Eagle Guardian: The War of 2010

You guys are spoiling us with the quality & frequency of these updates.

nice twist. A Turkey close to Russia mean Greece is close to the US.

Thirty–Eight

The first several days of August saw the opening of armed attacks occurring in Estonia and Latvia – not in Lithuania though – where Russian separatists struck at the government and authorities there. These were orchestrated by Russia and in fact supported on the ground too by their operatives. The lie told was that these were oppressed locals striking blows for freedom: the reality was that this was all part of the last stage of pre-conflict tension coming from the Kremlin. Failure had come with the overture acts across the rest of Europe yet the schedule remained for everything else. In many ways, these actions undertaken in two of the three Baltic States weren’t that unexpected. The governments in Tallinn and Riga were expecting this to occur though were taken aback by the scale of it all and successes had when they had believed that they were more prepared than they ultimately were to defend against these. NATO’s senior leadership wasn’t surprised either. Such a thing had been anticipated and it was something mentioned three times the week beforehand as soon to occur when Obama was delivered his Presidential Daily Briefing by the US Intelligence Community. The Russians were certain to do this, he was told, to provide them with an excuse to move in to ‘restore order’ and ‘protect ethnic Russians’. They would also see this commence in spite of last month’s obstruction of their preparations when the CIA had seized one of the major weapons suppliers to these groups in that snatch mission in Prague. Once the attacks happened, later than projected, it was apparent that the delay had come from the disruption caused with the Prague operation. What hadn’t been mentioned to Obama, nor what anyone else had thought would happen, was that the Russians would send their own people into the fight and that they too would target NATO forces on the ground as well.

Gun and bomb attacks were made in parts of Estonia and Latvia where there were large minority or even small majority Russian-speaking populations within each country. Claims of responsibility were made by previous unheard-of groups supposed fighting for freedom. A barrage of internal and external propaganda came with this. What was important though was the perceived chaos that could be shown to be occurring in these regions which a-joining or were near to Russia itself. This was an operation undertaken by the FSB, not the GRU or the SVR. Back in Moscow, Bortnikov had pointed to the ‘failures’ made by the two other organisations and wormed his way into getting approval for Russian domestic intelligence agency to strike abroad. This action on what was supposed to be the turf of the others was all about the major internal rivalry between the three – the FSB being the most powerful of them all yet without complete dominance – though sold to the Russian Security Council as a smart move. The FSB had the necessary experience for this and would be acting within communities of Russian speakers just outside Russia’s borders. Moreover, the FSB long had intelligence ties within the two nations, which included ethnic Russians but also native Estonians & Latvians who would betray their own country, to exploit here. Bortnikov had gotten his way and been authorised to see this done. Northern and north-eastern parts of Estonia as well as the central belt of Latvia (from Riga on the Baltic coast following the course of the Daugava through the middle of the country all the way to the Russian border) saw a multitude of deadly attacks. FSB officers directed attacks by local terrorists – or freedom fighters if one chose to believe the propaganda – against the authorities and selected military sites. On a few occasions, the FSB itself used its own men to take a direct role though that was the exception rather than the rule. Where the FSB had its own men used in force, and exclusively too, was when they struck against the NATO military presence which could be found in Latvia. Both the multinational Baltic Mechanised Brigade and also the US Army’s Green Berets were targeted.

Dutch and German troops with the German-led battalion-sized battle group (there were Slovenians there too yet who didn’t come under fire) were shelled with mortars when in their dispersed staging area within the Latvian countryside. Large-calibre projectiles were fired from several directions and were well-aimed. An immediate move by an on-alert reaction force to move out and engage the attackers was cut down by IEDs and then machine gun fire. Some of these men had fought in Afghanistan when part of their country’s commitment to ISAF and faced similar attacks from the Taliban though nothing this deadly and nor from an attacker which fast vanished into the countryside. There were four men dead, fifteen injured and a lot more rather shook up at what they had suddenly faced. Bortnikov had confidently assured his colleagues that afterwards these troops would go out on the rampage using maximum force to hunt down their attackers and that could be exploited: the Germans are on the march like it is 1941 again! Alas, instead it was Latvian soldiers themselves who tried to hunt down those attackers – to no avail – while the NATO soldiers left their encampment for a secondary site. What the FSB had hoped to see where the situation on the ground could be further inflamed wasn’t here. Tactically, they had done very well. It was only politics which failed them.

Hitting the Green Berets with the 10th Special Forces Group (10 SFG) was done the following day. A different FSB team was used here, men who had combat experience of bloody counter-insurgency work in the Caucasus. These men weren’t paramilitaries nor were they soldiers: they were just killers. Aided by local intelligence, they struck at the field base camp for a company of the 10 SFG. Here, the company support elements – the B Team – was located which supported the six A Teams further out aiding Latvian preparations for war. One A Team, ODA0125, was back at the base camp and the FSB weren’t expecting their presence. An attempt at covert entry to kill support personnel and kidnap prisoners for interrogation was detected in the nick of time. A furious fire fight occurred. Both sides lost men who ended up dead and prisoner. Following the Russian pull-out, they took the company XO, an experienced captain, with them (wounded but dragged away) but left two of their own dead men behind. The Americans were left with a live captive – his FSB colleagues thought he was dead – but had three of their people killed. The prisoners that each side had in their custody afterwards weren’t going to face a nice time in custody. Each would be pressed for information. Not knowing that they had left a man alive who could talk, the Russians didn’t hunt for him initially. A few days later, the FSB was tipped off by a local traitor high up in the Latvian Armed Forces but by then it was too late to find their man. As to the Americans, they knew at once that the Russians had one of theirs. They threw everything that they had at finding him. Back in Washington, Obama and Gates were personally briefed on the hunt for the Green Beret held. He and his kidnappers couldn’t be found though. It was understood that all knowledge in his head was being drained from him but nothing could be done to stop that.


Away from the violence seen in the Baltic States, Russian preparations for war commenced. This moved to an advanced stage now. There was a lot of effort to conceal what was going on with camouflage and deception, as well as all of the distractions offered elsewhere, yet it was impossible to hide everything. There was a belief that so much of what was being done was being successfully hidden… but how could Russia be sure that that was the case?

The Russian Navy put its ships to sea. Many submarines were already out, with more following, but the beginning of August saw the four fleets of the Russian Navy start to deploy surface vessels. The Northern, Baltic, Black Sea and Pacific Fleets each significantly increased their at-sea presence where coastal screening forces were now joined by larger vessels. Battle groups were formed. These didn’t yet move too far away from the bases from which they had deployed. What they did instead was to concentrate. This couldn’t be hidden from NATO surveillance though the Russians hoped that as the West’s many intelligence-gathering assets focused on the big ships, the majority of the missing submarines wouldn’t be noted as being absent from port. Even if they were, if the deception efforts failed, NATO could hardly be expected to get a track on them this early or maybe never at all. The submarines joined others already at sea and set off towards their designated wartime operational areas. As to the surface fleets which assembled close to Russian shores, these were covered by land-based air power. The Cold War era force of hundreds of missile-carrying bombers had been much reduced though there were still some of those available. Furthermore, both the Baltic Fleet and the Black Sea Fleet had support from tactical aircraft flying from land and these were capable aircraft. To aid in the distraction effort in the Baltic where Russian submarines were moving about in far-shallower waters than they would have liked to have operated in, several flights of these tactical aircraft assigned to the Baltic Fleet (from Russian Naval Aviation yet also Russian Air Force unit on temporary tasking) upped the scale of air operations against NATO warships in the Baltic. NATO had increased its number of vessels and brought many together in tactical formations. Russian Su-24s and Su-27s – Fencers and Flankers – made mock attacks at low-level and swarmed right among the flotillas. They practically dared NATO to open fire on them. Radio messages came from below warning them off while sailors reported being able to read aircraft markings from some of these aircraft due to how close they came. Only when NATO fighters showed up, drawn away from other missions, did the Russians pull away. Other flights undertaken by Flankers, coming from Kaliningrad yet also the St. Petersburg area, made unfriendly interceptions of NATO maritime surveillance aircraft. These were out looking for the submarines that the Russians wanted NATO to stay away from. The high-profile intimidation of surface ships masked the more-important effort to scaring away the unarmed submarine-hunters.

Back on land, the mass of Russian and Belorussian armoured forces were on the borders of the Baltic States and Poland. NATO intelligence summaries of these read like it was the Cold War again with ‘guards tanks divisions’ and ‘guards motor rifle brigades’ aplenty. Russian camouflage measures – the infamous maskirovka – hid some of what was there but nowhere near enough. It was just impossible to do with satellites looking down from space but also reconnaissance aircraft back over the border in NATO airspace which aimed their detection systems eastwards. Games were played by the Russians where they used disinformation in the electronic sphere and also on the ground physically to not allow NATO to get an accurate read on what they had ready. The best thing to do would be for NATO not to know they were there but in the absence of that, they tried their best to confuse their opponents. Reports were filed from subordinates up the chain of command to superiors stating that this was all working and NATO knew nothing true. As was the case elsewhere, the truth was that the Russians couldn’t be sure if this was all working. Regardless, they sill tried hard to achieve their aim.

Among the ongoing maskirovka, specialist Russian and Belorussian forces were busy making their own preparations for when this massed force soon moved forward into battle. Electronic warfare teams were fine-turning their equipment ready to use these in an offensive fashion when the shooting started. There was a belief that a lot of success would come with these in disrupting NATO tactical and strategic communications but also exploiting what could be gained from those not jammed and left active instead by listening in. Air defence and tactical missiles units had mobile equipment like their electronic warfare counterparts. Launchers for SAMs and SSMs would be moving forward behind the combat elements into battle. They would stay on the move while the war was fought. These offensive elements (the SAMs would be used in that role primarily with less emphasis on any form of static defence; the SSMs were pure offensive weapons) of the attacking force waited to turn their weapons loose. Their time to do that was coming.

Soon.

I second what Lordroel said. Great update and full if things I didn't expect. Even as a co-writer I never saw stuff like the attack on the Green Berets coming. Well done!

Not to be absurd, but on the off hand Turkey decides to contest the sixth fleet, NATO can actualy deliver Istanbul to Greece? Now that Greece would jump on!

Great, well Berlusconi little sex adventure's were not really a secret and you don't get to be a genius to do 2 plus 2 (plus his notorious tie with Putin will be under scrutiny and a scandal on his own)...on the other side nobody will want a scandal in this moment or in the immediate future; the more probable outcome will be President Napolitano quietly summon Berlusconi to the Quirinale and pointing the necessity to create a goverment of national unity in this dire moment...and that he need a vacation, a very long vacation quietly pointing out that the cat is out the bag (there will be also an assurance that if he go now there will be no investigation over his behaviour or his contact with the Russian).

Regarding Greece, nice move, really...in May, at least in OTL, the EU give Greece aid for 110 billions of euros so doing nothing is a little lie (there was a serious fear of contamination of the situation at the other nations of South Europe, so i doubt that Germany will put a veto for the EU aid); sure the string attached regarding the austerity were not liked by Athens (as by anyone else) but frankly there were nothing more to do due to the epic failure of the Greece financial system; the only silver line is that Papandreau can use the current crisis to start to clean house an year earlier than OTL maybe lessening the overall effect