Cauldron is a technothriller novel by Larry Bond. The book explores a fictional modern world war scenario, set in the 1990s and involving the dissolution of NATO. Plot Background Economic upheaval around the world in the early 1990s becomes an opportunity for France and Germany to consolidate their power in Europe through an alliance called the European Confederation or EurCon. However, it is a continental partnership in name only; France provides the political power with the Germans carrying the economic muscle. The instability and the countries' political differences with the United States causes the dissolution of NATO in 1996. Story The main plot takes place in 1998. Because North African immigrants are flooding Europe looking for work, riots in France and Germany prompts both countries to force a number of former Warsaw Pact nations to accept them in various factories. The first of these is a Eurocopter plant in Hungary. To further ensure subservience to EurCon, military governments are installed in several countries. The Russian army launches a coup in Moscow as well and put the incumbent Russian president under house arrest. Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia stand up against EurCon, which gradually deploys combat troops to their borders. France also negotiates with Russia to stop natural-gas shipments to Poland. The United States comes in to support Poland by sending an LNG tanker to Gdańsk; French covert operatives, however, blow it up in the harbor. The U.S. Navy starts sending armed convoys to force a breakthrough of the Baltic Sea and keep the supply lines open. French oppression in Eastern Europe comes to a head in May 1998 when a people's uprising in Budapest results in the puppet regime's collapse. Seeing the turmoil as a potential harbinger for unrest, France orders military forces to subjugate the Hungarians days later; however, the Hungarian Army slows down the French assault. The French and Germans invade Poland two months after the attack on Hungary. Because of heavy opposition, the Poles figure out that the EurCon armies plan to envelop Polish forces in a pincer movement and pull them out to safe havens in Eastern Poland. Meanwhile, the US convoys in the North Sea are still on track for Poland. EurCon mobilizes their air forces to stop the Americans, who have laid a trap. Much of the EurCon strike force is destroyed, and a last-ditch attempt to destroy the U.S. fleet with ASMP