“If it becomes necessary for us to intervene, the Red Army has twenty-four divisions of the Caucasus Army Group deployed south of Lake Sevan and along the Iranian border from Erivan to Baku. An additional fifty thousand troops can be airlifted from Afghanistan and we have the twenty-six-ship fleet of the Sokolov missile cruiser battle group already in position near the Gulf of Oman. We are ready to slice down through Iran with armor and armored infantry. I can be in Abadan in seventy-two hours and in control of the Arabian oil fields in a week to ten days,” Orlov declared flatly in his deep basso voice.

“What about the Americans?” Myshkin, the party theoretician, asked Orlov nervously, sensing like the others that the operation would take them into dangerous and uncharted waters.

“The American Persian Gulf fleet is headed by the U.S.S. Nimitz carrier task force. They would be an even match for the Sokolov battle group, but under combat conditions it would be impossible for them to keep the Straits of Hormuz open. But the important battle will be waged on the ground, as always. They could move a token force, say a battalion, into combat within twenty-four hours, but that is meaningless. It would take them nearly two weeks to move their Rapid Deployment Force of two divisions plus support units into position. If necessary, they might be able to move in two Marine divisions, as well. But even so they would be too late. We would already control the oil fields and if necessary, blow them up, so that in any case the West would lose the oil. The Marines have no support facilities and the temperature in that desert is one hundred and twenty degrees in the shade, comrades. And there is no shade. Not to mention the fact that their supply lines would stretch around half the world.

“Besides it doesn’t really matter. We would already be in position and we outnumber them in men and equipment by at least twelve to one. It would be a massacre,” Orlov declared in that rumbling voice that left no room for argument.

“What about the Israelis?” Cherkassy the Ukrainian asked.

“Their ground forces would be a serious factor, but they don’t have the airlift capability to move so many troops into a distant battle zone,” Orlov replied.

“Suppose they move their troops on the ground?” Liepka the Latvian asked.

“Across all of Jordan and the great Nefud desert?” the field marshal said, amused, his famous bushy eyebrows raised quizzically.

“But is it possible?” Liepka insisted.

“Is a pig kosher?” Korchnoi called out and a nervous laugh rippled around the table.

“Then if I understand you correctly, Comrade Marshal, if it comes to a limited Persian Gulf war with the Americans, you are saying that we cannot lose,” Myshkin put in.

“That is correct,” Orlov said, his arms folded complacently over his bemedalled chest.