The Bear and the Dragon - By Tom Clancy Page 0,131

a combat arm, but he distinguished himself in Afghanistan toward the end of that adventure on their part. He’s got the Order of the Red Banner and he’s a Hero of the Soviet Union—got both of those as a colonel. He moved rapidly up from there. Good political connections. He’s worked closely with a guy named Golovko—he’s a former KGB officer who’s still in the spook business and is personally known to the President—ours, that is. Golovko is essentially the operational XO for the Russian President Grushavoy—like a chief minister or something. Grushavoy listens to him on a lot of issues, and he’s a pipeline into the White House on matters ‘of mutual interest.’ ”

“Great. So the Russians have Jack Ryan’s ear via this guy. What sort of mensch is he?” CINCPAC asked.

“Very smart and very capable, our friends at Langley say. Anyway, back to Bondarenko. The book on the guy says he’s also very smart and also very capable, a contender for further advancement. Brains and personal bravery can be career-enhancing in their military, just like ours.”

“What sort of shape is his new command in?”

“Not very good at all, sir. We see eight division-sized formations, six motor-rifle divisions, one tank, and one artillery division. All appear to be under strength on our overheads, and they don’t spend much time in the field. Bondarenko will change that, if he goes according to the form card.”

“Think so?”

“As their J-3, he agitated for higher training standards—and he’s a bit of an intellectual. He published a lengthy essay last year on the Roman legions. It was called ‘Soldiers of the Caesars.’ It had that great quote from Josephus, ‘Their drills are bloodless battles and their battles are bloody drills.’ Anyway, it was a straight historical piece, sources like Josephus and Vegetius, but the implication was clear. He was crying out for better training in the Russian army, and also for career NCOs. He spent a lot of time with Vegetius’s discussion of how you build centurions. The Soviet army didn’t really have sergeants as we understand the term, and Bondarenko is one of the new crop of senior officers who’s saying that the new Russian army should reintroduce that institution. Which makes good sense,” Lahr thought.

“So, you think he’s going to whip his people into shape. What about the Russian navy?”

“They don’t belong to him. He’s got Frontal Aviation tactical aircraft and ground troops, but that’s all.”

“Well, their navy’s so far down the shitter they can’t see where the paper roll is,” Mancuso observed. “What else?”

“A bunch of political stuff you can read up on at your leisure. The Chinese are still active in the field. They’re running a four-division exercise now south of the Amur River.”

“That big?”

“Admiral, they’ve been on an increased training regimen for almost three years now. Nothing frantic or anything, but they’ve been spending money to get the PLA up to speed. This one’s heavy with tanks and APCs. Lots of artillery live-fire exercises. That’s a good training area for them, not much in the way of civilians, kinda like Nevada but not as flat. At first when they started this we kept a close eye on it, but it’s fairly routine now.”

“Oh, yeah? What do the Russians think about it?”

Lahr stretched in his chair. “Sir, that’s probably why Bondarenko drew this assignment. This is backward from how the Russians trained to fight. The Chinese have them heavily outnumbered in theater, but nobody sees hostilities happening. The politics are pretty smooth at the moment.”

“Uh-huh,” CINCPAC grunted behind his desk. “And Taiwan?”

“Some increased training near the strait, but those are mainly infantry formations, and nothing even vaguely like amphibious exercises. We keep a close eye on that, with help from our ROC friends.”

Mancuso nodded. He had a filing cabinet full of plans to send 7th Fleet west, and there was almost always one of his surface ships making a “courtesy call” to that island. For his sailors, the Republic of China was one hell of a good liberty port, with lots of women whose services were subject to commercial negotiations. And having a gray U.S. Navy warship tied alongside pretty well put that city off-limits for a missile attack. Even scratching an American warship was classified delicately as a casus belli, a reason for war. And nobody thought the ChiComms were ready for that sort of thing yet. To keep things that way, Mancuso had his carriers doing constant workups, exercising their interceptor and strike-fighter forces in the manner of