“All right, gentlemen, let’s hear it.” The message requesting his presence in the Situation Room had been brief and vague. His Chief of Staff, Gordon West, had framed it carefully to avoid giving away details to any of the senators attending the morning conference in the Cabinet Room. His eyes met West’s for a moment, but the former governor of Minnesota looked away.
It was Admiral Brandon Scott who spoke. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had a reputation for bluntness and was an outspoken critic of the new Administration’s defense policies, but Connally also knew that the man understood his business.
“The Soviets have advanced their front to link up with the amphibious and desant forces around Trondheim,” Scott said. He touched a button on the table in front of him and the curtains blocking off the rear-projection screen at the end of the room opposite the door rolled back. A map of Norway appeared, showing Soviet positions astride the center of the country in red. A second blob of red marked their bastion around Oslo, so far supplied and reinforced entirely by air.
“How the hell did they move so far, so fast?” Connally asked. “I thought the plans for the defense of Norway were solid. Haven’t they been working on them for the past fifty years, for Crissakes?”
“Not quite, Mr. President,” Secretary of Defense George Vane responded. “The planning that was put in motion fifty years ago was based on having a strong NATO alliance. Most of them became obsolete the day the Berlin Wall went down and everybody started scrambling to make friends with the Russians.”
“I’ve had about all the anti-Communist bullshit I need for today from the Senate delegation that was just upstairs, George,” Connally snapped. “I don’t need rhetoric. I need results!”
“It isn’t just rhetoric, Mr. President,” Vane said quietly. “The simple fact is that the end of the Cold War era left us behind. It’s a classic case of being ready to fight the last war when the next one rolls around.”
“Just what’s that supposed to mean?” the President asked him coldly.
“It means that we didn’t evolve new strategies fast enough to keep pace with the new political realities,” Scott amplified. “For better than forty years we were all geared for one thing — the big conventional war in Europe, with Russian tanks pouring through the Fulda Gap and the NATO allies rallying to hold them off. The situation changed, but we didn’t change with it.”
“We counted on a couple of divisions attacking the Norwegian frontier,” Vane added. “So far we’ve identified six divisions on land and the equivalent of another one operating by sea, plus a pair of divisions providing desant troops for paradrops and airmobile attacks. There are at least twice as many tactical air units available in Scandinavia as we ever projected. Without the need to support operations in Germany or elsewhere the Soviets can overwhelm Norway without even trying very hard.”
The National Security Advisor, Herbert T. Waring, spoke for the first time. “There’s also the matter of our preparedness. If this had been happening in the seventies or the eighties we would’ve been on full alert the first day of the crisis, back when it was still just a lot of saber-rattling. We would have been shuttling Marines over there as fast as we could round up the flights to carry them, and the prepositioned supplies we had around Trondheim would’ve been worth something. Norway could’ve gone just like the buildup in Saudi before Desert Storm … but we let it slip by until it was too late to act.”
“Damn it, Herb, we just can’t keep on playing policeman to the world anymore,” West said harshly. “The last Administration tried that and ended up screwing around with the budget so much that we may never get the deficit under control again. And we came within a gnat’s whisker of an all-out war in Korea … not to mention the mess in India.”
“And if we hadn’t been out there pounding the old beat,” Scott said quietly, “India and Pakistan would’ve bombed each other back to the Stone Age with nukes. The world’s too small a place for isolationism to work any more.”
“Gentlemen, this isn’t getting us anywhere!” Connally said loudly. “I didn’t ask for a political debate.”
“You wanted to know why the Russians were able to push so far,” Vane said. “You’ve just heard a few good reasons. Not all of them, by any means. Without the English, supporting Norway is damned near impossible. The nearest air base we’ve got is Keflavik in Iceland, and that’s just not enough to close the GIUK gap, much less help out in Norway.”
“You’re still pushing for that, eh, George?” Connally said, raising an eyebrow. “If it’s such a lost cause, why should we get involved now?”
“Mr. President, we’re already involved. The incident this morning — the skirmish between our aircraft and the Russian recon flight — will guarantee that much.” Scott looked grim as he spoke. “Unless you’re ready to back down publicly in front of the Russians — and I mean the whole nine yards, public apologies, acceptance of their exclusion zone, everything — then we’re in this war up to our necks as of today.”
“Do the rest of you feel this way?” Connally asked.
Vane and Waring nodded. Vincent DuVall, the Director of the CIA, shrugged. “That’s our best estimate, Mr. President,” he said.
“Well, I don’t agree,” West said. “I think all of you are a little too ready to see the old Russian bogeyman lurking in the shadows again. We could stop this crisis right now if we would just give diplomacy time to work.”
Secretary of State Robert Heideman looked up. “The Soviet Ambassador was willing to arrange a conference on Norway when I talked to him last night,” he said. “Unless this incident with the Tu-95 gets in the way, we still have a foot in the door for some kind of peaceful settlement.”
“Sure,” Vane said harshly. “And in the two or three weeks it takes to get the conference rolling, Lindstrom’s people get the crap kicked out of them and the Russians occupy the rest of Norway. When are you people in State going to wake up and smell the smog? Diplomacy works best when you can back it up with firepower. Just compare the Carter era to the Reagan years. Ronald Reagan put an end to the Cold War, Bob, even if it was Gorby who got the awards.”
“I said I didn’t want a goddamned debate!” Connally exploded. They had covered this same ground over and over again since the start of the crisis. “Admiral, when you said we needed to show the flag in the Norwegian Sea I went along with it. Now it looks like your precious career has landed us in the middle of the war. But before we go any farther I need to know just what you think those men can accomplish. You tell me Lindstrom’s not going to hold out, that without British or German help we can’t deal with the Russian invasion. So why should I let your people proceed if things are as bleak as you people have been painting them?”
“Let me answer that one, Mr. President,” Vane said. “The time has come to quit thinking in terms of incremental jumps. We can’t just keep on reacting to each new Russian move, We’ve got to take the initiative.”
“How?” West demanded.
“I think our forces should go to DefCon Two immediately,” Van said. “Start mobilizing a strike fleet and a Marine Expeditionary Brigade right away, and put the 101st and the 82nd on alert. As soon as possible we need to start putting men into Norway.”
“That’s suicide!” Heideman protested. “While they have air superiority in Scandinavia we can’t possibly get the Army in place.”
“Glad to hear you understand that much,” Vane commented coldly. “We’ll also need to ferry air units into the Bergen area as quickly as possible so we have a chance to even out the odds a little.”