Battlefield Ukraine

Disunity at the Top

The Secret Service was still requesting to move the President to a more secured command bunker. “Mr. President,” pressed one of the agents. “This is a shooting war with Russia, a nation that has nuclear capability and submarines potentially off the east coast. Our concern is for your safety.”

The President waved them off. “I respect your opinion, but I need to stay in the White House and project strength and calm until the situation changes,” he responded calmly. He felt confident in his assessment that Russia had no more desire to make this a nuclear war than he did.

As to the broader picture, however, the President had admitted privately to his closest advisors that he did not have any serious military experience or understanding of how these things worked. He was relying heavily on their experience and knowledge. Right now, it appeared to him they had completely underestimated the Russians resolve to stand their ground, and their ability to strike at the US and NATO. The only person he had spoken to in the last few days that had signaled any sort of warning was that Ambassador in Ukraine. “I’ll have to speak with him more. He seems to know what he’s talking about,” the President thought.

The room was abuzz with activity. Generals and Colonels were pouring over various digital maps, some of Ukraine, some of Europe. President Gates had been sitting in the Situation Room, absorbing the information being thrown at him for the past two and a half hours during this second emergency session of the day. Finally, the President cleared his throat and stood up. “Enough!” he exclaimed. “Everyone take a seat and shut up. There is too much chaos and yelling going on right now, and nothing productive is going to come from it. I need each of you to provide me with the situation update as of right now, and then tell me what our options are.”

The room suddenly calmed down. Everyone began to walk back to their chairs and sit down. General Hillman, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (CJC), replied, “You are right, Mr. President. Please accept my apology for our behavior. We are trying to talk through our options and the situation right now. Not all of us agree on what to do next. We normally hash this out before you join the meeting. You are kind of seeing us as we brainstorm and work through the problems.” The other officers and generals nodded in agreement, realizing that this was not the time or place to have such a disagreement.

NSA Tom McMillan stood up and walked over to the digital map of Ukraine. “Mr. President, what we are trying to figure out right now is what to do about this American unit that is positioned right here,” he said pointing to a section on the map that then zoomed in. “It’s roughly 40 miles from Kiev, and 53 miles or so from our base at Pryluky here,” he explained, zooming in again on the base.

The President interrupted to ask, “Isn’t that our base that the Russians essentially destroyed during the sneak attack?”

“Yes, Mr. President. The Russians hit the base with both an airstrike and cruise missile attack. They also fought off a Spetsnaz ground attack. There are still 2,800 soldiers at the base, getting it ready for another Russian ground and air attack.” McMillan pulled up a side screen, which listed some of the units that were still at the base.

Another general, the deputy to the Army’s Chief of Staff, spoke up to add, “We’ve moved nearly 400 wounded soldiers from the base back to Kiev. We still have a lot of seriously wounded soldiers there that need to be evacuated from Ukraine that are presently stranded.”

The President’s Chief of Staff, Ishaan Patel, interjected to ask, “What are we doing to evacuate our wounded soldiers, General Sparks?”

Sparks grunted and shrugged his shoulders a little, exasperated. “Right now, we are not doing anything. Two of our medivac helicopters have been shot down by Russian aircraft. We’ve lost eleven helicopters in the past three hours in that area right now. Until the Air Force can get some air cover to our choppers, they are not going to keep flying into that base.” He was clearly angry that his soldiers could not get the medical support they desperately needed.

Gates looked to his Air Force General, Dustin LaSalle. “What are we doing to get air support to our troops and to cover Spark’s medical helicopters?”

The Air Force General felt all eyes turn towards him. “A wing of F-35’s just arrived at Ramstein Airbase. They are being readied to start carrying out operations in Ukraine and just across the Russian border, which should start to help alleviate our ground forces.”

Gates raised his hand to stop the general. “LaSalle, talk plain English to me. What exactly does that mean?”

“Sorry, Sir. The F-35s that just arrived in Germany are going after the Russian air defense systems — the SA-10 and SA-21 missile batteries, their SAMs. As those systems are taken off line, our F-15s, F-16s, and A-10s will be able to provide ground support to our troops. We have 41 F-22s in Germany and 12 in Poland. They are going to start flying round-the-clock air operations over Ukraine now that we have additional E-3 aircraft from the UK to help provide air battle management support. These efforts are going to result in us regaining air superiority over the next couple of days,” General LaSalle explained.

Gates nodded in approval. “Thank you, General, for explaining that. When will our B-2 Stealth Bombers and B-1s begin their attacks against Moscow?” he asked. Secretly, he was hoping that somehow, some way, they might get lucky and even kill Petrov.

“The B-2 strike will happen in two more hours. The bombers are just now penetrating Russian airspace,” one of the Air Force colonels said from his spot against the back wall.

“What about the Navy? How is that front going?” asked the President. The last update he had received was a few hours ago, when it was reported that the Supercarrier George H.W. Bush had to be abandoned. When part of the carrier’s air wing had to land at the Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, it had created a bit of an issue with the Turks, despite them being a part of NATO. They were not happy. They complained that it made the international airport a legitimate military target while those military aircraft were there. However, the air wing was being refueled and would fly on to the US Air Force Base at Aviano, Italy. The President was hoping to avoid further issues with his NATO partners.

Admiral William Richardson, the Chief of Naval Operations, took the question. “Mr. President, the remaining ships of Strike Group Two have linked up with the Bulgarian and Romanian navy. They just launched cruise missile strikes against the Russian naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea, and also against the two Russian airfields there. Strike Group Two will move towards Crimea and finish off the rest of the Russian Black Sea fleet, and then provide air defense support over as much of Ukraine as possible.”

The admiral continued the briefing on the naval situation. “We held back on sending the Eisenhower into the Baltic Sea until it can be properly secured. The Strike Group has been engaging numerous Russian submarines since the start of hostilities. So far, no submarines have gotten close enough to launch any torpedoes at her, but one of the destroyer escorts was sunk in the North Sea.”

“I’ve also ordered the Truman Carrier Strike Group to withdraw from the eastern Mediterranean Sea and start heading to the Black Sea. We will need the carrier’s air wing and strike package as we continue to hit the Russians. Plus, the 3,500 Marines they have traveling with them, along with the 3,500 Marines from the Bush Strike Group, will give us a solid ground force we can use against the Russians,” Admiral Richardson concluded.

President Gates nodded in acknowledgement. “Thank you, Admiral. I appreciate your taking extra precautions with the Eisenhower carrier group and getting the Truman into position. I like the idea of having 7,000 angry Marines we can deploy in the Black Sea.”

“The Russians are obviously hitting us with a lot of cyber-attacks. Are we going to have these attacks under control? And are we taking appropriate attacks of our own against them?” asked Gates. Prior to coming into the meeting, he saw a news bulletin from one of the networks talking about a series of cyber-attacks taking place across the country; he didn’t want to leave any stone unturned.

The Director of the NSA spoke up as this was his primary lane. “Mr. President, certain parts of the economy are being attacked with a series of DDoS attacks and other malicious cyber-attacks. We have our best people working on countering this (along with the private sector) to restore service and to prevent these types of events from happening again. Our country, unlike most, has been the target of vicious cyber-attacks for more than a decade. As a result, we are far more prepared to deal with them than our European counterparts. Our agency is currently carrying out a myriad of cyber-attacks against parts of the Russian government and economy that support their military and forces in Ukraine.”

The President nodded, knowing this was a complex issue. He felt good that his people were on top of it for the time being. He’d have to check back with them over the next few days to verify their progress.

Then he turned to face the broader group. “I do not believe we addressed the initial problem McMillan brought up — that small pocket of American troops southeast of Kiev. How many soldiers do we have there?” asked Gates.

General Hillman took back over, standing up next to the map. “It’s kind of a hodgepodge of units. It’s being led right now by a Lieutenant Colonel, Brian Munch, the battalion commander from the 37^th Armored Regiment. They are the first armored regiment from the 1^st Armored Division that arrived in Europe three days ago. They hauled butt to get to Kiev and then ran straight to the front lines when hostilities started. The other unit is about half of the 2^nd Cavalry Regiment’s brigade combat team. All in all, they have roughly 1,900 troops: about 64 Abram battle tanks, 46 Stryker vehicles, and 32 Bradley fighting vehicles. The 2^nd Cavalry also had a battalion of Paladin self-propelled artillery guns. That unit has been providing them with the bulk of their fire support.”

“They’ve positioned themselves in such a way as to block the bulk of the Russian forces from capturing Pryluky or Kiev quickly. The Russians must either push through them, or find a way around them. The Russians already attempted to launch an attack against them, but after two hours, they were beaten back. Although our guys managed to stop them, we know that the Russians will hit them again… either with more forces, or most likely, they will go around them, leaving them completely cut off. While I would like to leave them in place, as they are buying us more time, we have virtually no way to resupply them or relieve them. We have roughly 8,000 soldiers in and around Kiev, but roughly 3,800 of them are combat arms. The rest are support units: supply, air-defense, engineers etc.”

Tracing his finger along the highways in Poland leading into Ukraine, General Hillman went on, “We have 12,000 combat troops traveling down these three highways, heading into Ukraine right now. They are at least twelve hours away from reaching Kiev, and that’s if they do not come under heavy air attack. The Polish are reluctant to release any of their combat units right now with the Russian 4^th Army currently sitting in Belarus. It’s not clear what the intentions of the 4^th Army are, but they are in excellent position to invade Poland if they want to. Mr. President, it is my recommendation that we order LTC Munch to have his forces fall back to Kiev and attempt to hold the city for the next twenty-four hours while additional combat forces arrive from Germany.”

Looking at his other generals, Gates asked, “Does everyone else agree with this assessment? Should we have them fall back?”

Several of the generals looked around at each other and then all nodded. It was sound advice. No one wants to give ground, especially if it looked like they might be able to win, but it was the prudent move to try and hold Kiev rather than this road junction.

The President was still unsure. “One last question, General. How many Russian forces are those guys blocking right now?” Gates was not sure if they could potentially hold out.

General Hillman frowned slightly at this question. “They are standing in the way of a Russian tank division and a motorized rifle division, so, roughly 48,000 soldiers. They are punching way above their weight class right now, but when the Russians throw the full weight of those divisions at them, they will be wiped out.”

The President nodded his head, more to himself than to anyone in the room. “OK, I understand now. If that is the recommendation of my military advisors, then have them pull back to Kiev. I want them to hold the city. No more falling back. The Russians never should have gotten the jump on us like this,” Gates said as he looked at his intelligence directors. “I can’t totally fault the military for this one gentlemen. It’s your organizations’ jobs to provide the generals and myself the needed information to prevent things like this from happening. We can’t have your organizations fumbling the football — not at a critical time like this.”

The President had been chastising his intelligence agencies since taking office. They had been one gigantic leak center. From classified conversations with world leaders, to meeting notes from key meetings, it had been a major source of frustration for the President. Gates felt like they had failed the country in a major way by not foreseeing that the Russians would launch this sneak attack. Something needed to be done, that was for sure.