Eagle, I don't want to form an alliance anymore.

Slava noticed that he did not mention economic reforms.

“This can’t be rushed,” Andropov waved his hand, “but we can start preparing.”

Updated on the plane, will be posted tomorrow morning.

As the title suggests, the signal on the plane is not very good. I will post today's chapter tomorrow morning, which will not affect tomorrow night's update.

Chapter 24 In terms of disappointing me, Xunzong has never disappointed me.

"Brezhnev has never disappointed me in that respect."

As Nian Dao predicted, during the final years of his reign, Xun Zong made a lot of noise but did little in almost all foreign affairs matters, shifting blame and responsibility to others, and always making the worst choices in situations requiring decisive action.

Brezhnev had been unhappy with him since the time they dealt with the Polish Solidarity movement. Before the Solidarity crisis, when Slava was recovering in Moscow after being shot in Uzbekistan, she followed Andropov around Eastern Europe to make acquaintances.

In her view, many of the problems within Eastern European countries can be traced back to the Soviet Communist Party. The so-called limited sovereignty theory is now causing discomfort on both sides. Russia spends billions of dollars annually on subsidies to republics and other Warsaw Pact allies, but most of the money is not going where it should be.

Spending money freely is good, but it's a bad thing when the money doesn't go where it's supposed to.

For the constituent republics, having a Soviet bureaucratic group as their parent party was not a good thing. For example, in the case of the Polish Solidarity movement, what kind of leader would let his subordinates handle things on their own when the leader should have intervened?

"Alright, alright, Director Nian, say less. It's so hot, aren't you afraid of getting angry and getting a sore throat?"

Slava opened the window of his apartment building. His and Director Nian's double apartment in Moscow didn't have air conditioning; such things were only found in foreign affairs departments, government buildings, and some luxury villas.

"Watching the news about the Lebanese genocide makes my liver hurt! -- Forget it, you idiot."

Ms. Nian turned on the electric fan she had bought after queuing up a few days ago. The fan blades creaked and groaned as they spun, and the airflow was barely enough to lift the corners of the documents on her desk. Annoyed by the sound, she turned it off again.

As August progresses, the news from Lebanon has been getting increasingly worse in recent days. Following the Palestine Liberation Organization's forced withdrawal from both Palestinian and Lebanese territories, the Israeli Defense Forces have entered Lebanon and are supporting the Lebanese Phalange Party in forming a puppet government.

If things had ended there, the leader wouldn't have been so angry. However, after the Lebanese Phalangist leader was killed by a bomb in the past few days, Israel used this as a pretext to quickly occupy West Beirut, surround the Palestinian refugee camp located there, and, together with the Phalangist, launch a bloody massacre of the refugee camp.

The massacre began at 6 p.m., with Israeli troops providing illumination with flares and blocking the exits of the refugee camp, indiscriminately shooting, raping, torturing, and dismembering civilians, including women and children.

Even a human being with a shred of conscience would feel abhorrence for this inhumane and genocidal act upon witnessing it.

Director Nian placed the photos and newspapers face down on the table, crossed her arms, leaned against the wall, and finally, unable to bear the atmosphere in the apartment any longer, she walked out of the door.

"I'm going out for a walk."

"Wait for me downstairs. I'll get ready and we'll go together. We can also grab a nice meal at the cafeteria."

Slava sighed and began to tidy up the mess on the table. He glanced at the photos: a collapsed apartment building, a burning car, a woman running with her child in her arms, and a small body wrapped in a sheet.

"This is a fucking shit war."

This scene will not only play out in Palestine, but also in South Africa, Central America, Afghanistan... such humanitarian tragedies happen all the time, but he can do nothing about it now, and those who have the ability to do something have their own considerations.

In the newspapers, Moscow's response was merely a facade of toughness.

Pravda devoted an entire page to condemning Israel's fascist aggression. The Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesperson read a strongly worded statement at a regular press conference. Brezhnev himself also sent a letter to Reagan through diplomatic channels, warning the United States not to intervene in the Lebanese situation and claiming that if the US military directly participated, the Soviet Union would formulate its policies accordingly.

The phrase "to formulate policies accordingly" was considered quite harsh in Soviet diplomatic language, implying the possibility of military confrontation.

However, in Slava's view, if diplomatic rhetoric cannot match real diplomatic actions, then it is nothing more than barking.

Brezhnev did nothing but send a strongly worded letter.

Did the Soviet Union send additional warships to the Eastern Mediterranean? No. Did it increase military aid to Syria? It symbolically supplied a batch of SA-6 missile parts, not even a complete missile battalion. Did it threaten any substantial countermeasures against Israel? No.

As far as Slava knows, the Soviet Union has not yet replenished the SA-6 positions that Israel destroyed in the Bekaa Valley!

There are definitely still supplies, but there is still debate within the Ministry of Defense about whether to replenish them – some people think that replenishing them would be pointless since the Syrians wouldn't know how to use them anyway, and it would be better to keep the equipment in their own warehouses for emergencies.

After Slava came downstairs, Director Nian's emotions had stabilized a lot. She gave Slava a half-empty bottle of orange soda, and Slava tasted it.

"So the president's warning was just a paper tiger."

“That’s right. The alliance is indeed unmatched at the level of nuclear weapons right now, as demonstrated by the seven-hour nuclear war exercise last month. But in conventional conflicts below the nuclear threshold—whether it’s the Bekaa Valley, Afghanistan, or a hypothetical Central European theater—we are gradually losing our advantage.”

Slava thought for a moment and said.

"Brezhnev was very worried about a direct conflict with Israel because he knew that the United States was backing Israel, and that fighting Israel was the same as fighting the United States."

Israel had just demonstrated in the Bekaa Valley that the Soviet bloc struggled even to defend itself in conventional warfare, let alone organize an Arab offensive. Therefore, the Kremlin's Old Deng could only issue a strongly worded statement to compensate for his inability to act.

"Anyway, it's not Moscow that's going to get bombed, but the Syrians will definitely have a lot to say about it." Director Nian walked towards the cafeteria with his hands in his pockets and wearing sunglasses.

"The Syrians are naturally dissatisfied—their air defense system, which cost them billions of rubles, was completely dismantled by the Israelis in two hours. Then they turned to Moscow expecting their big brother to step in and uphold justice, but instead, the big brother sent a letter."

Arafat was also dissatisfied; the PLO was trapped in the ruins of West Beirut, waiting to be annihilated by the Israelis, and Moscow could do nothing but hurl insults in the newspapers.

A water truck is cooling the road surface; the water mist refracts a brief rainbow in the sunlight before quickly dissipating.

“That’s the problem with the alliance,” he said, his voice lowering. “We do a lot of things: nuclear exercises in our own backyard, strong statements in our own newspapers, missiles on our own territory. But when the conflict happens outside our borders, in the Middle East, in Afghanistan, in Africa, the actual force we can commit is very limited. Because every additional battalion we send out means less budget at home, more sanctions, and more coffins being brought back wrapped in our national flags.”

He turned around and looked at Director Nian.

"If you think I'm just being a bully at home, you're being too mild. Actually, it's worse than that—we've been pretending to be fat for thirty years, and our faces are so swollen that we even believe we're really fat."

Director Nian pulled his sunglasses down a crack and looked at Slava, clearly waiting for his solution.

Slava certainly understood the Soviet Union's predicament—he was not an unreasonable man. An empire facing military pressure from three directions—NATO, the Soviet Union, and Afghanistan—coupled with internal difficulties such as economic stagnation and Western sanctions, indeed had few options.

Afghanistan is already bleeding out, with young soldiers dying every month on the rocks and sands of the Hindu Kush Mountains. If a second front is opened in the Middle East, collapse will not be far off.

But not collapsing doesn't equate to a promising future. What will be the future of an empire that can only maintain its great power status within the framework of nuclear deterrence while falling further behind in any area below the nuclear threshold?

“You’re thinking about Afghanistan, aren’t you?” Director Nian saw right through him.

“You're the one who understands me best,” Slava smiled.

"You still want to persuade General An to withdraw the troops, right?"

“I’d like to, but the timing isn’t right. But I want him to at least start thinking about this issue—how to get out of Afghanistan in a way that isn’t shameful.”

Do you think he'll listen?

Slava recalled what Andropov had said to him a few months earlier when he was discussing the Afghan issue: "I was involved in this decision and I will not shirk my responsibility."

Even if the outcome of a decision made by oneself is terrible, one is unwilling to easily overturn it, because overturning it means denying oneself. For someone like Andropov, who has been at the pinnacle of power for fifteen years, the cost of denying himself is not only psychological but also political—his competitors are waiting for the moment when he admits that he has made a mistake.

Moreover, once an empire is embroiled in war, it will consider the issue of sunk costs.

If troops are withdrawn from Afghanistan, the newly established Afghan regime will become a haven for religious extremists, just like Iran. The Soviet Union fought for two years and gained nothing, so the resistance to withdrawal is indeed too great.

Historically, Gorbachev's decision to withdraw troops was most likely made because all those who made that decision were dead, leaving the blame to the predecessors, and then trusting the wisdom of future generations.

“Withdrawing troops is unlikely for Andropov, who has just taken the seat of General Secretary. If he were to withdraw from Afghanistan soon after taking office, the conservatives would say he is weak, that he is making concessions to the United States, and that he has betrayed Comrade Brezhnev’s line. He needs to consolidate his power base before he can address this issue.”

"When will that be?"

"When he feels his power is secure enough and enough people are on his side."

"But how much longer can he live? In the end, won't it be our generation that has to clean up the mess?"

Silence filled the space between them.

...

Something happened in early August that was neither too big nor too small.

At the 12th International Congress of Biochemistry in Perth, Australia, Academician Ovchinnikov, Vice President of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, and another academician were denied entry visas by the Australian government on the grounds that they were "government officials" rather than "pure scientists." In protest, the other 25 Soviet scientists accompanying them boycotted the conference and withdrew from all academic activities.

This incident was portrayed in Soviet official media as a "political persecution of the Soviet scientific community by the imperialist camp." Pravda published a strongly worded commentary, and the Soviet Academy of Sciences issued a statement condemning the Australian government's discriminatory practices. Slava didn't pay much attention to this news when he first read it—

There were countless instances of mutual obstruction of visa applications during the Cold War, and the United States was no exception.

But he later noticed a detail: the International Union of Biochemistry and Biotechnology and scientific organizations from several Western countries publicly criticized the Australian government's actions afterward, arguing that politicizing scientific exchange was detrimental to academic freedom.

In other words, even the Western scientific community feels that Australia has gone too far this time!

However, the Soviet Union's response was not to take advantage of this favorable public opinion environment to gain more international sympathy, but rather to impose a blanket boycott and complete withdrawal.

This reaction made Slava think of many things.

It's as if the league only has two modes when facing the outside world: either full-scale confrontation or passive retreat. The huge gray area in between—using the rules, leveraging external forces, and finding room to maneuver within the opponent's system—almost doesn't exist.

The collective withdrawal of 25 scientists from the conference had no practical effect other than depriving Soviet researchers of an important opportunity for academic exchange. The Australian government would not regret its visa decision just because the Soviets did not come, and the international scientific community's sympathy ultimately faded due to the Soviet Union's overreaction.

This is the difference between independence and self-isolation—the former is having the ability to choose not to participate, while the latter is not having the ability to participate and therefore pretending not to want to participate.

The alliance has packaged the latter as the former in far too many areas.

That night, Slava wrote in his notebook:

“A truly powerful nation should be able to find its advantageous position in any rules-based system—including those set by its adversaries.”

Only the weak need to withdraw from the game to maintain their dignity. This country far too often substitutes withdrawal for participation, anger for strategy, and nuclear weapons for everything.

Nuclear bombs can destroy the world, but they can't help our scientists get a visa, can't help our workers buy a decent bicycle, and can't help our soldiers come home alive from Afghanistan!

That's not right.

-

After two years of experience, Slava is no longer someone who just complains in his notebook.

Soon, he began to prepare for two things.

The first matter was the reception arrangements for the visit of the former deputy director-general level official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Moscow this month. After Andropov was officially transferred to the Central Secretariat, he assigned this task to several different channels to prepare separately—the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was naturally led by Gromyko, but Andropov wanted to establish his own line outside the official channels of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs so that he could bypass those diplomatic bureaucrats whose minds were still stuck in the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s if necessary.

Andropov believed from the bottom of his heart that sending Gromyko to negotiate would mostly result in the same old arguments.

Slava was thus designated as a node on this line. His job was to prepare a detailed analysis of the key points of the negotiations before the Chinese representatives arrived, assess the conditions and bottom lines that the Chinese side might propose, as well as the space for concessions that the Soviet side could make and the red lines that could not be crossed.

This analysis requires him to have a comprehensive understanding of the complex and intertwined history of Sino-Soviet relations over the past two decades, from the 1960s to the present—from the split between Khrushchev and Chairman Mao to the Zhenbao Island conflict, the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States, and the Sino-Vietnamese War, including every juncture, every turning point, and every lingering issue.

Fortunately, he came from the future. He knew what the final outcome would be and also roughly knew what insurmountable obstacles lay on the path to that outcome.

However, he was also well aware that at this point in 1982, the improvement of Sino-Soviet relations faced three core obstacles that the Soviet Union was unwilling to confront: the presence of troops in Afghanistan, the presence of troops in Mongolia, and support for Vietnam.

Each of these three issues involves the Soviet Union's core strategic interests and face. Even if Andropov wanted to improve Sino-Soviet relations, he could not make significant concessions on these issues—at least not in the short term.

So, isn't that where the art of negotiation comes from?

How can we send out enough goodwill signals without crossing the red line, so that both sides feel that the relationship is moving in a positive direction, and at a pace that is not so fast that it would cause the conservatives within each side to jump up in anger?

The second thing is NATO's Elite Shooter 83 exercise next year.

In his memory, NATO will hold a nuclear war simulation exercise called "Excellent Shooter 83" in Europe next fall, which will simulate the entire process of escalating from conventional war to full-scale nuclear war.

In history, this exercise almost triggered a real nuclear war—the Soviet intelligence system misjudged the exercise as preparation for a real nuclear strike, and NATO did not notify the Soviet Union. Multiple factors led Moscow to enter a state of maximum alert. If it weren't for the calm judgment of several key figures, human civilization might have come to an end in the autumn of 1983.

This exercise, and the nuclear war panic it triggered, was a huge lever. If used properly, it could simultaneously advance two things: first, make the Soviet military acutely aware of the urgency of information-based reforms in its conventional forces, as the exercise would expose serious deficiencies in strategic early warning and command communications; and second, create political conditions for the withdrawal from Afghanistan, because the nuclear panic would make everyone realize that the Soviet Union could not withstand pressure on multiple fronts simultaneously.

But that's next fall.

It was summer of 1982, a little over a year before that exact moment. In that year, he needed to do a great deal of preparatory work—continuing to cultivate influence among the military reformists, pushing information technology research from theory to practice, and establishing his position within the process of improving Sino-Soviet relations...

"Try to stop this superpower from heading straight for hell..."

Slava rubbed his eyes and opened the compilation of documents about the twenty-year history of Sino-Soviet relations.

He still has a lot of work to do.

The Moscow heat outside the window was beginning to subside, and the birch leaves rustled in the evening breeze. A tram clanged twice in the distance and then fell silent.

Director Nian was already asleep on the sofa opposite, holding a book in his hand. Slava glanced at the cover and saw it was a Russian version of "War and Peace." Director Nian probably flipped through less than fifty pages before falling asleep.

That's not surprising; Tolstoy's hypnotic effects also work on the system girl.

He gently draped his coat over Director Nian, then returned to his desk to continue reading the documents.

Chapter 25 Moscow Talks (8K Combined)

Slava spent two weeks preparing for the negotiations.

Saying it was two weeks isn't quite accurate, because he spent three days in between going to the Lubyanka Hotel and spending several days studying the compilation of internal archives on Sino-Soviet relations that he had obtained from the KGB archives.

He flipped through all the correspondence from the Sino-Soviet split in 1960 to the last meeting minutes before the negotiations broke down in 1979. His eyes were blurry and his neck was stiff. When his mentor visited him, Slava's eyes were already bloodshot, and he was drooling and half-asleep, lying on the table. It seemed that he was about to see his mentor before Comrade Brezhnev.

"Brother Lao, if you keep going like this, you'll be in the morgue before President An even takes office."

Director Nian placed the food beside him and casually pulled out the document that had been ruined by saliva, then used a hairdryer to dry it—KGB documents that were damaged required a written self-criticism.

"Damn, your saliva has blurred out the number of Soviet divisions deployed in the Far East. I'll have to go back and fill in the gaps later."

Slava rubbed his eyes and got up from the table, picked up the bowl and shoveled down a couple of mouthfuls of rice—buckwheat porridge with boiled sausage, Director Nian's standard cooking skills, or rather, his standard lack of cooking skills—before continuing to work.

He had already figured out the framework of the report. The core idea was simple:

The Soviet Union could not resolve any of the "three major obstacles" that China wanted in the short term, but both sides had a real need to improve relations. So where was the breakthrough point for the negotiations?

We can only try our best to balance the needs and benefits of both parties.

If the status quo is maintained, the cost to the alliance is staggering: more than fifty divisions are deployed year-round along the Sino-Soviet border and in the Mongolian direction, and maintaining the daily operation of these troops alone consumes a large portion of the defense budget every year.