Free Red Storm Rising (1986) by Tom Clancy Page B

Washington. It will take months to work out all the technical points, but this is a bloody serious, and bloody generous, proposal.”
    “Nothing about Star Wars?” Flynn frowned briefly as he turned right. Did that mean that the Russians had made a breakthrough of their own? Have to query Washington about that . . . “We got us a story here, Willie. What’s your lead? How’s ‘Peace’ grab you?” Calloway just laughed at that.

FORT MEADE, MARYLAND
    American intelligence agencies, like their counterparts throughout the world, monitor all news wire services. Toland was examining the AP and Reuters reports before most news bureau chiefs, and comparing them with the version transmitted over Soviet microwave circuits for publication in the regional editions of Pravda and Isvestia. The way items of hard news were reported in the Soviet Union was intended to show Party members how their leaders felt.
    “We’ve been down this road before,” his section chief said. “The last time, things broke down on this issue of mobile missiles. Both sides want them, but both sides are afraid of the other side having them.”
    “But the tone of the report—”
    “They’re always euphoric about their arms-control proposals, dammit! Hell, Bob, you know that.”
    “True, sir, but it’s the first time that I know of that the Russians have unilaterally removed a weapons platform from service.”
    “The ‘Yankees’ are obsolete.”
    “So what? They never throw anything away, obsolete or not. They still have World War II artillery pieces sitting in warehouses in case they need them again. This is different, and the political ramifications—”
    “We’re not talking politics, we’re talking nuclear strategy,” the section chief growled back.
    As if there were a difference, Toland said to himself.

KIEV, THE UKRAINE
    “Well, Pasha?”
    “Comrade General, we truly have a man’s work before us,” Alekseyev answered, standing at attention in the Kiev headquarters of the Southwest Theater.
    “Our troops need extensive unit training. Over the weekend I read through more than eighty regimental readiness reports from our tank and motor-rifle divisions.” Alekseyev paused before going on. Tactical training and readiness was the bane of the Soviet military. Their troops were almost entirely conscripts, in and out in two years, half of whose uniformed service was occupied just in acquiring basic military skills. Even the noncoms, the backbone of every army since the Roman legions, were conscripts selected for special training academies, then lost as soon as their enlistment periods ended. For that reason, the Soviet military leaned heavily on its officers, who often performed what in the West was sergeants’ work. The professional officer corps of the Soviet Army was its only permanent, only dependable feature. In theory. “The truth of the matter is that we don’t know our readiness posture at the moment. Our colonels all use the same language in their reports, without the slightest deviation. Everyone reports meeting norms, with the same amount of training hours, the same amount of political indoctrination, the same number of practice shots fired—that is, a deviation of under three percent!—and the requisite number of field exercises run, all of course of the proper type.”
    “As prescribed in our training manuals,” the Colonel General noted.
    “Naturally. Exactly—too damned exactly! No deviation for adverse weather. No deviation for late fuel deliveries. No deviation for anything at all. For example, the 703rd Motor-Rifle Regiment spent all of last October on harvesting duty south of Kharkov—yet somehow they met their monthly norms for unit training at the same time. Lies are bad enough, but these are stupid lies!”
    “It cannot be as bad as you fear, Pavel Leonidovich.”
    “Do we dare to assume otherwise, Comrade?”
    The General stared down at his desk. “No. Very well, Pasha. You’ve formulated your plan.