“If there is any change in Australian policy as a result of this act, that will be a bonus, but the real target is the link between Australia and India. I think a further part of Masanobu Tsuji's plan was to distract and neutralize India by reviving the Pakistan issue, India has by far the largest armed forces in the Triple Alliance but a sustained insurgency in the northern provinces will stretch our resources badly. The insurgencies in your northern and southern provinces are intended to distract and neutralize you to give you internal problems that will prevent you mobilizing your forces.
“With all three partners in the Triple Alliance distracted by these problems, Chipan can move into Burma unopposed using the insurgency there as an excuse. By the time we get our act together and counter the move, it will be too late.”
“A very fair assessment Sir Eric. One that, with some minor differences we agree. But I think it is a typical Japanese plan, it is very complicated and has many components. I think also there are parts of this plan that we are still missing. But it has the flaw all Japanese plans have, everything has to happen the way the planners intended and the other players have to fulfill their roles exactly according to the script. If all goes as planned and if everybody does as the planners expect then the results will be a great success. But we can see their plan and we are already countering the moves by doing the unexpected. His Majesty's visit is but one example. Tell me, Sir Eric, what do you do when you see a rabid dog?”
“Why shoot the poor thing of course.”
“No, Sir Eric, you capture it, with great care of course, and throw it into your enemy's house.” Sir Eric saw the Ambassador's eyes and was reminded of the old saying Stare into an abyss long enough and the abyss stares back. “Sir Eric, allow me to introduce you to our rabid dog.”
The Ambassador led him through the officers who'd gathered around a radio station that was broadcasting news of the catastrophe in Australia. She spoke quietly to one officer who turned around to greet him. Facing Sir Eric, wearing a Thai General's uniform with only a VPLA shoulder patch to distinguish it from the others in the room, was General Vo Nguyen Giap.
Krasny Kut, Southern Russia. Primary Headquarters, First Byelorussian Front
Everybody believes that secret weapons are weapons. Ask somebody to describe a new secret weapon and they will speak of a new gun perhaps or a new missile. Maybe a new tank or a new bomb. But, reflected Colonel-General Andrei Mikhailovich Taffkowski, sometimes secret weapons could be deadlier than any of those. The ones driving past him now were a superb example, an invention that had the potential to be deadlier than any gun or tank or missile. The long column of trucks were delivering Russia's new secret weapon to the troops as fast as the factories could churn them out.
Taffkowski maintained the stern, unyielding yet inspirational expression required of all Russian generals but inside he smiled to himself. America may have its big bombers, thank God it did have them, but Russia had its army. Much of it paid for by American dollars it was true the letters MSDAP were a wonderful thing. Mutual Self Defense Aid Program. A wonder indeed. America bought the weapons it approved from Russian companies and then gave them to the Russian Army. That was why the Russian nickname for the T-55 tank was the Washington - named for the face on the dollar bills that had paid for them, MSDAP had replaced the World War Two Three-Way Military Assistance Program and was providing those countries America smiled upon with military punch far above that they could have obtained otherwise.
MSDAP had proved to be an elegant solution to a whole set of serious problems. The Americans had changed the definition of war with The Big One. A country that went to war with America would be obliterated, nobody doubted that. But, there were other problems that were not in that category, regional problems, low-level problems that American nuclear bombers couldn't solve. So MSDAP armed American allies who would look after regional problems for her. It was easy to be an American ally, all you had to do was treat your civilian population decently, trade fairly with your partners and try to solve disputes with neighbors peacefully. The Americans didn't ask that you agreed with them or became like them. Just don't cause them trouble.
There were other benefits the MSDAP had brought to Russia and the other recipients. The equipment purchases pumped hard currency into the national economies, funding their recovery and the development of a new production base. In addition to strengthening the military forces of the country, they stabilized the economy and increased prosperity. That brought problems of its own of course, but the gains were worth the cost. For the Americans, it meant they didn't have to build things they didn't need.
If their own small Army didn't need them, their allies supplied each other with American dollars smoothing the way. Some of the purchases went to the American Army itself of course, the Americans used more Russian equipment than they liked to admit. All their biological warfare defense equipment for example. And now, Russia's new secret weapon. Andrei Mikhailovich Taffkowski had been present when the new equipment had been shown to the Americans. The head of the American purchasing commission, a Marine General called Krulak, had taken one look at the equipment. “I want them, they are mine, give them to me” had been his first words. He'd even offered to marry one.
The Americans had placed their orders for the new equipment but their own army and Marines would have to wait. There were more urgent priorities. The Russian Army had reached the end of its long road back from the grim days of 1942. Now, 17 years later, they were preparing to launch their assault on the last of the German occupiers who still sat on Russian land.
That was why his First Byelorussians were here and the First and Second Ukrainian Fronts and the First Khazak Front. They faced the survivors of Army Group South Ukraine under Field Marshal Walther Model. The problem was that the Germans were sitting behind some of the best natural defenses in the country. Andrei Mikhailovich Taffkowski knew that his right flank was blocked by the Black Sea, his left by the Caspian. The Assault was going to have to be head-on from the North and that was where his problem lay.
On paper, the front was almost 500 kilometers long, stretching from the Taganrogskiy Zaliv to the Volga Delta at Astrakhan. The catch was that half of that front was masked out by the River Volga itself and another large section was masked by the Tsimlyanskoye Vokh, a massive lake. In reality the ground for an offensive was packed into an 80 kilometer wide stretch east of the Tsimlyanskoye Vokh by Stalingrad and a 160 kilometer stretch south of the Tsimlyanskoye Vokh down by Novocherkassk.
The Germans were evil, not stupid. They could read a map and they knew where the attack was coming - and they'd had twelve years to stack their defenses. The problem was that lake. It split the two campaign areas so widely that they could not be mutually supporting. Hit both at once and the two thrusts would be bogged down in the defenses and the Germans would defeat them in detail. It was even worse because neither of those routes actually lead anywhere. The Southern route was sealed off by the Don River after less than 40 kilometers, the Eastern one by the Volga-Don canal.
Then there was the supply problem. The headquarters of the First Byelorussians was here because this was where the roads were. The axes of any attack had to be in areas where supplies could be concentrated and moved. The problem was that the road and rail nets centered on Stalingrad. Operations south of Stalingrad were impossible unless the road net was cleared. Andrei Mikhailovich Taffkowski shook his head and kicked some mud from his boots; the roads had been sprayed with water to keep dust clouds down.