Authors: Humphrey Hawksley
The obvious targets from the South China Sea would be the Chinese cities of Guangzhou, the southern commercial capital, the southern naval headquarters at Zhanjiang and the coastal bases at
Shantou, Xiamen or Fuzhou.
As far as Gorbunov knew, the submarine was still called simply the Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV) and it had not yet gone out for public trials for fear that other navies would pick up and
copy its signature for future recognition.
Gorbunov was still authorizing limited help to the Surya intercontinental ballistic missile programme, aimed at creating a vehicle with a range of 12,800 kilometres, capable of reaching the
United States. The programme was veiled in secrecy. Not even Gorbunov knew how far advanced it was. But if it ever worked, a missile launched from Delhi would be able to target an area bounded by
Raleigh in North Carolina, Omaha in Nebraska and Eugene in Oregon. If it was launched 500 kilometres north of New Delhi, the range could go much further south.
If India declared the Surya, it would then equalize China’s DF-32 solid-fuel 12,800 kilometre range missile, whose technical guidance system had been supplied by Russia.
India and China would have only a handful of missiles compared to Russia, which would remain the undisputed leader of the bloc. When all three powers lined up against the United States,
Washington would think again about humiliating the developing world and committing another Balkan-style campaign.
But now, suddenly, unity within Gorbunov’s tripartite bloc was threatened. Pakistan, China’s ally, had carried out the first nuclear attack since Hiroshima. India would respond
within a matter of hours. If China became involved, it could take generations for the strategic alliance to recover.
The Russian President postponed meetings with his Defence and Foreign Policy teams, then personally telephoned the Chinese Ambassador, Kang Suyin, who was at the residence but awake. Gorbunov
asked her to come straight round. They met alone in Gorbunov’s sprawling office, just off the cabinet room. Kang was a graduate from Moscow University and they spoke in Russian.
‘I urge you not to get involved,’ began Gorbunov. ‘If you do, there will only be one winner, the United States.’
Kang nodded cautiously: ‘Possibly you are right. But it is more complex.’
‘We don’t have time for complications,’ urged Gorbunov. ‘You shared with us the outrage of the Kosovo operation in 1999. You watched as American missiles reduced your
Embassy in Belgrade to rubble. We watched as NATO seized territory from one of our closest strategic allies in Europe. All of us, including India, were appalled and have tailored our defence needs
to meet future threats from the United States. Against such a global policy, it is not worth defending Pakistan.’
‘It isn’t Pakistan,’ said the Ambassador. ‘It is mostly Tibet, and partly Central Asia.’
‘Tibet is a wart. She is too small to cause any real damage. We are all concerned about Central Asia . . .’
‘Can you persuade India to stop interfering?’
‘I don’t have time. We need decisions within the hour. But what I can promise you is another six
Typhoon
-class nuclear-powered submarines, ready armed with nuclear missiles,
if you stand back.’
‘And if we don’t?’
‘I will have no option but to consider ending military cooperation.’
‘That is a small carrot and a big threat.’
‘Suyin,’ said Gorbunov, ‘I have known you for many, many years as we have witnessed the emergence of our two countries. I have envied China in its economic determination. You
covet our military arsenal. As I have encouraged Russians to take a lead from you in economic policy, please impress upon your President to take a lead from us on military policy. We have the
experience of the Cold War and we know the bitter taste of defeat. If you take the carrot, China will be a formidable naval power in the region. If you fight India over Tibet right now, you will be
hauled back fifty years.’
‘You’re wrong, Vlad,’ said Kang, leaning forward in her chair. ‘At the end of the Cold War, you stood isolated. The industrialized democracies were against you, as was
China. We have gone about our development with greater patience. We experimented with Dragon Strike and found that the United States did not have sufficient backbone for an all-out war. There is a
view in Beijing, which I agree with, that this might now be the time to test the challenges on our western borders.’
‘You’ll play into the American’s hands and get the Russian people worried as well.’
Kang laughed: ‘You have nothing to worry about!’
‘All right,’ said Gorbunov. ‘But you’ll reinforce the view that China, like we were, is ideologically bent on regional, if not world, domination. Once that is believed,
co-existence with the United States will be impossible. The pressures to contain the last major one-party state will be immense until you transform yourself into a democratic society. No American
president can be seen to be weak with you.’
‘But they have been and always will be,’ said Kang. ‘Your Marxist ideology was very different to ours. You avowed its determination to maintain Communist parties in power, by
force if necessary. You intervened in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, threatened to do so in Poland and even in China. We have no such ambitions, no international network of Communist parties to
undermine Western positions. They may think we run a repressive one-party state, but we threaten no Western democracy and we are hauling tens of millions of people out of poverty.’
‘So you’re going to . . .’ Gorbunov paused.
‘It’s called Operation
Dragon Fire
. Yes, Vlad, we’re going to do it. What will you do?’
‘Confine it to Tibet and the border, and it will be business as usual.’
As soon as he had walked Kang to the steps of the building and shown her into her car, Gorbunov telephoned the American Ambassador, Milton Ashdown. Ashdown arrived at the
President’s private office within fifteen minutes.
‘Please tell President Hastings that Russia would like India and Pakistan to solve this problem without outside interference.’
Ashdown had made significant contributions to Hastings’s election campaign and the two men were personal friends. But he was primarily a businessman who was finding the intricacies of
diplomacy difficult. Ashdown also had little time for academic theorists who argued for any alternative system of government which opposed democracy and the free market.
‘I will pass on your message. No doubt the President will want to speak with you directly. But, with all respect, if the free world is threatened by nuclear war, the United States will do
everything within its power to stop it – not minding whose sovereign territory we violate.’
‘That’s what I feared,’ said Gorbunov.
Newsroom, BBC Television Centre, London
Local time: 0030 Monday 7 May 2007
The midnight radio
bulletin had just finished. On the second floor, BBC News 24 interrupted its sports news to flash the Pakistani nuclear attack. In another part of the
BBC’s giant newsroom, World Service Television News had broken into its programming fifteen seconds earlier. Only a handful of staff was on duty in the main news-gathering area, a horseshoe
of desks, computers and banks of television screens. The World Duty Editor had made one telephone call to the home of the World Assignments Editor, who was on stand-by.
He then called the Asia hub bureau in Singapore, from where correspondents, producers, camera crew and technicians were despatched to the BBC bureaux in Islamabad and Delhi. They left from Hong
Kong, Singapore and Beijing. Reinforcements joined them from Jerusalem, Cairo and London.
Satellite transmission dishes, satellite telephones, portable edit packs, flak jackets and nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) warfare protection suits were loaded on commercial flights with
the reporting teams. Within a few hours, the BBC would have the most formidable news reporting system in place to cover what could become the world’s first nuclear war.
Briefing
Burma/Myanmar
Burma, or Myanmar, is a cultural and geographical buffer between East and South Asia. From 1885 until the 1930s, Burma was governed as part of British India. It was occupied by
Japan from 1942 to 1945, and won independence in 1948. After just fourteen years of democracy, the army seized power and Burma went into a state of self-imposed isolation. Troops brutally repressed
democracy demonstrations in 1988. The regime ignored a landslide election victory for the opposition party in 1990 and jailed its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Increasingly shunned by the international
community, Burma was courted by China. Chinese engineers built roads and military bases. The army was equipped with Chinese weapons. By the turn of the century, the Hanggyi Island naval base and
the Cocos Islands were being built to take Chinese naval ships, threatening India’s predominance in the Indian Ocean region.
India–Burma border, Tirap Frontier District, India
Local time: 0600 Monday 7 May 2007
GMT: 0030 Monday 7 May 2007
The attack from
the south came as a complete surprise, not least because the enemy troops broke into Indian territory, not from China, but from Burma.
Air support came from Dongkar and Orang in Tibet and Sinkaling, Myityina and Putao in Burma, laying down a devastating gauntlet of fire on the unprotected Indian positions. The main infantry
advance came up from Namya Ra, twenty-five kilometres south of the border.
For almost twenty years, since minor skirmishes in 1987, Chinese and Indian troops had successfully and peacefully protected their borders. At the most tense times, almost half a million troops
had faced each other. India deployed eleven divisions and the Chinese PLA deployed fifteen. The mountainous terrain, high-altitude climate and logistical supply difficulties deterred either side
from starting a protracted conflict there. India had reluctantly allowed China to continue its occupation of the Aksai Chin area, occupied since 1959, and nestling on the border with Kashmir. China
claimed, but had left alone, Arunachal Pradesh, to the east of Bhutan which borders Tibet.
In 1996, both governments agreed to reduce the size of their armies on the border, allowing India to deploy more men against Pakistan in Kashmir. But as tensions ebbed and flowed, troop levels
climbed back up again. In the past week, Indian satellites had picked up images of thousands of Chinese troops pouring in, threatening the northern border positions. India reinforced its own
positions with the Kameng, Subansiri, Siang and Lohit frontier positions.
Neither side seemed to want conflict. This front was cold, inhospitable and bereft of glory. Even though it was May, conditions in the mountains were appalling and no modern army would want to
fight there.
The Chinese build-up, carried out in broad daylight, was a massive decoy to the operation planned to the south. The deployment in Burma had been carried out at night to avoid satellite
surveillance. India’s concentration was primarily on Kashmir. An eye was being kept on the China front. The Burmese border was virtually being ignored.
Troops from the Indian 2nd Mountain Division were unprepared. They tactically withdrew and consolidated enough to stop the Chinese advance five kilometres from Ledo. Once there, both sides
secured their positions, but the Chinese army was dug in on Indian territory.
Presidential helicopter Marine One, USA
Local time: 1935 Sunday 6 May 2007
GMT: 0035 Monday 7 May 2007
Tom Bloodworth was
interrupted in the middle of a conversation, notifying his office that he was en route from Camp David to Washington. He immediately passed the news
on to John Hastings through the intercom on the Sikorsky VH-3D. ‘Pakistan has carried out a tactical nuclear strike.’
‘Battlefield or urban?’ asked Hastings.
‘Battlefield. It appears very precise and calculated.’
‘India?’
‘No word yet. We’re trying to get through to Dixit. But Chinese troops have also invaded India through Burma . . .’
Conversation on board was difficult at the best of times. Hastings remained quiet for five minutes, juggling his policy of domestic focus to the nuclear war which had just broken out in Asia.
Then he said: ‘Get me the details of our task forces in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea. We’ll have a full crisis meeting of the Principals’ Committee on landing at the White
House.’
Prime Minister’s Office, Downing Street, London
Local time: 0115 Monday 7 May 2007
The British Prime
Minister, Anthony Pincher, was woken by his Private Secretary, slipped on a tracksuit and gym shoes and came down from his flat above 11 Downing
Street. The Foreign Secretary, Christopher Baker, had just arrived. John Stopping and Sir Malcolm Parton had been in Downing Street for fifteen minutes. The emergency alert had come through from
the Permanent Operations Headquarters in Northwood, north London, which acted as a nerve centre for Britain’s military activities around the world.
Next door to the Prime Minister’s office the powerful Press Secretary, Eileen Glenny, was at her computer, writing options for a statement to go out on the rolling news channels as soon as
decisions had been made. She was determined to make sure her Prime Minister’s voice was heard before that of the American President, the Leader of the Opposition or any other European
leader.
Across the road, in the basement of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, officials from the relevant departments were setting up a twenty-four-hour operational working area, known as the
Emergency Room. The lead department was Asia–Pacific, with Martin Andrews as head of the South Asian Department taking immediate control. He drafted in experts on nuclear proliferation,
counter terrorism, consular affairs, for British nationals at risk, and liaison colleagues from the Secret Service (MI5) and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and other involved regional
departments, plus a representative from News Department.
The BBC, CNN and three Web sites were displayed on screens around the room and officials were already contacting embassies, collating the scant information and trying to ensure that the European
Community would speak with one voice. But already the French were being obstructive: they had sold Mirage aircraft to both India and Pakistan. Germany, which had been involved in India’s
nuclear-powered submarine technology, was noncommittal. The smaller countries such as Denmark and the Netherlands were worried that Britain would charge in with its militaristic hat, without
consultation, in the wake of whatever the Americans decided to do.