Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising (Amazon) takes us back to the mid 1980s. America and the Soviet Union are the world’s only superpowers. Their respective alliances – NATO and the Warsaw Pact – have been engaged in a Cold War for decades. Neither is quite crazy enough to launch an all out nuclear war (at least, we hope that’s the case) and a conventional war seems unlikely when there are so many nukes stockpiled.
Then a terrorist attack takes out the Soviet’s primary refinery, potentially crippling the nation’s economy. Faced with economic collapse, they decide to invade the Middle East to seize the oil field there. First, however, they need to neutralize NATO … and they need to do it without unleashing nuclear Armageddon.
Their plan: Split the West politically, then launch a surprise attack with conventional forces that breaks NATO’s will to fight in just two weeks (four if things don’t go well).
Echos of Future Wars
Red Storm Rising is Tom Clancy at his best. He wrote this standalone novel after he and a wargaming friend talked about what it would look like to play out an engagement between Soviet and American allies. How would such a war play out using modern technology (where “modern” in this is state-of-the-art 1980 weapon and defense systems)? Even in the 80s, the technology at play – nuclear-powered submarines, cruise missiles, anti-missile defenses, modern tanks, cutting edge jet fighters, etc. – was far beyond anything seen during World War II.
The result of those questions is this book, which was released in 1986, before the war collapse of the Soviet Union. Clancy sets up several theaters of action, including the ground war in Western Europe, the sea war in the North Atlantic, and the unexpected battleground of Iceland, which holds an essential air base (just how essential becomes evident as the book progresses).
I first read Red Storm Rising in high school when I was on a big Clancy kick. Reading it again today, I’m amazed at how well Clancy got into the Soviet mindset. It’s impossible to read this book today – two years into the Russia/Ukraine war – and not see the parallels. Sure, there’s no land war in Western Europe or sub war in the North Atlantic, but the mindset of the Russians with regard to an easy victory in Ukraine is a spooky echo of Clancy’s novel. The idea that the Russians could end the war in two weeks by seizing Kiev is especially salient. So are the logistical challenges that moving large amounts of armored vehicles and supplies to the front. Clancy anticipated Russian’s miles long traffic jams at the start of the war and the overall difficulty of maneuvering armored vehicles (particularly Soviet ones) in a modern battlefield.
Cruising the North Atlantic
I decided to re-read Red Storm Rising for one reason: my family and I were going to Iceland. About a third of the book takes place on the island, and being able to read about a city or village that was visiting was fun and surreal. Whenever I encountered a new location in the book, I’d look it up on Google Maps and get a sense for challenges the characters were facing.
A good friend of mine called Red Storm Rising “NATO fan fiction”, and he’s absolutely right. Clancy clearly had fun playing with his superpowered toys, like submarines and surface ships trying to sink each other, A-10 Warthogs playing havoc with Soviet armor, and modern missiles and jets engaging with aircraft carriers and their support ships. The book is a product of its time, so 98% of the characters are male. It features a female pilot who becomes the first female ace after shooting down three satellites, and American forces in Iceland rescue a woman from sexual assault by Soviet operatives, but that’s about it.
Twilight of an Empire
Red Storm Rising remains a solid, entertaining read. Folks who enjoy Clancy’s other thrillers like The Hunt for Red October will definitely enjoy this book, as will anyone enthralled by submarine and carrier battles. Heck, I’d say the novel is required reading for anyone running a Twilight: 2000 campaign (Free League’s recently released update to the venerable Cold War RPG).