Free Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 09 by Warrior Class (v1.1)

the last man, and blow every known or suspected KLA base to hell,
capture their supplies, interrogate the prisoners, bum their homes, and to hell
with world opinion! At the very least, it would give our soldiers something to
do. At best, it would allow them to avenge the deaths of their brothers in
arms.”
                 “I
agree fully with your passion and your anger, young Pavel, but how little you
know of politics or how to prosecute a war,” Zhurbenko said, trying to keep the
tone of his voice lighthearted. Kazakov took an angry gulp of whiskey.
Zhurbenko certainly did not want to get on this man's evil side, he thought as he
tried to appear as understanding and sympathetic as he could. “It takes time,
planning, and most important, money, to execute an operation such as that.”
                 “My
father invaded Pristina with less than twelve hours' notice, with troops that
were barely qualified to do the job.”
                 “Yes,
he did,” Zhurbenko had to admit, although it was not the city of Pristina , just the little regional airport. “Your
father was a true leader of men, a risk taker, a born warrior in the tradition
of the Slavic kings.” That seemed to placate Kazakov.
                 But
in the intervening silence, Zhurbenko turned over the question in his mind. Go
into Kosovo with a bngade? It would take months, perhaps half a year, to
mobilize twenty thousand troops to do anything , and the entire world
would know about it long before the first regiment was loaded up. No. It was
silly. Kosovo was a lose-lose situation. The murder of Colonel Kazakov and
sixteen other soldiers in Kosovo only reinforced what Zhurbenko already knew— Russia needed to get out of Kosovo. Kazakov was
certainly a brilliant businessman and engineer, but he knew nothing of the
simplest mechanisms of modem warfare.
                 But
perhaps a smaller force, one or two light armored battalions, even a Spetsnaz
airborne regiment. Pavel Kazakov’s father had parachuted in an infantry company
right onto Pristina Airport , right under NATO’s nose, and caught the
world off guard. It hadn’t been a shock force, just a regular infantry
unit—Zhurbenko was sure all its members hadn’t even been jump-qualified at the
time. A well-trained Spetsnaz unit of similar size, perhaps reinforced by air,
would be ten times more effective. Why couldn’t they do it again? NATO’s
presence in Kosovo was only a bit smaller than it was in 1999, but now they
were deeply entrenched in their own little sectors, in secure little compounds,
not daring to roam around too much. The Kosovo Liberation Army had free rein.
But they weren’t regulars—they were guerrilla fighters. Dangerous, even deadly in
the right situation, but no match for a Russian special forces team on a
search-and-destroy mission.
                The general noticed something that
he had almost missed in his effort not to anger this young industrialist: Pavel
Kazakov was passionate about something—the welfare of Russian soldiers in
Kosovo, the ones his murdered father had commanded. He spoke about “our”
soldiers, as if he really cared about them. Was it just because his father had
been one? Did he now feel some sort of kinship with the soldiers killed in
Kosovo? Whatever it was, it was a sudden glimpse behind the eyes of one of the
most inscrutable personalities in the world.
                 “This
is very interesting, Pavel, very interesting,” Zhurbenko said. “You would
advocate a much stronger, more forceful role in Kosovo?”
                 “Kosovo
is just the beginning, General,” Kazakov replied acidly. “ Chechnya was a good example of a conflict well
fought—bomb the rebels into submission. Destroy their homes, their places of
business, their mosques, their meeting places. Since when does the Russian
government condone independence movements within the Federation? Never.