'Red Storm Rising' book review

(C) 1986 Jack Ryan Enterprises & Larry Bond

“Red Storm Rising” (1986) is a technothriller by Tom Clancy about a conventional war in Western Europe between the Soviet Union and the U.S.-led NATO alliance in the mid-1980s. Like its predecessor, “The Hunt for Red October,” Clancy’s sophomore work was a game-changer in the military fiction genre. It not only told a sprawling story with multiple plot threads –including a third Battle of the Atlantic, a Soviet invasion of Iceland, and a massive land campaign in Germany –  but it also avoided the apocalyptic vision of most Third World War scenarios: a nuclear exchange between East and West.

“Red Storm Rising” begins – literally -with a bang as a group of Islamic jihadis from the Soviet republic of Azerbaijan commits a destructive act of sabotage against an oil production facility near Nizhnevartovsk, Russia. Though the terrorists are killed by a Soviet fast response team, they cripple the country’s ability to produce and refine oil. Fearing fuel shortages and the collapse of the Soviet economy, the leaders of the Communist Party decide to take a risky course of action: an invasion of the oil-rich Middle East.

Mindful that the United States and its Western allies will respond militarily to such a bold operation, the Soviets hatch a complex scheme that involves deception on a grand scale. First, they launch a massive public relations campaign that emphasizes improved relations with the West. This includes the unilateral retirement of an entire class of ballistic missile submarines, as well as more open relations with America and her NATO allies. In other words, Moscow seeks to play nice with the non-Communist world.

The objective of this maskirovka is to lull the West into complacency before the Soviets carry out Operation Red Storm, a pre-emptive invasion of West Germany. The Politburo knows that the U.S. will respond militarily against its forces in the Persian Gulf; Red Storm is intended to forestall such a move by forcing NATO into a war in its backyard. The Soviet leadership knows it’s a gamble, but they are confident that the odds are in their favor.

To justify Red Storm, the Politburo arranges a “terrorist” attack on the Kremlin itself: a KGB team plants a bomb that kills a group of Soviet schoolchildren in the Council of Ministers building. The Soviets orchestrate the arrest of a West German “spy” (who is really a KGB plant) and blame the Bonn government for the Kremlin bombing.

Hoping to take advantage of the confusion within the NATO alliance, Moscow sends undercover teams of elite Spetsnaz (special forces) to carry out sabotage missions against Allied facilities to prepare the way for the massive Soviet invasion of Germany. The plan falls apart when one team leader is injured by a car while crossing a street in Aachen on his way to the post office. In the ensuing investigation, German police officers discover that “Siegfried Baum” is really a Soviet army officer:

"Siegfried Baum" awoke six hours later to see three men wearing surgical garb. The effect of the anesthesia still heavy on him, his eyes could not focus properly.

"How are you feeling?" one asked. In Russian.

"What happened to me?" The major answered in Russian.

Ach so. "You were struck by a car and you are now in a military hospital," the man lied. They were still in Aachen, near the German-Belgian frontier.

"What . . . I was just coming out to-" The major's voice was that of a drunken man, but it stopped abruptly. His eyes tried to focus properly.

"It is all finished for you, my friend." Now the speaker switched to German. "We know you are a Soviet officer, and you were found in possession of classified government documents. Tell me, what is your interest in Lammersdorf?"

"I have nothing to say," replied "Baum" in German.

"A little late for that," the interrogator chided, switching back to Russian. "But we'll make it easy for you. The surgeon tells us that it is now safe to try a new, ah, medication for you, and you will tell us everything you know. Be serious. No one can resist this form of questioning. You might also wish to consider your position," the man said more harshly. "You are an officer in the army of a foreign government, here in the Federal Republic illegally, traveling with false papers, and in possession of secret documents. At the least, we can imprison you for life. But, given what your government is doing at the moment, we are not concerned with 'least' measures. If you cooperate you will live, and probably be exchanged back to the Soviet Union at a later date for a German agent. We will even say that we got all our information due to the use of drugs; no harm could possibly come to you from this. If you do not cooperate, you will die of injuries received in a motor accident."

"I have a family," Major Andre Chernyavin said quietly, trying to remember his duty. The combination of fear and drug-induced haze made a hash of his emotions. He couldn't tell there was a vial of sodium pentothol dripping into his IV line, and already impairing his higher brain functions. Soon he would be unable to consider the long-term consequences of his action. Only the here and now would matter.

The Soviets launch the invasion as planned on June 15, but they are surprised to learn that NATO is not as unprepared for the attack as the Politburo had hoped. The capture of Andre Chernyavin and, later, his teammates, leads to the discovery of other Spetsnaz groups on West German soil.

Worse, an alerted Allied force sends a squadron of F-19 Ghostrider Stealth fighters to shoot down Soviet airborne warning and control (AWACs) aircraft over East Germany to disrupt the Russians’ air defense system and deny the enemy supremacy of the sky.

But not everything goes NATO’s way. In a brilliant stroke, the Red Army captures the strategically located island nation of Iceland. This allows the Soviets to cut the Allied sonar surveillance network in the North Atlantic and to set up fighter operations in the former NATO base at Keflavik. If the Russians can hold Iceland, their submarines can sail into the Atlantic undetected and sever the vital transatlantic lifeline between the U.S. and Europe.

“Red Storm Rising” explores how a Third Battle of the Atlantic would have developed in a conventional war between NATO and the Soviet Union. In the novel’s 656 pages, Clancy and co-author Larry Bond (whose name doesn’t appear on the cover but is credited in the author’s foreword) interweave various subplots that feature such characters as Colonel-General Pavel Leonidovich Alekseyev, a competent (and likeable) senior officer in the Soviet Army, Lt. Commander Bob Toland, a Navy reserve officer who now works for the National Security Agency, Commander Edward Morris, the skipper of a frigate that is sunk by a Soviet sub while on convoy duty, and Energy Minister Mikhail Sergetov, a junior member of the Politburo who believes the war will ruin the Soviet Union.

“Red Storm Rising” is one of three Tom Clancy novels that don’t feature his protagonist Jack Ryan (the other two are “SSN” and “Against All Enemies” in its cast of characters. Many fans speculate that Clancy, who died in October 2013 after a brief illness, didn’t know if he would write more stories about Ryan. Others, however, say that the events of “Red Storm Rising” alter the world permanently, thus making it hard for Clancy to keep readers interested in what is known as the “Ryanverse.”

Although Clancy’s storytelling was good in “The Hunt for Red October,” his style is better in “Red Storm Rising.”  There is a grace note of martial poetry in his prose, particularly in the novel’s combat sequences, that affects the reader emotionally. Clancy adroitly creates a cast of characters – Soviet and Western alike – that elicit respect and empathy from the audience. Given Clancy’s antipathy for the Communist system as it existed in the now-vanished Soviet Union, “Red Storm Rising” is not a jingoistic book about politics or economic systems. It is a human story about modern war and its effects on soldiers, politicians, and civilians. It’s clearly a relic of the Cold War era; nevertheless, “Red Storm Rising” is a powerful and moving novel, full of suspense, action, and emotion.