![]() In the novel, the Soviet forces look impressive on paper (and indeed, we may include the Eastern bloc here, as they were part of the Warsaw Pact), but which suffered operationally from corrupt commanders, limited replacements, and tenuous logistics. ![]() Given the recent events surrounding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it is interesting to note that the reality of warfare in 2022 Europe does not differ in many significant ways from that of Clancy’s 1986 version. Such themes are remarkably similar to Russia’s early estimates regarding their chances of success in Ukraine. When it became clear that the USSR would not win, the fictional head of the KGB decried the decision to start the conflict as a result of ‘ad luck and poor judgment…Add some fear in the hearts of our Party hierarchy, some ambition in one of my subordinates, the Defense Minister’s sense of importance, and outright stupidity on the part of the West, and here we are today’ (P. In the novel, the Soviets invade Europe because their appraisal of NATO’s strength is founded on misinformation and mistaken assumptions. Ultimately, the war ends badly for the Soviets, and a coup removes the Politburo before tactical nuclear weapons can be used to reverse the defeat.Īlthough almost forty years old now, the novel’s themes driving both the Soviet decision to engage NATO, and their resulting loss, remain relevant in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Clancy incorporates many different characters on both sides of the conflict to illustrate the horrors, and humanity, that warfare brings, while attempting to maintain a realistic balance between the two sides. In the novel, an impending loss of oil production after a terrorist attack on the USSR’s main oil field at Nizhnevartovsk prompts the USSR to launch a war against Western Europe. ![]() One of these, a collaboration with author Larry Bond, was Red Storm Rising (1986), which centred on a hypothetical war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact (WP). Often praised as the father of the ‘techno-thriller,’ Tom Clancy used rigorous attention to detail, combined with meticulous research into political and military affairs, to produce a series of best-selling books in the 1980s and 1990s. ![]()
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