“The Americans would not be so brash.” “Are you sure of that, Comrade Political Officer? Sure? What if one of their aircraft commits a ‘pilot error’? And sinks one of our destroyers? And what if the American president gets a direct link to Moscow to apologize before we can ever report it? They swear it was an accident and promise to punish the stupid pilot—then what? You think the imperialists are so predictable this close to their own coastline? I do not. I think they are praying for the smallest excuse to pounce on us.
