Alexei Semenov immediately jumped into the conversation. “This is exactly the problem we discussed last summer at the outset of this operation. While we avoided invading a NATO member directly, they have moved forces into the Baltic and Nordic states to both launch air campaigns against us, and to infiltrate Special Forces and other nefarious activities. We can no longer sit idly by and allow this to happen.”

Alexei stopped to hand President Petrov a folder. “Before you now is our proposal for eliminating this threat. Now that winter has arrived, we propose launching a massive winter offensive into the Baltic states to push NATO forces back into Poland. With regard to the Nordic states, we would only look to seize one hundred kilometers to act as a buffer zone. If the Nordic states continue to allow NATO to operate from their bases, then we may have to look at further plans for occupying them in the future.”

Sensing that Petrov was about to object, Semenov quickly interjected, “With the new divisions we have brought in from central Russia and the reservists who have completed their familiarization training, we have the required forces to accomplish this limited offensive operation.”

Petrov’s left eyebrow lifted skeptically. “In the past, our reservists have not performed well. What are we doing to reverse that trend now?” asked Petrov.

Alexei nodded slightly. He had anticipated this question. “For the past two months, our reservist units have gone through intensive familiarization training on the equipment they will be using and our preferred combat tactics. While not all of these new divisions are using our top-of-the-line equipment, the gear they are using is functional for the tasks they are being given. With the activation of the reservists, we now have sixteen new divisions we can use, and as new equipment comes off the assembly line, the divisions will turn in their T-64s and T-72s for newer equipment.”

Petrov grunted at the response but knew it was the best they could do. He was still very concerned about the military buildup the NATO members were now undertaking.

The meeting dragged on for a couple more hours, with the Air Force and Navy discussing their plans and operations. The Air Force was mostly going to focus on defending the air defense systems and letting the S-400s do the brunt of the work while the navy continued to marshal its remaining submarine force in the North Atlantic to snipe at and sink enemy freighters when possible. As the meeting concluded, Director Ivan Vasilek remained in his seat while the generals and the Minister of Defense exited the room.

Petrov stared at his long-time friend, knowing he had something important he wanted to discuss, or he would not have attended this meeting.

“Ivan, what is going on, my friend? What news do you bring?” asked Petrov, hoping for something they could easily deal with.

Ivan, ever the clandestine agent, showed little emotion as he pulled out his cigarette holder and lit a fresh cigarette. “I bring good news and bad news… but let’s discuss the good news before we darken the mood with more troubling information,” he said as he took a long pull from his cigarette, lightly tapping it on the ashtray.

Petrov eyed his friend with a bit of suspicion as he poured himself another cup of tea.

Vasilek continued, “Our misinformation operations on social media are having a profound impact in the Allied nations. We have successfully managed to splinter the NATO alliance and foment distrust in their governments. Turkey, Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Hungary have all left the alliance and pledged to remain neutral during the war. In the remaining countries, our operatives are organizing and spawning antiwar rallies and protests in the major Allied cities. I’ve actually detailed off a 20 % increase in agents to help grow this movement.” As he spoke, the corners of his lips curled up into the closest thing to a smile that Ivan’s mouth ever approximated.

Petrov nodded in approval, taking a sip of tea.

“We have substantially increased our targeted ads on Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter and every other social media platform,” Vasilek continued. “Our agents are live-streaming antiwar protests, speeches and rallies to gather more support and sow anxiety and hatred within the Allied countries. Two areas in which they have succeeded beyond our wildest imagination are on the college campuses and in the inner cities.”

Ivan paused only long enough to take another drag from his cigarette. The man smoked like a chimney. “While we do have a vocal antiwar movement growing in the US, the North Koreans’ nuking of California really turned the public against us. We may need to switch tactics in the US and start to focus more on economic sabotage. Maybe we should destroy a rail bridge, a tunnel, or some other critical piece of infrastructure near one of their key manufacturing hubs.”

Petrov sat back in the chair, thinking about what Ivan had just said. “Our last major sabotage operation against the American LNG facilities did not go as well as we had hoped. Sure, we destroyed the facilities, but it also hardened the American people’s position against Russia. President Gates used that attack with great effect in rallying his nation against us,” he thought, realizing that he was leery to carry out any similar attacks.

Petrov wondered what Ivan’s thoughts were on the topic. “If you start more of these sabotage operations inside America, how will that negatively affect our situation with the population?” he asked.

Ivan snorted at the question as he blew smoke out through his nostrils. “Does it really matter at this point? The Americans are so enraged by the North Koreans obliterating Oakland and San Francisco, all they want now is revenge. They are drafting five million people into their military. Right now, I want to focus on figuring out how I can slow down the production of the military equipment that will be used against us. Come summer, the Americans are going to unleash an army on us not seen since the Great Patriotic War. I am not certain our generals fully appreciate that fact or understand how desperate of a fight that is going to be.”

Petrov grunted in acknowledgement.

“It’s also not just the Americans,” Ivan continued. “The remaining NATO members are also building up an army. While the winter is going to allow us to solidify our positions, it’s also giving the Allies time to build an army to defeat us,” Vasilek asserted angrily as he stubbed out the remains of his cigarette in the ashtray. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his jade-covered cigarette holder and retrieved another one to light up.

“Ivan, what about the Chinese and Koreans? Are they not sapping enough of the American military away from Europe? Are we truly in that dire of a situation right now?” Petrov asked, hoping in that moment that his military leaders’ optimistic outlook was realistic.

“I think the Chinese have underestimated the ability of the Americans to strike at them. They believe they are such a large nation that little pinpricks here and there won’t hurt them, but what they are finding out is that the Americans are focusing their pinpricks in just one area, concentrating all their bombing efforts and cruise missile attacks on dismantling the Chinese transportation sector. The Americans are bombing every rail and road tunnel they can find, hitting bridges and dams, causing all sorts of logistical problems. The Chinese are also finding out that the South Korean and Japanese armies are not as easy to defeat as they thought. Unlike in Europe, the South Koreans have a multimillion-man army,” Ivan explained as he puffed away on his third cigarette since the start of their meeting.

“It sounds like you are not certain if the Chinese are actually going to win,” Petrov said skeptically.

“Ivan sold me based on the ability of the Chinese to defeat the Americans in the Pacific,” the President thought a bit angrily. “That is going to be key to the success of our efforts in Europe.”

Vasilek looked at Petrov for a moment before responding, “I never said it would be easy or quick. I have spoken with Chairman Zhang. They are getting ready to launch a major offensive against the American Pacific Fleet and some of the Japanese islands. They anticipate having Taiwan fully secured by the end of the year.”

Ivan was almost annoyed at being questioned like this. “I am the spymaster who planned Red Storm,” he thought angrily. “The President just needs to be patient and continue to stay the course.”

Petrov leaned forward and looked Ivan in the eyes. “Ivan, continue to be straight with me. Do not lie or mislead me. I am counting on you to provide me with accurate intelligence and information to be the counterweight to the generals.”

Petrov saw his message was understood. He then stood up. “I have other meetings I need to attend to. I will see you later in the week for our next update,” the President said and then indicated that it was time for Ivan to leave. The two men shook hands, and the Russian spymaster left the Petrov’s office and headed back to his own fiefdom, Lubyanka.