Dragon Fire

The Kremlin, Moscow, Russia

Russian President Vladimir Gorbunov did not need to be woken up. He was an insomniac who often made crucial decisions for his country in the early hours of the morning. In the past few months he had been working on strengthening the alliance between Russia, China and India. His aim was to create a military and political force which would curb the power of the United States and NATO.

A former commander of the Pacific Fleet, Gorbunov was acutely attuned to the undercurrents of the Asia — Pacific. Far more than his counterparts from Moscow and St Petersburg, Gorbunov looked east for his models of development. He admired China, in particular, for the determined way it was pulling itself into the modern age, viewing it more as a role model than a threat.

India was a long-standing ally, as at ease with its democratic institutions as China was with its authoritarianism. Only two months earlier, Gorbunov had been in Delhi to extend the military technology pact with India, which was giving it the weaponry needed to counter the superior forces of China. In 1999, India and Russia signed a Military Technology Co-operation Treaty lasting until 2010.

Gorbunov believed if power between India and China could be balanced, he could lead a population bloc of 2.5 billion people, with a formidable array of nuclear and conventional weapons to limit the United States’ influence in international affairs. Many thought of this strategic triangle as a seductive aspiration, but too far-fetched. Gorbunov believed that a military alliance between China, India and Russia was far less ambitious than the chaotic union pushed through within Europe. If he did not try, the second-power countries of the world would forever remain weak against the Western democracies.

It was Gorbunov’s initiative, long before he was President, to give away the 30,000 tonne aircraft carrier Gorshkov to India in exchange for the purchase of the equipment and aircraft for it, including the SU-27M. Gorbunov had personally authorized the transfer of technology for India’s Rajendra phased-array radar system and Akash long-range surface-to-air missile system, making up a limited integrated theatre-defence system against the threat of Pakistani M-11 ballistic missiles.

Although the Rajendra was mostly Indian-built, the Akash was made up of the formidable Russian mobile S-300V Anti-Tactical Ballistic Missile system, code-named the SA12 Giant by NATO and considered superior to the American Patriot system. It was effective against planes, including those equipped with Stealth technology, and various types of missiles, including tactical and cruise.

Each system could protect an area of more than 320 square kilometres, including major cities, from missile attacks.

Before becoming President, Gorbunov had hosted Indian delegations at the Kapustin Yar test grounds, 1,300 kilometres south-east of Moscow. He persuaded them to abandon their national pride and take technology for the Rajendra as well. It could detect ballistic missiles more than 1,200 kilometres away, track sixty-four missiles and aircraft simultaneously and give warnings of at least five minutes to activate the anti-ballistic missile defences. The Rajendra was just what India was looking for.

Gorbunov also strengthened the role of the Indo-Russian Joint Working Group (JWG), which was looking at rearming India’s aircraft carriers, upgrading both the T-72 and advanced missile-firing T-90 tanks, providing India with Msta-B guns and KA-30 attack helicopters and purchasing the new MiG-AT advanced jet-trainer aircraft.

But the Russian President’s main achievement had begun more than ten years earlier when he was co-chair of the JWG and later a deputy Defence Minister.

‘No navy can be considered a force to reckon with unless it has nuclear submarines to control oceans,’ he repeatedly told the Indians, while at the same time pushing for Russia to release more technology for India’s beleaguered attempts to build a nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed submarine.

He arranged for the Russian submarine-design bureau, Rubin, to cooperate with Indian scientists on the hull and the reactor. The result was a 6,000 tonne displacement hull of titanium steel to give extra diving depth.

Gorbunov’s final initiative was the technology for the submarine-launched Sagarika cruise missile, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and derived from the Prithvi, with a range of 320 kilometres. The Sagarika had put India’s navy in a different league. The nuclear-powered submarine had unlimited endurance and mobility. There was no place for a surface ship to hide from torpedoes, and the Sagarika could be fired from outside territorial waters with the capacity to destroy a city.

The obvious targets from the South China Sea would be the Chinese cities of Guangzhou, the southern commercial capital, the southern naval headquarters at Zhanjiang and the coastal bases at Shantou, Xiamen or Fuzhou.

As far as Gorbunov knew, the submarine was still called simply the Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV) and it had not yet gone out for public trials for fear that other navies would pick up and copy its signature for future recognition.

Gorbunov was still authorizing limited help to the Surya intercontinental ballistic missile programme, aimed at creating a vehicle with a range of 12,800 kilometres, capable of reaching the United States. The programme was veiled in secrecy. Not even Gorbunov knew how far advanced it was. But if it ever worked, a missile launched from Delhi would be able to target an area bounded by Raleigh in North Carolina, Omaha in Nebraska and Eugene in Oregon. If it was launched 500 kilometres north of New Delhi, the range could go much further south.

If India declared the Surya, it would then equalize China’s DF-32 solid-fuel 12,800 kilometre range missile, whose technical guidance system had been supplied by Russia.

India and China would have only a handful of missiles compared to Russia, which would remain the undisputed leader of the bloc. When all three powers lined up against the United States, Washington would think again about humiliating the developing world and committing another Balkan-style campaign.

But now, suddenly, unity within Gorbunov’s tripartite bloc was threatened. Pakistan, China’s ally, had carried out the first nuclear attack since Hiroshima. India would respond within a matter of hours. If China became involved, it could take generations for the strategic alliance to recover.

The Russian President postponed meetings with his Defence and Foreign Policy teams, then personally telephoned the Chinese Ambassador, Kang Suyin, who was at the residence but awake. Gorbunov asked her to come straight round. They met alone in Gorbunov’s sprawling office, just off the cabinet room. Kang was a graduate from Moscow University and they spoke in Russian.

‘I urge you not to get involved,’ began Gorbunov. ‘If you do, there will only be one winner, the United States.’

Kang nodded cautiously: ‘Possibly you are right. But it is more complex.’

‘We don’t have time for complications,’ urged Gorbunov. ‘You shared with us the outrage of the Kosovo operation in 1999. You watched as American missiles reduced your Embassy in Belgrade to rubble. We watched as NATO seized territory from one of our closest strategic allies in Europe. All of us, including India, were appalled and have tailored our defence needs to meet future threats from the United States. Against such a global policy, it is not worth defending Pakistan.’

‘It isn’t Pakistan,’ said the Ambassador. ‘It is mostly Tibet, and partly Central Asia.’

‘Tibet is a wart. She is too small to cause any real damage. We are all concerned about Central Asia…’

‘Can you persuade India to stop interfering?’

‘I don’t have time. We need decisions within the hour. But what I can promise you is another six Typhoon-class nuclear-powered submarines, ready armed with nuclear missiles, if you stand back.’

‘And if we don’t?’

‘I will have no option but to consider ending military cooperation.’

‘That is a small carrot and a big threat.’

‘Suyin,’ said Gorbunov, ‘I have known you for many, many years as we have witnessed the emergence of our two countries. I have envied China in its economic determination. You covet our military arsenal. As I have encouraged Russians to take a lead from you in economic policy, please impress upon your President to take a lead from us on military policy. We have the experience of the Cold War and we know the bitter taste of defeat. If you take the carrot, China will be a formidable naval power in the region. If you fight India over Tibet right now, you will be hauled back fifty years.’

‘You’re wrong, Vlad,’ said Kang, leaning forward in her chair. ‘At the end of the Cold War, you stood isolated. The industrialized democracies were against you, as was China. We have gone about our development with greater patience. We experimented with Dragon Strike and found that the United States did not have sufficient backbone for an all-out war. There is a view in Beijing, which I agree with, that this might now be the time to test the challenges on our western borders.’

‘You’ll play into the American’s hands and get the Russian people worried as well.’

Kang laughed: ‘You have nothing to worry about!’

‘All right,’ said Gorbunov. ‘But you’ll reinforce the view that China, like we were, is ideologically bent on regional, if not world, domination. Once that is believed, co-existence with the United States will be impossible. The pressures to contain the last major one-party state will be immense until you transform yourself into a democratic society. No American president can be seen to be weak with you.’

‘But they have been and always will be,’ said Kang. ‘Your Marxist ideology was very different to ours. You avowed its determination to maintain Communist parties in power, by force if necessary. You intervened in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, threatened to do so in Poland and even in China. We have no such ambitions, no international network of Communist parties to undermine Western positions. They may think we run a repressive one-party state, but we threaten no Western democracy and we are hauling tens of millions of people out of poverty.’

‘So you’re going to…’ Gorbunov paused.

‘It’s called Operation Dragon Fire. Yes, Vlad, we’re going to do it. What will you do?’

‘Confine it to Tibet and the border, and it will be business as usual.’

As soon as he had walked Kang to the steps of the building and shown her into her car, Gorbunov telephoned the American Ambassador, Milton Ashdown. Ashdown arrived at the President’s private office within fifteen minutes.

‘Please tell President Hastings that Russia would like India and Pakistan to solve this problem without outside interference.’

Ashdown had made significant contributions to Hastings’s election campaign and the two men were personal friends. But he was primarily a businessman who was finding the intricacies of diplomacy difficult. Ashdown also had little time for academic theorists who argued for any alternative system of government which opposed democracy and the free market.

‘I will pass on your message. No doubt the President will want to speak with you directly. But, with all respect, if the free world is threatened by nuclear war, the United States will do everything within its power to stop it — not minding whose sovereign territory we violate.’

‘That’s what I feared,’ said Gorbunov.