In 1987 Tom Clancy published
his techno-thriller masterwork "Red Storm Rising." (which he co-authored with Larry Bond).
Clancy wrote what was then, in 1987, a chilling scenario in which the Russians, as prime mover in the Warsaw Pact, suffer a drastic casualty in it's oil production facilities due to poor planning and a group of Muslim fanatics. This causes the fictional Russian leader to decide that the only way to get out of the jam is to seize the Persian Gulf oil states. (with the possible exception of Iran.) If the Soviet controls the Arabian Peninsula not only is their immediate oil need satisfied, but their control would place a stranglehold on US and other economies. And so, the decision is taken. Warsaw Pact will launch a "defensive" battle against NATO, and split West Germany and Austria off, thus fracturing the alliance.
No doubt most of you are wondering by now why I'm spoiling a good read and what Clancy's fictional scenario has to do with the current very real war in Ukraine. I'm getting to that, but bear with me as I construct a scenario: Putin wants to wreck that portion of Ukraine not under his control so as to put an end to their threats of taking back the portions of the Donbas that his operatives have encouraged to separate from the main Ukraine country. It goes without saying that he also wants to keep them out of the Crimea he so badly wanted to re-integrate into Russia. Ukraine with it's leadership in prison (in Russia) and leaders installed by Putin would not be able or willing to drive Russians out of those territories. So now we come to the attempt at provocation. Putin has for years been manipulating events in Crimea and Donbas so that when the time came all three areas would break off from Ukraine and either request Russian "protection" or outright cede themselves to Russia to run by fiat. (both ends would be sufficient for Putin.) So, he cooks up this fiction about De-Nazifying Ukraine and protecting Ethnic Russians in the Donbas and Crimea. It is of course complete fabrication. The Ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine would have been content to remain there had not the mysterious "little green men" been there to "help" them separate from the rest of the country, in exactly the same way that "little green men" and "volunteers" helped Crimea secede from the nation. Well now let's turn to the Tom Clancy fiction again.
Why it is surprisingly similar. . . Why it should be familiar :
