The Peacemaker's Code

by Deepak Malhotra

  “The spacecraft started to approach Earth’s atmosphere approximately four hours ago. I was alerted of their movement immediately, and within ten minutes of that, many of you in this meeting were also informed. President Whitman and I quickly spoke to the leaders of most of the countries on this list, and we obtained their assurance that they would avoid taking any action that might be considered provocative. Correct me if you heard it differently, Madam President, but I thought everyone agreed—although a few of them made a point of saying that they would not commit to inaction if attacked. We did not push that point, because we ourselves are in the same situation. Still, everyone agreed that we should try to coordinate on Earth-side strategy and actions.”

  “That is a good summary of our calls, Secretary Strauss. Please continue.”

  “Yes, Madam President. Just over two hours ago, six squadrons initiated a further descent. Spacecraft over New York, Moscow, Shanghai, Jerusalem, Tehran, and Riyadh were suddenly hovering only 10,000 feet overhead.

  “Ninety minutes ago, we sent a message to ET-1, asking them to explain their intent. We’ve received no response.

  “Around 6:15 a.m. Eastern time, less than an hour ago, the Iranians sent a helicopter to get a closer look at the squadron located twenty miles east of Tehran. The helicopter flew to within five hundred yards of the alien spacecraft. It took photographs, while the soldiers on board held up welcome signs written in English and Persian. After a few minutes, we are told, the helicopter turned around and started to fly back to Tehran. Moments later, it was shot out of the sky, killing all the soldiers on board. We cannot independently verify what happened.

  “Ten minutes later, the squadron near Riyadh made its way south and east toward the Al-Ahsa governate in Saudi Arabia, which is home to Ghawar, the largest oil field in the world. Ghawar accounts for over a quarter of Saudi Arabia’s total oil production, but that number will have to be revised downwards now. Eyewitness and satellite accounts confirm that at 6:38 a.m. Eastern Time, an explosion destroyed five square miles of Ghawar. This is still only a small portion of the total oil field, but the attack appears to have targeted the main buildings and critical infrastructure. They’re shut down, and the damage is likely to be in the billions. We don’t know much more, but the Saudis are keen to keep us in the loop. They’re scared out of their minds, quite frankly.

  “No other attacks have been reported, but more squadrons appear to be on the move. The Russians tell us that some spacecraft have moved from Moscow to Saint Petersburg, and at least one is hovering less than 3,000 feet above the General Staff Building, which houses the headquarters of the Western Military District of the Russian Armed Forces. The Chinese have mentioned that some of the spacecraft from Beijing have moved to locations that might allow the aliens to target ‘key assets’ of the Central Theater Command of the PLA. They are not being terribly specific about exactly which assets or capabilities are threatened. We worry, of course, about nuclear weapons in this case. There is some movement in Europe and Israel, but the squadrons near New York, Toronto, and Mumbai seem to be stationary.

  “As I understand it, all the alien spacecraft that are in the Earth’s atmosphere are now less than 10,000 feet above the ground. But this could already be old news. General Allen, do you have anything you’d like to add?”

  General Allen leaned forward with a pained look on his face. “We just got word of two more attacks, Madam President. Both were within the last ten minutes. The first was an attack on an oil field in Venezuela. The second involves some sort of explosion near Saint Petersburg. It’s not the General Staff Building, but it is a military installation. The Russians are angry and anxious—but they’re holding fire for now.”

  Whitman took to her feet. “So, what the hell is going on here? The Saudis aren’t going to fight back—they’re going to ask us for help and then go along with whatever we say. The Iranians might have the capability to shoot something down—and you know they want to fight back—but they won’t dare either. Not with something this big they won’t—they’re going to look to Russia or China or us to make the call. Venezuela has no capability to do anything. The Russians will fight back if things escalate, but they can endure this level of pain easier than just about anyone. So, I repeat. What the hell is going on here? What are the aliens up to? What’s the pattern? These are just pinpricks. They could do a lot more damage. Why aren’t they doing it? And why haven’t they come after us? What do they have to gain from a handful of such attacks against those who won’t retaliate? Oil prices will be through the roof on Monday, but I doubt that’s their objective.”

  The next twenty minutes of discussion were a mess. No theory seemed to explain the pattern, plus the magnitude of the attacks, plus the choice of targets. But everyone agreed on three things. First, the attacks were still small enough that Earth-side could choose not to retaliate. Second, while the attacks were economically costly—and terrifying—relatively few lives had been lost, and it was unclear what the aliens stood to gain from destroying a few energy and military installations. Third, the aliens had not attacked any of the countries that would be most likely to feel public pressure to retaliate. What did it all add up to? No one could say.

  “Maybe they’re just testing the waters,” NSA Garcia suggested. “Starting out with smaller attacks to see if we comply with their demand not to retaliate.”

  “To what end?” Strauss asked. “Just because we didn’t respond to small attacks doesn’t mean that we won’t fight back if they escalate and start killing millions.”

  “Then why not start with larger attacks?” Whitman asked.

  After a protracted silence, Nielsen asked Kilmer to weigh in.

  “I haven’t reached any sort of conclusion, but I can tell you how I’m starting to think about it. The president has asked why the attacks have not been larger. What if we disaggregate that question into three separate questions: can they attack us, do they want to attack us, and are they afraid to attack us.

  “Is it possible that they can’t launch more aggressive attacks? That seems hard to believe. Based on the lunar attack, we know they can do more damage. So, do they not want to do more damage? I have no idea, but if either of these is the explanation, that they either can’t or don’t want to launch bigger attacks, that’s great news. We can probably survive this.

  “On the other hand, if they both can and want to do more damage, then we have to consider the possibility that they’re afraid of how we might retaliate. That would also be good news. But there’s a problem with this explanation. It doesn’t explain why they would bother to attack at all then. If you’re too afraid to do what you really want to do—to initiate a major military campaign, let’s say—then what purpose does it serve to do so little?

  “So, let’s put that together. Any of those could explain their behavior—they can’t, or don’t want to, or are afraid to attack more aggressively. And we can expect to survive all those possibilities. None of those are the nightmare scenario.”

  “What is the nightmare scenario?” Whitman asked bluntly.

  “That someone can hurt you. And wants to. And is not afraid to do it. And the only thing holding them back is something else that you still haven’t figured out. That’s the scenario that we need to be focused on. The other scenarios will more or less work themselves out. We need to figure out what else, if anything, might be holding them back—because there may come a time when that factor, whatever it is, is no longer there to stop them.”

  Whitman turned to Nielsen. “What do you think, Zack?”

  “That helps clarify things,” Nielsen responded. “Unfortunately, I think we are in the nightmare scenario. They’re certainly capable of doing more damage. And I believe they’re willing to hurt us—although I hope I’m wrong about just how far they’re willing to go. I also don’t see any reason for them to be afraid of our current capabilities—although we could probably do some damage to the alien spacecraft in our atmosphere.

  “Let’
s remember, it’s only been a few hours. They might only be warming up. Maybe they want to see how effective our defenses are before they go full force. I do agree that if something else is holding them back, we need to figure it out ASAP. But I would say it’s too soon to even conclude that they are holding back.”

  “So how do we find out what’s really going on?”

  “Well,” said Kilmer, “If you need more information to figure out what someone is up to, you can simply wait for them to act, you can force them to react, or you can communicate. Waiting for them to act is costly in this case; it means waiting for more attacks, more lives lost, and more damage. The second option is to test them—we retaliate, or nudge them in some way, to trigger a reaction—and see what we can learn from their response. Third, we can try to talk to them again and figure out what is going on and why.”

  “Waiting costs lives. Testing them risks escalation. And communication we’ve already tried,” Perez noted.

  “I agree,” Kilmer admitted. “There are no good options. But I think there is a good place to start. I say we try to communicate again—but we do it differently. I think the next message should go from me to Archidamus.”

  Perez looked puzzled. “Archidamus made it clear that you have no role to play in what happens next. And I believe his message said, quite specifically, that he will have nothing more to do with you.”

  “The main reason is that he and I had a relationship once, however modest it may have been. And they seemed pleased, at least in the earlier message, that I had survived what they did to me. Maybe once they hear from me, they’ll reconsider and decide to give it a chance. No downside, right?” Then Kilmer smiled. “As to Archidamus saying that he’ll have nothing to do with me anymore… well, the tone of that struck me as a bit strange, to be honest. Maybe I did something that really pissed him off while I was in ET-1. But ‘the lady doth protest too much, methinks’.”

  ~ 114 ~

  At 8:30 a.m., a message was sent to ET-1.

  Archidamus… This is Kilmer. You once demanded that we speak, and I obliged. You insisted that I sacrifice everything, and I agreed. Now I ask a favor of you. Before more damage is done, let’s discuss matters one more time. War is never the answer if you are asking the right questions. I hope we can try to do that again. To ask the right questions before we rush to answer them with violence.

  At 9:00, Kilmer joined Secretary Strauss, General Allen, Director Druckman, NSA Garcia, VP Nielsen, and President Whitman in the Oval Office. There were three topics on the agenda: military preparedness, strategic options, and coordination with the allies.

  General Allen led the first discussion. “Let me start with the good news. From everything we’ve seen so far—how fast their spacecraft move, the way they maneuver, and their infrared signature—we think we can hit them from the ground and from the air. We don’t know exactly what they’re made of, but we think we can probably do some serious damage. The bad news comes in two varieties. First, we don’t know how fast they can move if they’re under attack. Second, we don’t know what kind of defensive capabilities they can deploy.

  “The fact that they’re flying so close to the ground when they carry out their attacks gives us some hope. If they need to do that to be effective, then our surface-to-air missiles can possibly take them out. They could be flying more than ten miles overhead and we could still hit them, but the farther they are the harder it is. If they launch themselves out into space, they’re out of range for our SAMs and conventional aircraft. For that, we will need to rely on the work we’ve been doing with our anti-satellite weapons. The ASATs can get into space and hit targets many hundreds of miles above the Earth’s surface. But they’re not quite field-tested. And we don’t know what we’re up against out there. We have options, but we can’t bet the farm on them.”

  After thirty minutes of discussion on the topic, Secretary Strauss outlined the strategic options.

  “The questions we’ve been struggling with for weeks remain the same. Whether and when to engage? How aggressively? To respond proportionally or to hit back harder? How to project strength while conveying a willingness to negotiate? What is the exit strategy? How much damage are we able to sustain? Under what conditions do we surrender? What are our red lines?

  “The situation at hand brings into sharper focus two of these: under what conditions do we fight back, and how aggressively? I believe, as I said yesterday, that we cannot allow them to act with impunity. If there is an attack on American soil, and if it is possible to fight back, then some response is necessary.”

  “By that logic,” Nielsen said, “would you be comfortable with the Iranians or the Russians launching an attack right now? They’ve been hit—but we’ve advised them to be patient.”

  “I understand that,” Strauss replied. “But I believe the United States is different. Not because American lives are more important than Iranian lives, or because we are exempt from behaving responsibly. It’s the opposite, in fact—we shoulder a greater responsibility. If America fails to respond, it sends a signal. We don’t rule the world, but we are first among equals. The aliens have done their homework, and they know that. They will weigh our actions much more heavily than those of other nations. We have a responsibility not to show weakness.”

  “It’s like the difference between someone killing one of our soldiers and assassinating our president,” Druckman offered. “We don’t say one life is more important than another, but we make it clear that if you cross that line—if you come after our leaders—there will be a whole different level of hell to pay. I believe Strauss is just pointing out that the US is the leader here, and the aliens should know we will respond differently. And I agree.”

  “What is the threshold then?” Nielsen asked. “I don’t imagine we go to war if they blow up a cabin in the woods. What’s the line?”

  “That’s what we have to decide,” said Strauss. “No, I will not go to war over one cabin. But a military installation? A small town? Yes—I would respond, hoping that it would get them to stop.”

  “The problem arises,” said Kilmer, “when one side has a red line, but the other side doesn’t know what it is. If we decide to draw the line at a small town, but they don’t think we would retaliate unless a large city is attacked, they might inadvertently cross our line. And then we have to attack. And then they might need to respond to our attack to maintain their credibility. And then we are on the path to serious escalation. We might need to make sure that they understand our red lines, so that these might act as deterrents.”

  Whitman followed up. “So you would let the aliens know—announce it to them, even if they won’t talk to us—that if they do X, Y, or Z, we will retaliate. Is that what you’re proposing?”

  “That is what I was suggesting, but it’s not so simple. If you don’t communicate your red lines, the other side might cross them by mistake. But there’s also a risk in telling people what your red lines are. If we tell them we will go to war if they do X, Y, or Z, we have also told them, implicitly, that we will not go to war if they do something short of that. The challenge is how to let the other side know which lines they will be punished for crossing, without giving them the license to cross all sorts of other lines. It’s not easy to do.

  “This is perhaps why Chamberlain waited so long to give Hitler an ultimatum. If he had said that invading Poland was the red line any earlier, it would have made it even easier for Hitler to attack Czechoslovakia, knowing there would be no consequences.”

  “So, yes, there is a tradeoff. But what about in this case? What would you propose, Professor?” Whitman pushed.

  “If our true red line is actually very aggressive, as Secretary Strauss suggests it should be, then we need to be transparent about it with the aliens; otherwise, there is a good chance they well stumble over the line unintentionally. But if we are unwilling to fight unless the aliens do really terrible things, then we want to avoid being transparent, because revealing our red line will allow
them to do even more damage, with impunity, than they’re doing now. Whether we reveal our red lines depends on how far they are from crossing them. We can’t make that call until you decide what your line is, Madam President.”

  After fifteen more minutes of debating what the red line should be, there was nothing close to consensus. Strauss and Druckman favored a more aggressive threshold. General Allen and NSA Garcia saw it differently.

  “We have to consider the full range of what’s possible here,” Allen advised. “We’re saying that an attack on a military installation or small town is a big deal, but that’s only because the aliens haven’t done anything even more aggressive yet. I shouldn’t have to remind anyone that, not long ago, we thought they would kill us all. That is the full range of what is possible. Will we risk an escalation that could result in complete annihilation just because they killed ten thousand people? Or because they blew up a base? I think that’s madness.”

  “That’s a fair point, General,” Druckman conceded. “But what do you think happens after we don’t retaliate? Do you think they stop with one town? Do they stop at ten thousand deaths?”

  General Allen shook his head. “I don’t know what happens after ten thousand deaths. Or after fifty thousand deaths. Maybe what happens is more deaths. But I would want to see what happens next. If they continue to escalate regardless of our restraint—or because of it, which is your worry—then we can always retaliate later in the engagement.”

  Just after 10 a.m., Kilmer’s phone buzzed. He had asked Silla to message him if there was a response from ET-1, or if there was another attack. He assumed other phones would also be buzzing if there was any such news, and he didn’t see anyone else react. He took out his phone and saw that it wasn’t a text message at all—just an email. He was about to put the phone away, but then decided to allow himself a moment of distraction. He opened the email and started to read.

  Then he read it again.