War with Russia

Exactly at a quarter past midnight Lukša activated his handheld radar transponder beacon. It would transmit a response when interrogated by the incoming signal from the descending Special Forces parachutists and would guide the Americans in.

Meanwhile, somewhere thirty kilometers to their south, 30,000 feet above northern Poland, those Americans had jumped from their aircraft about fifty-two minutes earlier. Deploying their parachutes soon after leaving their aircraft, they had crossed into Russian airspace and were now descending by Hi-Glide canopy at around 28 kilometers an hour toward the DZ, guided by the GPS strapped to their wrists and, hopefully, undetected by radar. Right now, as they neared their destination, Morland knew they would be keenly awaiting the return signal from the radar transponder, telling them that there were friendly guides awaiting them at the DZ.

As for Morland, he was suddenly desperate to hear reassuring American voices, backed by American muscle, an indication that he might be taking the first step on his route back to home and some sort of normality.

He didn’t have long to wait. Mere moments later, he was conscious of a faint whispering sound and to his front, in the open field beyond the tree line, he saw the silhouette of a parachute descending rapidly with a helmeted, oxygen-masked figure wearing night vision goggles dangling beneath it, followed in quick succession by several more. The American Green Berets had arrived.

2330 hours, Saturday, July 8, 2017, Central European Time 0030 hours, Sunday, July 9, 2017, Eastern European Time

Comprehensive Crisis Operations Management Center (CCOMC) SHAPE headquarters, Mons, Belgium

IT HAD BEEN a long day but, nevertheless, the night shift of the CCOMC, the nerve center of NATO’s strategic headquarters, was a hive of activity. In the open-plan command center, staff officers from all the NATO member states and several partner nations, civilian staff with impressive academic credentials and representatives from well-established partners like the EU and UN humanitarian organizations, planned and executed the campaign to eject Russia from the Baltic states.

In the Operations Center, with its banks of computers, multiple media feeds from different 24-hour news channels and social media, and its real-time satellite and drone surveillance imagery, up-to-the-minute information was filtered, analyzed and disseminated to the Command Group and supporting staff. Plans were then made and direction passed down to the Joint Command HQs at Brunssum in the Netherlands and Naples in Italy, as well as to NATO’s Maritime Command at Northwood and Air Command at Ramstein in Germany.

In the brightly lit CCOMC Conference Room, Admiral Max Howard, NATO’s strategic commander, together with McKinlay and Major General Skip Williams, the youthful-looking American Deputy Chief of Staff Operations, were running through the sequence of events for the operation due to be launched imminently, early on Sunday morning.

Williams was talking. “As you’d expect, SACEUR, there continues to be serious push back from the staff at Air Command. For an operation of this magnitude they’d expect to have several days to implement the air campaign or, at the very least, a thirty-six-hour window to guarantee even half-effective suppression of enemy air defenses. So, the idea of mounting the whole operation over one short July night is a major concern for them. They’ve pointed out that every war in recent history, even establishing a no-fly zone against an enemy as useless as the Libyans, has depended on an air campaign lasting several days.”

“That’s the way it’s going to be, Skip.” Howard was firm. “We’re in a different type of war and the old norms don’t apply here. An extended air campaign followed by a major land operation is old thinking. It’s exactly what the Russians will expect. We’ve got to be more agile. We know the integrated air-defense system covering Kaliningrad and Eastern Europe is exceptionally capable. I’m very aware that their S-400 system has missiles capable of engaging out to four hundred kilometers and they have shorter-range missiles for killing fast, maneuverable targets, so the Russians have the potential to make our air forces” job about as difficult as it can be.