“But he’s got a majority,” McKinlay said.
“Sure, but it’s pretty narrow, notwithstanding that Labour have gone into meltdown since Corbyn was elected leader. The problem is that many of the Tory backbenchers, especially the younger generation, aren’t prepared to back Article Five. All that stuff about Chamberlain in 1938, and why should our boys fight and, if necessary, die for a faraway country about which they know little and care even less.”
“Look how that ended up,” McKinlay muttered, as much to himself as to Wilson. This was no longer the country he had joined the Royal Marines to serve.
“Would a call from Washington help?” he asked finally.
“Maybe. But it would have to come from the White House.”
“Leave it with me. I’ll keep you posted, Tony. Speak to you soon. And stay well.”
Then he called to Swinton in the next door office. “Jamie, can you get SACEUR on the line? I need to speak to him before he gets to the White House.”
2200 hours, Thursday, May 18, 2017
“SO, MADAM PRESIDENT,” concluded MacWhite, “we’re as certain as we can be that the Russians are on the point of moving into Latvia. And very likely Estonia and Lithuania, too.”
Bear Smythson paused from his note taking—one of his more menial, but nevertheless important jobs as Executive Assistant to Abe MacWhite, the US National Security Adviser—and looked around the walls of the Situation Room, known among the National Security Council staff as the “woodshed.” It had been refurbished fairly recently and the original wooden paneling had been removed, because the acoustics made it hard to hear for those listening in via video or telephone. Certainly the new “whisper wall” fabric lining the walls was having its effect. The silence was oppressive, as the president of the most powerful nation on earth digested the facts that had just been briefed to her. Nobody moved.
President Lynn Turner Dillon looked around the table. Concentrated in that single room, where so many decisions about war and peace had been made, were the generals and admirals who controlled America’s war machine. She looked at MacWhite, the former Special Forces general, at Admiral Howard, the SACEUR, and at the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. All were men who had seen the brutality of combat and its consequences. These were not the warmongers of popular fiction. To a man, they found the reality of war abhorrent. But these were also men who knew that there are times when countries need to fight to protect themselves and their values.
She made up her mind, then spoke slowly and deliberately, looking each man in the eye in turn. “There is no question that what the Russians are conducting is an attack on Latvia. Latvia is a NATO member, an ally of America, and a country America has always stood by and recognized, even when others accepted its occupation by the Soviet Union. The propaganda barrage, the orchestration of yesterday’s riot and the cyber-attack you’ve just updated me on, are all part of this attack. The President is set on bringing Latvia back under Russia. We’ve got to stop him. Set up a call to him as soon as possible, please. Meanwhile, we should be prepared to use the military.”
She turned to MacWhite, the rock on whom she increasingly relied for his judgment. “What do you recommend, Abe?”
MacWhite turned a pencil over in his hands. “Ma’am, I think you’re right. You need to talk to the President in Moscow. Make sure that we are not misreading this in some way. We’ll get that set up now.”
Bear caught the eye of one of the NSC staffers, who left the room to set up the call.
MacWhite continued. “But we’ve also got to show the President that we’re determined to protect Latvia. We’ve heard that the Germans and others have stopped NATO declaring Article Five. You’ve talked to the Chancellor and she’s made it clear that the Bundestag and the Constitutional Court, to say nothing of her coalition partners SPD, the Social Democrats, will have to have their say before she can support the implementation of collective defense.” He looked at Admiral Howard.
SACEUR nodded his agreement.
“I think we need to get troops on the ground, reinforcement to the Baltic Air Policing mission, and ships into the eastern Baltic. If NATO won’t do it, we’ll have to do it bilaterally and with other willing allies.”
“With what—and with whom?” asked the President, turning to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Marty McCann, a sandy-haired Bostonian of Irish extraction. A former tank commander, he was also well known for his fine singing voice and tendency to burst into song. But this was not a time for Irish ballads.
“Madam President, in line with your direction, from last Saturday we reduced notice to move timings of 6th Fleet, 18th Airborne Corps, Special Operations Command and US Air Force Europe to twenty-four hours, with follow-up elements at between three and seven days. So in terms of immediate support, we could get six F-16s and roughly three hundred airmen from the 31st Fighter Wing at Aviano Airforce Base in north Italy, into Lielvārde Air Base, southeast of Riga.”
“How quickly?”
“The first transport planes from the Contingency Response Group can be there in twenty-four hours to set things up for the F-16s. Once they’ve got things ready on the ground, say another twenty-four hours, the fighters will follow. So, we’ll get the first fighters into Latvia around forty-eight hours from now.”
“And what else?”
“On the navy side, 6th Fleet has two destroyers conducting a port visit in Hamburg at the moment. They could be in the Gulf of Latvia in twenty-four hours. Land forces are more of a problem. It’ll take five days to get the personnel to man the brigade’s worth of vehicles we’ve got warehoused in Eastern Europe into the various countries the equipment is stored in. Then add at least another ten days to concentrate them in one place, as they’re spread real wide. So there’s not much we can do with them. My recommendation is to deploy the 82nd Airborne Division Global Response Force. That’s a Combat Team of around four hundred and fifty soldiers with the combat support and logistics to be able to operate on their own for several days. We can deploy the lead elements in eighteen hours.”
“Why can’t they operate for longer?” the President questioned.
“Airborne forces have to fight using what they land with, until they can link up with other ground troops or be resupplied by air. That means limits on their heavy weapons, mobility, logistics and stores. Once we’ve got them in, we’ll follow up with a brigade of air-landed ground troops, that’s around five thousand men, to reinforce them within a few days. But until the second wave are on the ground, the Global Response Force will be on its own. But that’s what they’re trained for.”
Satisfied, Dillon turned back to MacWhite. “What about other allies?”
MacWhite looked at his old friend McCann, a comrade whom he’d fought alongside in many campaigns. “Where do you think the Brits will stand, Marty? You know them well.”
“We’re getting close again after they messed up in Iraq. In actual fact, 82nd Airborne have been doing good work with the Brit 16th Air Assault Brigade. They put together a damn good exercise earlier this year—900 Brits from ‘3 Para Battlegroup dropping to secure an airfield alongside the All-Americans,” McCann replied, referring to the famous nickname of 82nd Airborne Division.