Red Storm Rising

Red Storm Rising is a techno-thriller novel by Tom Clancy about a third world war in Europe between NATO and Warsaw Pact forces, set around the mid-1980s. Though there are other novels dealing with a fictional World War III, this one is notable for the way in which numerous settings for the action - from Atlantic convoy duty to shooting down reconnaissance satellites to tank battles in Germany - all have an integral part to play on the outcome.

Azerbaijani terrorists destroy a new oil-production facility in the Soviet Union, severely crippling Soviet oil production and threatening to wreck the Soviet economy. Facing a perceived need to make crippling concessions to the West to survive the crisis, the Politburo chooses a different path: war. The Politburo decides to seize the Middle East by force to secure a new source of oil; to prevent NATO's combined reaction, they launch a KGB operation to split NATO by making it appear as if Germany launched an unprovoked terrorist attack on the U.S.S.R

Unfortunately, the KGB operation has limited success: the coming Soviet attack on Germany is detected a few days in advance, giving NATO time to start mobilization, and providing sufficient evidence to prevent the fracturing of NATO (Greece is successfully convinced that this is a "German-Russian disagreement" and Turkey is not willing to enter yet either). The war quickly becomes a meat-grinder in Germany: NATO forces slowly give ground while inflicting terrible losses on Warsaw pact armies.

One of the strategic masterstrokes of the Soviet Union's opening moves in the war is their seizure of Iceland, destroying the American air base at Keflavík. This destroys the GIUK SOSUS line (American seabed hydrophones), expected to prevent the Soviet Navy from operating effectively in the Atlantic by making it impossible for their ships and submarines to enter the Atlantic undetected. The Soviet Navy becomes an offensive weapon, and the Warsaw Pact seriously damages NATO's war effort by damaging resupply convoys coming from North America.

In Germany, the battle becomes a war of attrition that the Soviets expect to win, having greater reserves of men and material. NATO holds the Warsaw Pact forces to small but continual advances only through the profligate expenditure of every weapon at hand.

As the Warsaw Pact advance fails to achieve its planned breakthrough, the Politburo considers the use of tactical nuclear weapons. The general (eventually) in charge of the Western European theatre (the Politburo keeps relieving and shooting unsuccessful generals) recognizes the slippery slope, and stages a coup, replacing most of the Politburo with three junior members who opposed the war at the beginning.

Analysis

An important part of this techno-thriller is the examination of a conventional ground war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Clancy suggests that several conventional doctrines about a modern ground conflict between modern armies are wrong or underestimated. For example, Clancy plausibly suggests that munitions expenditures would be far higher than projected; that combat helicopters like the Apache and the Hind are not nearly as survivable as projected; that the mobility granted by modern armor means that the Soviet doctrine of a massed thrust achieving a breakthrough of the enemy lines is a fiction--the enemy can withdraw and reform its lines too easily to break; also, modern air power can only dominate a battlefield in the absence of an opposing modern air force.

Interestingly enough, the 2003 invasion of Iraq (although far more of a mismatch than a mid-1980s NATO-Warsaw Pact conflict would have been) did provide some evidence for Clancy's hypothesis. The US Army's Apaches proved more vulnerable to ground fire than had been predicted beforehand, and by the war's end the majority of close air support was being delivered by heavily armoured A-10 Warthog ground attack aircraft. Fittingly, Clancy identifies the A-10 as being a key weapon in his Red Storm Rising scenario. His predictions on the high rate of munitions expenditure also appears to have been borne out - even though the initial attack on Iraq was short, it drained US arsenals to an alarming extent, forcing the Pentagon to undertake a crash programme to rebuild stocks of smart weapons.

Military studies

Red Storm Rising is basic literature at many military academies inside and outside the United States, as are several other books by Tom Clancy. It is also frequently referred to by military scientists and is widely regarded as being one of the most realistic scenarios of an East-West war.

Board game

In 1989, TSR, Inc released a board game designed by Douglas Niles, based on the book. The game won the Origins Award for Best Modern-Day Boardgame of 1989 and Best Graphic Presentation of a Boardgame of 1989.

Computer game

There is also a computer game based on the book's scenario produced and released by MicroProse in the late 1980s. The player has a nuclear submarine in his command. It features adventure elements and a plot in addition to the simulation. The skill level can be changed by changing some of the initial conditions of the scenario. The game was released for the Amiga (released in 1990), Atari ST (1989), Commodore 64 (1988) and IBM-PC (circa 1989) home computers.

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