For my father and my mother
CONTENTS
LIST OF CHARACTERS
PROLOGUE
Briefing
Dehra Dun, Uttar Pradesh, India
Drapchi Prison, Lhasa, Tibet
Briefing
Operational Directorate, South Block, New Delhi,
Briefing
Zhongnanhai, Beijing, China
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London
The White House, Washington, DC
Briefing
Chandigarh, India
Zhongnanhai, Beijing, China
Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, New Delhi,
Briefing
Srinagar, the Kashmir Valley, India
Indian Army Headquarters, Srinagar, India
Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, New Delhi,
Briefing
General Headquarters, Rawalpindi, Pakistan
The President’s Office, The White House,
Gongkar County, Tibet
Indian Air Force Base, Lohegaon, Maharastra
General Headquarters, Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Briefing
National Security Council, Washington, DC
Briefing
Zhongnanhai, Beijing, China
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London
Foreign Ministry, Beijing, China
General Headquarters, Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Constitution Avenue, Islamabad, Pakistan
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London
Foreign Ministry Building, Beijing
Prime Minister’s Residence, Tokyo, Japan
Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, Delhi,
The White House, Washington, DC
Prime Minister’s Residence, Race Course Road,
Zhongnanhai, Beijing, China
Lhodrag, Tibet, China
Parliament Building, Islamabad, Pakistan
Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, New Delhi
New China News Agency, Lhasa, Tibet, China
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London
Foreign Ministry Building, Hong Kong, China
Oval Office, White House, Washington, DC
Kargil, Ladakh, India
Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, Delhi
Zhongnanhai, Beijing, China
Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, New Delhi
Mumbai/Bombay, Maharastra, southern India
Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, New Delhi,
Line of Control, Kashmir
Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, New Delhi
Joint Staff Headquarters, Pakistan
Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, New Delhi
Briefing
China–Bhutan border
Camp David, Maryland, USA
China World Hotel, Beijing, China
India–Pakistan border, Rajasthan, India
Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, New Delhi
India–Pakistan border, Rajasthan, India
Camp David, Maryland, USA
India–Pakistan Border, Rajasthan
General Headquarters, Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Baghla, Thar Desert, Pakistan
General Headquarters, Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Baghla, Thar Desert, Pakistan
Briefing
Zhongnanhai, Beijing, China
Briefing
The Prime Minister’s Residence, Tokyo
Briefing
The Kremlin, Moscow, Russia
Newsroom, BBC Television Centre, London
Briefing
India–Burma border, Tirap Frontier District,
Presidential helicopter Marine One, USA
Prime Minister’s Office, Downing Street, London
State Department, Washington, DC
Pentagon City, Virginia, USA
The Situation Room, The White House, Washington, DC
Sargodha Airbase, Pakistan: 32° 03' N, 72°
A. Q. Khan Laboratory, Kahuta, Pakistan: 33° 54'
Samungli Airbase, near Quetta, Pakistan: 30° 14'
Multan, Pakistan: 71° 30' N, 30° 15' E
Indian military HQ, Karwana, Haryana, India
Connaught Place, Delhi, India
General Headquarters, Rawalpindi, Pakistan
The Oval Office, The White House, Washington, DC
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London
Prime Minister’s Office, Downing Street, London
National Command Centre, Karwana, Haryana, India
The Situation Room, The White House, Washington, DC
Zhongnanhai, Beijing, China
Cabinet Room, Downing Street, London
CNN Studios, Atlanta, USA
General Headquarters, Rawalpindi, Pakistan
National Command Centre, Karwana, Haryana, India
Srinagar, Kashmir, India
Indian military HQ, Karwana, Haryana, India
The Rose Garden, The White House, Washington, DC
RAF Upper Heyford, Gloucestershire, UK
Eastern Air Command, Shillong, India
Downing Street, London
Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore
Prime Minister’s Office, Canberra, Australia
Great Cocos Island Naval Base, Myanmar/Burma
Western Hills, Military Headquarters, China
The Kremlin, Moscow, Russia
Prime Minister’s Office, Wellington, New Zealand
Downing Street, London
The Situation Room, The White House, Washington, DC
Zhongnanhai, Beijing, China
Kilo-class submarine 0821, type 877EKM, Bay of
Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, Delhi,
Zhongnanhai, Beijing, China
Briefing
Presidential Palace, Taipei, Taiwan
The Oval Office, The White House, Washington, DC
China World Hotel, Beijing, China
Military Headquarters, Western Hills, China
Prime Minister’s Residence, Tokyo, Japan
Military Headquarters, Western Hills, China
The Situation Room, The White House, Washington, DC
Military Headquarters, Western Hills, China
Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Square, Taipei, Taiwan
Military Headquarters, Western Hills, China
Foreign Ministry, Beijing, China
BBC Television Centre, London
The Situation Room, The White House, Washington, DC
The Kremlin, Moscow, Russia
Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, Delhi,
Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, China
Prime Minister’s Office, Tokyo, Japan
The Situation Room, The White House, Washington, DC
Foreign Ministry, Beijing, China
The Situation Room, The White House, Washington, DC
Military Headquarters, Western Hills, China
The Situation Room, The White House, Washington, DC
Operational Directorate, South Block, Delhi, India
USS Ronald Reagan, Bay of Bengal: 15° N,
The Kremlin, Moscow, Russia
The Situation Room, The White House, Washington, DC
Xia-class type 92 strategic missile submarine,
BBC Wood Norton, Evesham, UK
Bombay/Mumbai, India
Operational Directorate, South Block, Delhi, India
The Situation Room, The White House, Washington, DC
Military Headquarters, Western Hills, China
The Kremlin, Moscow, Russia
Operational Directorate, South Block, Delhi, India
The Situation Room, The White House, Washington, DC
EPILOGUE
L
IST OF CHARACTERS
AUSTRALIA
Keith Backhurst – Defence Minister
Malcolm Smith – Prime Minister
CHINA
Kang Suyin – Ambassador to Moscow
Leung Liyin, General – Defence Minister
Tao Jian – President
Tang Siju – Second Deputy, Chief of the General Staff
Tashi – Chinese agent in India
Teng Guo Feng – Ambassador to Islamabad
Jamie Song – Foreign Minister
Lhundrub Togden – jailed Tibetan Buddhist monk
INDIA
Indrajit Bagchi – Home Minister
Colonel Neelan Chidambaram – commander,
Baghla (Wool) sector
Major Gendun Choedrak – Leader of Special Frontier
Force operation
Amrit Dhal – Group Captain, No. 24 Squadron
‘Hunting Hawks’
Hari Dixit – Prime Minister
Captain Tsangpo Jamyang – Second in charge of SFF operation
Corporal Vasant Kaul – Singh’s tank driver
Unni Khrishnan – Chief of Army Staff and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Mani Naidu – Director of the Intelligence Bureau
General Prabhu Ninan – Western army commander
Lieutenant General Gurjit Singh – Commander, XXI
Armoured Corps
Prabhu Purie – Foreign Minister
Chandra Reddy – Special Secretary, Research and Analysis Wing
Shanti Tirthankara – anti-nuclear activist
JAPAN
General Shigehiko Ogawa – Director, Defence
Intelligence Headquarters
Shigeto Wada – Prime Minister
NEW ZEALAND
Michael Hall – SBS Royal Marines sniper
Harriet Sheehan – Prime Minister
Benjamin Leigh – Defence Minister
PAKISTAN
Mullah al-Bishri – Islamic leader
General Sadek Hussein – Special Defence Attaché to Beijing
Javed Jabbar – Ambassador to Beijing
Yasin Kalapur – Air Marshal and coup leader
Dr Malik Khalid – missile physicist
General Mohamed Hamid Khan – Chief of Army Staff and coup leader
Ahmed Magam – deposed Deputy Finance Minister
Captain Mohammed Masood – Khan’s
aide-de-camp
Saeed – Stinger marksman
RUSSIA
Nikolai Baltin – Ambassador to Beijing
Vladimir Gorbunov – President
SINGAPORE
John Chiu – Prime Minister
TAIWAN
Lin Chung-ling – President
UNITED KINGDOM
Christopher Baker – Foreign Secretary
Martin Cartwright – BBC Asia Correspondent
Martin Evans – Head of South Asian Department
Eileen Glenny – Press secretary, Prime Minister’s office
David Guinness – Defence Secretary
General (Rtd) Sir Peter Hanman – BBC television commentator
Max Harding – BBC television presenter
Sir Malcolm Parton – Permanent Under-Secretary, Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Anthony Pincher – Prime Minister
Darren Scott – BBC Asia cameraman
John Stopping – Chairman, Joint Intelligence Committee
Robin Sutcliffe – Head of News Gathering, BBC
Lord Mani Thapar – Indian businessman
UNITED STATES
Milton Ashdown – Ambassador to Moscow
Ennio Barber – Presidential adviser
Tom Bloodworth – National Security Advisor
David Booth – Head of CIA
John Hastings – President
Joan Holden – Secretary of State
Stuart Hollingworth – Commerce Secretary
Alvin Jebb – Defense Secretary
Charles Nugent – White House Chief of Staff
Reece Overhalt – Ambassador to Beijing
Arthur Watkins – Ambassador to Islamabad
PROLOGUE
In a perfect world, communities aspiring to development should not go to war. But time and time again common sense is turned on its head. Even societies whose standards of living are rising rapidly use the excitement of nationalism to balance either the treadmill of economic growth or the weakness of corrupt leadership. Yugoslavia, Iraq and swathes of Africa at once come to mind and danger signals are now flashing in Pakistan, India and China.
In May 1998, both India and Pakistan carried out nuclear tests, elevating hostilities to a new, more menacing level. Asia, still wracked with poverty and conflict, now has three declared nuclear-weapons powers.
India and Pakistan have been in conflict for half a century. Pakistan and China have a long-standing military alliance. India and China have already fought one war and disagree on how to handle restless nationalism in Tibet.
But a far more forceful momentum is also sweeping across those two enormous countries, a sense that as empires come and empires go, at some stage the power of the United States will wane and another great power will rise up to move into the vacuum. This ambition, and an impatience to force events, has made Asia an unpredictable and dangerous place for all of us.
China’s naval advances into the Indian Ocean and occupation of islands in the South China Sea are evidence that it is willing to anger its neighbours in order to test its military reach. India’s determination to press ahead with its nuclear programme and name China as its main long-term threat suggests a deeper degree of hostility than at first realized.
Both countries have weak conventional military systems and only minimal nuclear forces. But that is no guarantee that either country will not make a military bid for regional leadership in the years to come.
In Dragon Strike: The Millennium War (Sidgwick & Jackson 1997), Simon Holberton and I described a scenario in which China takes control of the South China Sea. It attacks its long-standing enemy, Vietnam, occupies the Spratly and Paracel groups of islands, and deploys submarines in the sea lanes to the Indian Ocean. When the United States intervenes by sending a warship into the area, it is sunk by a Chinese submarine with heavy loss of life.
Pacifist Japan reacts by carrying out a nuclear test, uncertain that it can continue to count on American military protection. Much of South East Asia, looking to the long-term future, gives tacit support to China.
American, British, Australian and New Zealand warships fight their way into the South China Sea. As China’s fleet faces destruction, American satellite imagery shows nuclear missiles being prepared for launch.
The prospect of a nuclear attack on an American city is enough to force a rethink in Washington about how to deal with China.
Simon Holberton and I described Dragon Strike as a future history. Dragon Fire is even more so. Developments in Asia are moving so fast that on several occasions my writing was overtaken by events. What was fiction one day became historical fact the next.
The characters of the novel are more the individual countries than the people who run them. Loyalties, betrayals, aspirations and scars of history are played out on a political and military stage through the eyes of India, Pakistan, China and others.
If China and India’s security aspirations for Asia converge with each other and with those of the United States and Japan, there is no cause for alarm. That, however, would be an ambitious formula. If either China’s or India’s intentions are being underestimated and the danger signs are swept under the carpet, the impact on world peace could be the most catastrophic since the end of the Second World War.
Briefing
Tibet
Tibet forms a strategic buffer between India and China, and Beijing is uncompromising about policies there. Chinese troops invaded Tibet in October 1950, a year after the Communist Party victory. In 1959 Tibet’s spiritual and political ruler, the Dalai Lama,
was forced into exile during an uprising against Chinese occupation. Since then, he has lived in India. The international community recognizes Chinese suzerainty – or control – over Tibet. Although Tibetan nationalism has won great sympathy in the West, the Dalai Lama’s campaign of non-violence has failed to deliver back the homeland. Many of the younger generation have become frustrated and have proposed a more confrontational approach against China. Little known to the outside world, the Indian army maintains a unit of Tibetan commandos, specifically trained to operate in Tibet behind Chinese lines. It is known as the Special Frontier Force.
Dehra Dun, Uttar Pradesh, India
Local time: 0200 Thursday 3 May 2007
GMT: 2030 Wednesday 2 May 2007
The Antonov-32 transport plane was parked at the end of the runway, half hidden from view by a camouflaged screen. The airstrip at Dehra Dun, in the foothills of the Himalayas, was mainly for civilian use and was guarded by only unarmed policemen. Although a cantonment town, steeped in military tradition, Dehra Dun was not like a town in Kashmir or the Punjab, considered to be under any serious threat of attack from terrorism.
Fifteen minutes before take-off, a company of men secured the Dehra Dun airstrip. They tied up the police guards, held them in the civilian waiting area, and made radio contact from the control tower, giving an all-clear for take-off. The Antonov taxied onto the runway, laden with thirty men and equipment, weighing in at 24,000 kilograms. The pilot let the aircraft cover 2,000 feet of runway before lifting off.
It climbed sharply to 25,000 feet and turned. The winter had been mild this year. Much of the snow had melted already on the lower ground, and the night was dark and clear as only the air sweeping through the Himalayas could be. For those in the Antonov, the awesome, inhospitable and magical mountains were home, land they should have fought harder for long ago and land worth dying for. Instead of flying due east, the pilot took the longer route over Nepal, because there was no effective radar or air-defence system to cover it. They would be briefly vulnerable over the Indian state of Sikkim, then move into the airspace of the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, where the pilot would take the plane down to the lowest altitude possible among the mountain peaks.
The man leading the operation, Major Gendun Choedrak of the Special Frontier Force (SFF), had been lucky to get his hands on an AN-32. It first went into operation in 1986 and was chosen by the Indian forces over its British, Canadian and Italian rivals. Its capability over the treacherous wastelands of the Siachen Glacier was second to none. The cargo ramp was superb and enabled loads to be dropped by drag parachutes. It handled excellently at high airstrip altitudes, being able to take off from bases as high as 14,500 feet, and it had set new standards on payload-to-height ratio and for sustaining altitude.