It had happened before. She had studied it while at the National Defense University. In 1938, Hitler annexed Austria. Instead of coming to Austria’s defense, the rest of the world did nothing.
Emboldened, Hitler then pressed for, and was awarded, a strategic chunk of Czechoslovakia populated by “ethnic Germans,” referred to as Sudetenland. The Europeans, hoping to “slake Hitler’s thirst and avoid a Europe-wide war,” agreed to trade away the sovereign territory of Czechoslovakia for a false peace and empty promises.
Winston Churchill had seen it for the folly it was and had sent a strong warning to his countrymen, as well as the Americans. His words were so chilling to her that she had committed them to memory. “And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.”
Things moved quickly downhill from there. In March of 1939, Hitler took the rest of Czechoslovakia and annexed a slice of Lithuania. On September 1 of that same year, the Nazis invaded Poland. Two days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany. Two weeks after that, the Soviet Red Army invaded Poland from the east. On September 27, 1939, Warsaw surrendered to Germany. It would take fifty more years for Poland to fully recapture its freedom.
And while history didn’t necessarily repeat, it did rhyme. What was now making sense to Jasinski was that with its invasion of Ukraine and the annexation of the Crimean peninsula, Russia was taking on the role of Nazi Germany.
The arguments made for the Russian invasion were practically identical to those that had been made by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Russia was simply acting to defend ethnic Russians.
Despite having assurances that the United States would defend Ukraine if it agreed to denuclearize, when Russia seized its territory, the United States did nothing but impose sanctions and uselessly saber rattle at the United Nations. It was 1938 all over again.
By allowing Russia to invade Ukraine uncontested, America had emboldened Russia. With a revanchist President intent on returning his country to the power, influence, and territorial integrity of the days of the Soviet Union, Poland and the Baltic nations had every reason to worry that Russia wouldn’t stop at Crimea. Not knowing if America or NATO would come to their aid only deepened that concern.
If Russia invaded even just one of the Baltics and the Americans sat it out, that was it. Not only would it be the end of NATO, but Russia would have nothing further to hold it back. It would be the end of a free and democratic Poland. Poland would be Russia’s next target.
Harvath didn’t have to do any more convincing. Sergun’s rumor clearly made sense as far as Jasinski was concerned. The fact that he and his team had been sent to Europe demonstrated how seriously the Americans were taking the threat. Avoiding a war by taking the fight to Russia, before Russia could bring the fight to them, made sense.
What also made sense was Harvath’s attitude that to do so might require operating outside the bounds of the law.
Looking at him, she asked, “How are we going to stop Russia?”
Harvath liked that she was using the word “we.” “Our main focus has to be figuring out who’s running the operation,” he replied. “If we can uncover that, we can begin to take it all apart.”
“So what’s our next move?”
Glancing at Nicholas, he responded, “We’re going to have to take another trip.”
“Where to?”
“Gotland.”
“The island off Sweden?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Why? What’s on Gotland?”
Climbing down from the table, Nicholas shook his head and answered for him. “Trouble. Very serious trouble.”
CHAPTER 17
* * *
KALININGRAD
Colonel Oleg Tretyakov needed to get out of his office. It was stifling—too many people, too many telephones ringing. He needed to think.
He had relocated to Kaliningrad—the Russian exclave along the Baltic—twenty-four months ago in preparation for the invasion of neighboring Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
Of course, no one in his government would dare refer to it as an invasion. They were taking back territory they saw as rightfully theirs. Publicly, they planned on calling it a “peacekeeping” mission aimed at protecting “ethnic” Russians. It was a dubious term at best, as most of Central Europe was, until the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, under Russian control and thereby still contained people of Russian lineage, or “ethnic” Russians.
The plan was simple and had worked for Russia before—foment dissent, encourage uprisings, and use their permanent position on the Security Council to defeat any vote for UN peacekeepers to be sent in.
Instead, Russia would magnanimously offer to send in Russian Special Forces soldiers who would provide “security” until referendums could be held and political solutions arrived at.
Of course the referendums would be bogus, would break in Russia’s favor, and the Russian government would use the “democratic” results to justify officially annexing the Baltic States.
To help create an environment of chaos, local intelligence assets—as well as “useful idiots”—were being paid, trained, and directed to create as much anarchy as possible. Their efforts were being amplified by legions of online trolls, armies of Internet bots, and hordes of fake news sites—all of which were run out of a secret facility in the Russian city of St. Petersburg, called the Internet Research Agency.
A GRU cyberespionage group called Fancy Bear rounded everything out. Fancy Bear hacked sensitive information and passed it on to the Internet Research Agency. The Internet Research Agency then used the information to create yet more fake news stories. Fellow travellers, also known as “fifth columns,” in the targeted countries acted like repeater stations, boosting anything and everything the Internet Research Agency and Fancy Bear put out.
This basket of espionage and propaganda tactics was called “special,” or “hybrid” warfare, and the Russians were masters of it. By the time NATO could realize what had happened, or could even respond, the Baltic States would already be lost. Tretyakov’s job, though, was to make sure that if NATO did respond, that response would be as weak and ineffective as possible.
This meant knowing as much as possible about NATO’s operations. To do that, he had developed a vast network of spies—both inside and outside of the organization.
The creation of the PRF anti-NATO terror organization had been his idea—and its cells hadn’t been limited to just NATO countries. Cells had been created not only in nations that were currently considering membership, but in ones that might be sympathetic to NATO and provide staging to NATO forces or other strategic military support.
Moscow considered it a clever plan. Diverting attention away from any Russian involvement by making the world believe the PRF was a genuine grassroots uprising across NATO was brilliant.
There had been no equivocation. Moscow had made it crystal clear that his mission was of critical importance. And that importance was driven home by the size of his budget. In his decades in military intelligence, he had never seen anything like it.