Battle Ready

by Tom Clancy

  THE FIRST of the conferences was held in Moscow late in 1990. It opened in the Russian Ministry of Defense (the Russians’ Pentagon). The visit—a first for American militaries—was a thrilling moment for Zinni.

  The delegation entered the building through the ceremonial entrance, which opened into an enormous marble-walled hall. White marble tablets along the sides displayed the Order of Lenin and all the other awards of the Soviet Union. After a brief wait, tall doors at the far end of the hall swung open and out came an impressive phalanx of uniforms, Russian generals and marshals, led by the Defense Minister, Marshal Shaposhnikov, all large men, all marching in unison, their stomping tread making loud echoes as they approached. They were so formal and official, Zinni wondered for a moment if they hadn’t gotten their script wrong and come expecting a surrender ceremony. But the thought passed.

  There were formal greetings and Russian-style handshakes (very stiff, very deliberate, and very hearty), and then the NATO officers were ushered into a conference room and seated at a long table.

  The initial discussions, led by General McCarthy, focused on General Galvin’s message: The NATO delegation had come to celebrate a great victory for the Soviet people and to work hand in hand with the Russian military.

  The Russians seemed to accept this gesture of goodwill . . . though without much visible enthusiasm.

  Later, McCarthy and the others in his delegation subtly probed to detect if the Russians saw their role as being agents of political change or if they intended to take a more commanding part in the new Russia. It very quickly became apparent that they didn’t have much enthusiasm for politics, either.

  After the initial, formal presentations, the Russian and NATO officers split up into more specialized groups, and later transferred to a conference center outside Moscow. Zinni was paired off with the Russian director of operations (the counterpart of the J-3 at the Pentagon); they talked cordially about operations issues.37

  As the day wore on, Zinni began to pick up strange vibes from this impressive collection of senior Russians. Not the vibes you might expect: He had zero sense that the Russian leaders were dangerous, or posed a threat. Far from it. They were not hostile; they were not unfriendly. Though they recognized that their system was defeated, they did not seem defeated or crushed or resentful. On the contrary, they were welcoming. Marshal Shaposhnikov and his senior staff were cordial and pleasant. But they never probed, never took initiative, never showed the slightest curiosity. If there had ever been fire in this group, the fire was dead.

  At first, Zinni wondered why they didn’t seem especially enthusiastic about the NATO visit, or get immersed in any way in the discussion, but it soon became clear that they weren’t very enthusiastic about anything. Neither did he see any burning resistance . . . or any burning sense of cooperation; yet they proved to be as cooperative as the Americans wanted them to be.

  For all their unresponsiveness and lethargy, the Russians were amazingly open . . . and this from some of the most secretive people in the world. Though none of them would take the initiative, they would certainly respond—and with astonishing candor. If asked about the change to democracy, they’d spill their guts. If asked about problems in their military, they’d show their dirty laundry. They didn’t blink at talking about the severe hazing in the ranks or the epidemic of alcoholism.38 And Zinni was shocked to see the openly permitted dissent and criticism of the senior leadership by junior officers.

  And yet—again—the unexpected openness did not carry with it a burning sense that “We have to do something about our problems.” There was no sense that these senior leaders expected to do much of anything.39

  The truth, Zinni concluded later, was that the Russian military leaders were just there. Events had blown by them, and they were going through the motions. They had no plan. They had no vision—good or bad—about where they fit, what they would do. They were just along for the ride. Their message to the NATO delegation: “This is happening. You’re here. Okay. This is what we do today. And fine, you’re nice people, we like you. But don’t expect us to give a damn.”

  The organization had resigned itself to being passengers in the car. The car was going wherever it was going, and they were along for the ride. They didn’t intend to drive it, steer it, or put the brakes on. They were just in there.

  To Zinni, this was simply an astonishing mental state. It was beyond his experience. He couldn’t figure it out.

  The good news, he realized, was the younger officers. The open dissent and criticism he’d noticed was a sign of hope. Many colonels proved to be fiery, outspoken reformers, railing at the collapse of the military and the corruption of senior officers. The younger officers were far more curious than their elders. They asked questions about America and Europe. They made it clear that they hadn’t bought the line they’d been trained to follow, that NATO was the enemy they were supposed to hate. “You guys are not bad guys,” they told the delegation. “We need to change things and learn from you.”

  The most outrageously outspoken of the younger officers turned out to be the aide assigned to Zinni, a cadet from the Propaganda Corps named Vlad. Vlad, who had learned to speak English by watching Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, salted his conversations with Schwarzenegger clichés—and Schwarzenegger-type attitudes. His irreverence got him in constant trouble with the stern, hard-nosed, never smiling, but extremely beautiful, female captain who supervised the aides. She was always shooting him with killer looks, but he never seemed to notice them. Zinni came to call him “Vlad the Impaler,” after his ability to skewer himself.40

  In his comic Austro-Russian American accent, Vlad gave Zinni the low-down on life for the troops in the barracks: There was no morale. There was no unit cohesion and unit pride. There was no leadership (the senior leadership spent much of the time drunk). Vlad’s pay was so low (he got the equivalent of $4 U.S. every month) that by the end of the month he had no money; if his mother didn’t send him food, he was in trouble. He laughed: The old indoctrination had tried to promote the belief that America and the decadent West were on the edge of collapse, where the truth was the reverse. Everything he’d been led to believe about communism had been a lie.

  It was hard to believe how far the great Soviet military machine had fallen.

  But they were still capable of grand, old-style Russian hospitality, highlighted by lavish banquets for the NATO delegation. For Vlad these were a gift from the gods. He had never seen such meals. He wolfed them down like a starving man (which was not far from the truth), and drank with no less fervor; he never left a banquet sober. “For God’s sake,” he pleaded with Zinni, “I’ve gotta eat. Keep your toasts and speeches short. If you make them long, I’ll have to translate, and I’ll starve.”

  On a trip one evening to the famous Moscow Circus, Vlad grabbed the tour bus microphone and performed a politically incorrect monologue aimed at the Russian leaders. This did not amuse the senior Russian officers on the bus. When Zinni told him to cool it, he just laughed, “Hey, man, no pain, no gain.”

  Vlad was always in trouble, but he was also shrewd and a survivor; and it turns out that he had what amounted to an escape clause from the Russian Army. Though his father was Russian, his mother was Latvian. This meant he’d be able to choose his homeland in the emerging breakup of the USSR—Latvia or Russia. Since Latvia was becoming independent and would have its own military, he could, if he chose, join the Latvian Army. . . . This was not an easy decision. The Russian Army was obviously a very bad fit; but did he want to make the big leap to Latvia? (Zinni never learned what happened to his irreverent young aide.)

  The Moscow Circus’s grand finale was the magical appearance out of nowhere of a man on a white horse, who raced around the ring carrying a Russian flag. The crowd roared with joy. It was the Russian and not the Soviet flag they were cheering. One month later, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics officially ceased to exist.

  SOME THINGS took a long time to change.

>   On a shopping expedition near the U.S. Embassy, Zinni got interested in a Christmas present for his wife Debbie. Since he was in uniform, he was treated with special attention (he didn’t realize how special), but that did not spare him from the incredibly tedious process everyone had to go through to buy anything at a communist store. The idea was to provide as many jobs as possible, which meant that the purchaser had to pass through multiple lines, each presided over by a clerk who had zero interest in serving customers. First, you stood in a line to wait your turn to look at an item. Then, if you wanted it, you were given a chit to pay for it at the end of another line. You then took your chit to another line to wait for your purchase to be wrapped.

  Zinni went through this process to buy a Father Frost tea cozy (Debbie collected Santas; Father Frost is the Russian version of Santa).

  Back home a few weeks later, as she was getting the Zinni house ready for Christmas, Debbie took Father Frost out of his box, planning to put him on display in the dining room, when she discovered a strange device in his pouch of toys.

  The next day, curious, Zinni took the device into the EUCOM security section. They confirmed what he expected: It was a listening device . . . a bug.

  Before taking it in, he yelled into it: “The Cold War’s over!”

  He doubted if anybody heard him.

  SHORTLY AFTER the Gulf War, Zinni took part in a Marine Corps delegation that visited several former Eastern bloc nations41—as part of the growing military-to-military exchange programs developed by EUCOM. Unlike his trip to Moscow, this proved to be a hopeful experience. Eastern Europe was adapting far more easily to democratization and a free-market economy than their eastern neighbors in the FSU. Unlike the Russians, they were ready and eager for the change, having, in their past, experienced free political and economic systems, while earlier Hungarian, Czech, and Polish rebellions against their Soviet masters had given their enthusiasm some bite.

  Since this visit came just after the Gulf War, the former Warsaw Pact militaries were in something like shock over the quick and total defeat of Iraq’s military, trained, organized, and equipped as they were by the Soviets. Since the rout had serious implications for other Soviet-style militaries, Zinni was bombarded by questions about American tactics and capabilities, as well as considerable curiosity about how Americans had viewed them as potential adversaries. His answer: “We saw you as formidable enemies; we respected you; and we hoped we wouldn’t have to fight you.” His answer—which happened to be the truth—pleased them.

  But their chief concern was not about facing the past but about facing the future. At that time NATO’s expansion was beginning to surface; and all of them badly wanted to bring their military services up to speed to join it. They were eager to show Zinni the military reforms they had already implemented, they briefed him on those that were planned . . . and of course they were quick to tell him that they needed all the help the U.S. could give.

  The most striking change for Zinni was the reorientation of defenses. For obvious reasons, Warsaw Pact nations had not been permitted forces facing to the east. Now that had changed; and they had organized allaroundsecurity, with forces positioned on all of their borders. This must have been demoralizing to the Russians.

  YUGOSLAVIA, even then, was already a special and dangerous case. After the death of Tito and the fall of the Soviets, the country had fragmented, and old ethnic hatreds had reemerged. In 1990, the descent into ethnic violence had started in Bosnia, with Serbs, Croats, and Muslims all fighting each other. Of course, the ordinary people who just wanted to live their lives suffered.

  That year, EUCOM put together the first of many aid missions to Bosnia, a humanitarian airlift operation called “Provide Promise.” Though Provide Promise was actually implemented by the Air Force, the EUCOM J-3, as the Unified Command headquarters, monitored and controlled the operation and supplied intelligence. This new priority caused Zinni to take in the Balkan reports and briefings provided by the command’s intelligence experts and analysts—an extremely knowledgeable and insightful collection of young majors and captains.

  They were not optimistic about the future of what had been called Yugoslavia. “This place was an artificial nation,” they reported. “Tito was strong enough to hold it together by force of personality, but there was never such a thing as Yugoslavia. Its pieces were never meant to be joined together; and it’s ready to burst. It’s going to come apart like an old suitcase.”

  Though these insights won’t be news to anyone now, better than ten years later, at the time they were prescient. The EUCOM analysts saw the future of the Balkans much earlier than anybody else. Other than Zinni, they got few listeners. And he was in a quandary about how to respond.

  “How important are the Balkans?” he asked himself. “Are they vital to American or European security? Can we just let the region go and blow itself up?”

  Zinni’s answer: “If we want to stop it, we’re going to have to get involved in this. Provide Promise does not go far enough. It’s a small Band-Aid on a sucking chest wound, and it’s only going to get worse. We need to get involved early, when the situation is resolvable. We need to consider an international peacekeeping mission that only the U.S. can put together. It’s pay me now or pay me more later.”

  Meanwhile, everybody in Europe and the West in general was in the euphoric stage of the peace dividend. Nobody was interested in taking on the problem. Though others in EUCOM, like General McCarthy, saw the value of early involvement, they couldn’t generate interest in the kind of operation that would have to be mounted.

  Eventually, of course, the problems spread throughout the region and forced the UN and NATO to face them.

  Flash forward to 1992, near the end of Zinni’s EUCOM tour. Zinni was asked to sit in for his boss on a first-time staff brief for the new CINC, General Shalikashvilli. During the briefings, General McCarthy asked each person on the staff to give the new CINC their prediction of the single most challenging issue that would dominate his time and attention during his tour.

  “That’s going to be the Balkans and the former Yugoslavia,” Zinni told Shalikashvilli, without hesitation, basing this statement not on intuition or inspiration but on hard analysis and the day-to-day involvement he and his colleagues had already been going through in handling the growing problems in the Balkans. These could easily be seen by anyone who was paying attention.

  His words, however, did not sit well with everyone at the briefing. The EUCOM director of intelligence, for example, an Air Force major general, jumped all over him. “You’re crazy, Zinni,” he declared. “Everyone knows that dealing with the former Soviet Union will be the major issue facing us.”

  What would that general say now?

  The other regions in the EUCOM area of responsibility also generated their share of crises.

  In Africa, three Non-combatant Evacuation Operations (NEO) were launched during Zinni’s time at EUCOM. All of them were run out of the EUCOM Operations Directorate.

  The first of these was Zinni’s earliest EUCOM crisis.

  Operation Sharp Edge in Liberia (mentioned earlier) was conducted by the Sixth Fleet’s Amphibious Ready Group, after fighting between various brutal local factions threatened foreigners. It started out as an evacuation mission, but when the ambassador realized he had Marines on hand to protect him he decided he might as well hang in there. And the quick in-and-out evacuation turned into a several-months-long operation to provide security for the embassy. This required a large military presence, because of the chaos and slaughter in the streets of Liberia’s capital, Monrovia. And this in turn stirred up a serious debate over whether the mission was worth tying up key Navy-Marine assets of EUCOM’s fleet. The embassy was not in fact doing anybody in Liberia much good. Though the battle went upstairs to the State Department and the Department of Defense, months went by before it was finally ended as Liberia calmed after the assassination of the President of the country, Samuel K. Doe.

  The oth
er two African NEOs were executed by Dick Potter’s Special Operations Command, who conducted flawless operations in Sierra Leone (Operation Silver Anvil) and Zaire.

  THE GULF WAR

  The Persian Gulf War added tremendous and unexpected demands on top of all the changes and crises EUCOM was facing.

  In the Cold War, EUCOM had always been the center of focus—the priority Unified Command. The theater had traditionally been the receiver of forces from elsewhere for NATO employment. Even during a major war (like Vietnam), the command never gave up forces. It was totally geared to take forces in, not to give forces out. That was about to change. EUCOM was now being called on to be a supporting Unified Command and to flow forces out to another theater of operations.

  General Galvin immediately saw the significance of this new role for EUCOM: It was ideally suited to become a forward base supporting operations elsewhere from the well-established bases in Europe. The strong relationships among NATO nations, forged over half a century, could be used to build the strategic bridge necessary to reach both the Gulf, and, later, other world trouble spots.

  The job ahead was enormous. Creating the strategic bridge meant working out air and sea lines of communications, overflight rights, diplomatic clearances, sea transit permissions. Since most of the troops and supplies for CENTCOM from the States had to flow through EUCOM’s area of responsibility, EUCOM was responsible for it all. EUCOM had to worry about getting them down there, protecting them, and coordinating with the countries involved.

  It was an entirely new experience for the command, which had to redesign not only their philosophy of getting such things done but the mechanics of doing it. They had to work through all the complexities of the German rail system, barges, road transport, and convoys to the ports. They had to work through the most efficient use of all the ports—using Rotterdam and the ports on the North Sea and the Baltic as well as the more obvious Mediterranean ports.