Rescind Order

by Natasha Bajema

  She paused, and everyone around the table nodded.

  “Have your staffs run through all the options this afternoon—diplomatic, economic, cyber, and military—and review any new intelligence that comes in over the wire today. We’ll reconvene over secure videoconference in the early evening and come to a final decision. In the meantime, I’d like to discuss our nuclear options in the event of an escalating conflict with China.”

  “Ma’am?” Burke said, the muscles in his neck growing taut as he drew his eyebrows together and readjusted in his chair. “You can’t possibly want to consider going nuclear.”

  Stay calm. He’s just trying to get a rise.

  Susan took a deep breath in an attempt to slow her heartbeat. “I was sworn into office four days ago. During my tenure as VP, I never expected to have the sole responsibility for launching a nuclear attack. While President Monroe was alive, he took the lead on national security issues. But now it’s my responsibility, and I want to know my options.” She paused to wait for head nods around the table. Then she leaned back in her chair and let her eyes meet the gaze of each person at the table. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think China wants a nuclear war with us. Especially not after we’ve worked for six months to achieve a historic clean energy agreement. That said, we have to consider the potential scenario in which the Chinese might be using this war game to put military assets into place. The last time we were distracted, China seized the advantage and took over Hong Kong. I don’t want to get caught with our pants down again.”

  Everyone nodded in agreement.

  “Ma’am, if I may begin the discussion,” Admiral Waller said, leaning forward in his chair. “The U.S. maintains a nuclear triad with three different legs on land, at sea, and in the air. We currently deploy four hundred land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles stationed underground on high alert, ten nuclear ballistic missile submarines at sea, each carrying twenty missiles with multiple nuclear warheads, and sixty heavy bombers carrying gravity bombs and cruise missiles. That’s a total of 1,550 nuclear warheads at our disposal. Our stockpile hasn’t changed much since our arms control efforts with Russia fell apart a decade ago. But the same can’t be said for China. Not only have they significantly expanded their nuclear arsenal over the years, they’ve invested a great deal into their sea-based delivery systems. They’ve deployed at least twenty new submarines in the past decade.”

  “But what’s our plan for a nuclear conflict with China?” Susan asked.

  Admiral Waller nodded and continued. “Until recently, we’d detailed our strategic nuclear war plan in Annex 25 of U.S. Strategic Command’s Operations Plan 8010. The annex outlined a range of nuclear war fighting scenarios against different adversaries to deter and defeat a diverse set of targets.”

  Susan raised her eyebrow. “Until recently?”

  “Ma’am, when we went live with ARC five months ago, we shifted from an approach involving pre-planned targeting and adaptive planning by U.S. Strategic Command staff to a new approach involving ARC’s dynamic and autonomous planning in real time.”

  Susan frowned, wishing she’d given nuclear war more thought over the past six months. She was trying to make sense of the words adaptive and dynamic, but she didn’t want to ask a dumb question—like what was the difference between the two concepts. She couldn’t afford to come off as a complete amateur in front of Burke, but she also needed to understand her options.

  I never thought I’d be the one making these decisions.

  Admiral Waller continued, “Basically, we’ve trained ARC’s deep neural network to assume command and control using all existing data on our nuclear forces and those of our adversaries. We’ve fed the network details from our nuclear war planning and targeting priorities over the past nine decades. During the training phase, ARC tweaked its algorithms until it produced reliable outcomes for many different types of nuclear war-fighting scenarios.”

  Susan frowned. “Please don’t tell me you trained ARC to start and win nuclear wars,” she said grimly. But she was only half-joking.

  Admiral Waller’s face blanched. Then he appeared to realize her sarcasm and chuckled. “Of course not, ma’am. Centoreum Tech used the nuclear deterrence model to train its deep neural network. The model provides the rules of the game, so to speak. The first rule of ARC’s algorithms is to optimize its ability to retaliate after a nuclear attack. It is the most fundamental rule of the entire system. We made sure of it during the design phase in order to prevent the apocalyptic scenario you just suggested.”

  Susan exhaled. Well, that’s a relief.

  Admiral Waller continued, saying, “Moreover, to ensure ARC continues to function as expected and remains up to date, we run a test and evaluation each month. As you know, the fifth test is planned for this afternoon. This morning, ARC received another data infusion into its ISR component. During the test later today, we’ll take ARC offline for a brief period, input a nuclear war scenario, run a simulation, produce synthetic data, and see how it performs. ARC will evaluate its ISR data and simulated nuclear attack data from the early warning system. Then it will devise a nuclear war fighting plan in real time. It delivers a custom nuclear retaliatory attack at a level appropriate to the provocation.”

  Different levels of annihilation?

  Susan rubbed her chin. “In other words, you can’t give me nuclear options until an attack is underway? Because ARC improvises in real time to provide flexible options based on the features of an actual attack?”

  Admiral Waller nodded. “Ma’am, ARC offers a big improvement over the Cold War, when we had two basic choices. Back then, the president would have had to choose between an all-out retaliation—launching our entire arsenal at the adversary—or a controlled retaliation with limited nuclear attacks. Even so, many of us worried there was no such thing as a limited nuclear attack since a limited response would require nuance that just wasn’t possible back then. The ARC system optimizes our chance of survival, so there are no better nuclear options than those recommended by ARC’s deep neural network,” he said with a smile. “You don’t have to make a decision on how to use our nuclear weapons anymore. ARC does this for you.”

  Now why doesn’t that make me feel any better?

  “Today’s scenario happens to involve a response to an escalating nuclear conflict with China,” Admiral Waller said. “Once we have the results, we’ll know better how ARC might respond in the current situation with China. If it’s okay with you, ma’am, I propose we debrief you on the test results this evening. We can have a more productive discussion about possible nuclear options when we know the moves ARC recommends for today’s exercise.”

  Now I really need that technical briefing on ARC.

  Susan went silent for a few moments. She tried to remember the details of how ARC was supposed to function from her initial briefing, but her memories were blurry. “Let me make sure I understand correctly. Every month, we feed the ARC system new ISR data to keep it at the cutting edge of geopolitical and technological shifts. Then we take ARC offline and run a test scenario to make sure the system is functioning properly according to the model of nuclear deterrence. After that, we put ARC back online to monitor incoming sensor and intelligence data for emerging threats and nuclear attacks.”

  “Yes, ma’am, that’s exactly how it works,” Admiral Waller said.

  “When the ARC system detects a nuclear attack via our early warning radar and satellites, ARC plans an appropriate retaliatory attack and gives the launch order,” Susan added. “In this situation, I’ll need to decide whether to issue the rescind order.”

  Admiral Waller nodded.

  “And how long do I have to make that decision?” Susan asked.

  “You’ll have eight minutes and fifty-three seconds to rescind the launch order, ma’am.”

  Eight minutes and fifty-three seconds?

  “That’s it?” Susan asked, jerking her head. She hadn’t really meant to speak her mind out loud.


  That’s all the time I have to make a decision that will save or kill millions of people?

  “Yes, that’s the maximum window of time for reaching a decision,” Admiral Waller said. “We can’t recall land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles once they’re launched. And if we don’t launch them before the first nuclear detonation hits U.S. soil, we might lose them in the first strike.”

  Susan furrowed her brow, imagining the total destruction that would ensue in a nuclear war.

  If the United States is hit with nuclear weapons, does it really matter if we can’t launch our own in time? We’d all be dead…

  20

  Chain of Command

  GRACE

  0840

  E Ring, The Pentagon

  Arlington, Virginia

  Grace arrived early for the pre-brief meeting and stood outside the conference room, freshly showered and dressed in a clean uniform. Staring at the solid wood door, she wiped her sweaty hands on her navy trousers and took a few deep breaths. Since their morning meeting, she hadn’t heard anything further from Colonel Martinez. For this reason, she expected her talking points must have made it into the read-ahead.

  I’m definitely going to have some explaining to do.

  Her thoughts drifted to the long series of texts from Zach she’d received the previous night. As expected, the tone had transitioned from legitimate worry to obnoxious irritation sometime around midnight and then finally arrogant anger by 3 a.m. His last text sounded particularly ominous and had stated rather bluntly, “We need to talk.” Grace couldn’t agree more. But she had other things to worry about so she didn’t respond, knowing that might be enough to drive him over the edge. For a moment, she felt a prick of guilt.

  Maybe I should at least let him know I’m okay.

  Then she remembered how many times he’d done the same to her and given his extremely important job as an excuse. It was too late anyway. Her smartphone was already stashed in the lockbox, and she didn’t want to pull it back out. Instead, she stared at the conference room door.

  The Joint Chiefs of Staff conference room was located on the second floor in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) in the notorious E Ring of the Pentagon, which was home to more brass stars than she could count. As indicated on the plaque next to the door, the secure conference room was known as “The Tank” and used by the military’s top leadership for discussing sensitive issues and wartime decisions.

  Not daring to ring the bell and interrupt a high-level meeting, Grace decided to wait for someone with the code to the vault dial. She clenched her fists in anticipation. This was only her third time attending a meeting with the chairman, the most senior-ranking member of the U.S. Armed Forces and the principal military advisor to the president. If Colonel Martinez made good on his promise, she’d be giving the chairman part of his pre-brief for the morning test and evaluation of the ARC system.

  If only my father could see me now.

  Her father had never understood the importance of data and algorithms. She’d followed in his footsteps, attending the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs and being commissioned as an officer. Instead of becoming a fighter pilot as her father had hoped, however, she’d majored in computer science and signed up for the Air Force’s new data science career path. Her father worried she was making a terrible mistake, but Grace stood her ground. That said, she felt under constant pressure to prove she was right. Given her father’s illustrious career as a fighter pilot, she had some big shoes to fill.

  Down the hall, Grace spotted Arjun Sharma on the approach and pulled up her nose. The Pakistani-American was Centoreum Tech’s onsite systems engineer for ARC and several years her junior. For a defense contractor, he was a smart engineer and seemed competent enough. Grace had really wanted to like him when they were assigned to the same team by her boss, Captain Dietz.

  Sadly, Arjun had become her archnemesis after only a few months of working on the ARC system, and it was almost as if he wanted it that way. He constantly interfered with her ability to do her job. Time after time, whenever Grace put forward an objective analysis of ARC’s weaknesses and potential problems to her senior leadership, Arjun would expertly counter her points one by one and then argue for its many strengths.

  Even Captain Dietz would side with Arjun without question, ignoring any valid points she raised. But what Grace couldn’t figure out was why her senior leadership would consistently disregard her analysis and then simply nod their heads whenever Arjun spoke.

  He’s a defense contractor, not a high-ranking military officer.

  It was her primary responsibility to alert senior Pentagon leadership about any potential problems with ARC. She’d gone to Colonel Martinez precisely because none of them would listen to her.

  Grace didn’t take the decision to circumvent her boss or her boss’s boss lightly. She knew she was putting her career on the line. But if she truly believed in her mission to protect the national security of the United States, she really didn’t have a choice. It was a matter of life and death. The stakes were far more important than her career. She hoped her father would have agreed.

  When he reached the door, Arjun gave her a smug smile and didn’t bother to greet her properly. As usual, he was dressed to impress, wearing thick, black-framed glasses, a light blue suit and waistcoat, and a gray, floral-printed silk tie. With his flashy attire and diverse wardrobe, Grace was convinced Arjun must come from money.

  How else could he afford such clothes? Plus, who wears a vest during the summer?

  Grace returned Arjun’s fake smile with a cold glare and rubbed her sweaty hands together. Feeling a bit plain, she glanced down at her Air Force blues—the starched light-blue blouse, a three-button navy jacket, matching trousers, and polished silver hardware. Her long, straight, black hair was tightly woven into a fresh French braid. She ran her fingertips along her hairline to make sure no loose strands were poking out. For a moment, she wondered if she should have worn the skirt and stockings this time; it was the only way she could elevate her image and comply with Air Force dress and appearance policy.

  I’m not going to let this kid stand in my way.

  Arjun tapped his pen against his binder and glanced at his watch. “By the way, I saw your comment about the so-called false positive you slipped into the chairman’s read-ahead,” he said, almost under his breath. “I’m surprised you went straight to Colonel Martinez without letting me clarify some things about the system design.”

  Grace said nothing. No, you’re not.

  “But hey, it’s your career on the line, not mine.” The corners of his lips turned upward into a self-satisfied grin.

  Grace narrowed her eyes. “The ARC dashboard had a warning indicator. When I clicked on it, it stated that there is an emerging nuclear threat that requires a response in order to restore strategic stability. Specifically, ARC recommended an increase in the alert to DEFCON 3. The system has never done this before. When ARC doesn’t function as expected, it’s my job to bring this to the attention of Pentagon senior leadership. And I don’t have to tell you about it first.”

  Arjun rubbed his chin. “Huh. Okay. But did you make Captain Dietz aware of these issues before running to Colonel Martinez?”

  Grace caught a knowing twinkle in his charcoal eyes and turned to avoid his gaze, her face flushing pink.

  “Exactly what I thought,” Arjun said.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Grace said, her voice wavering.

  Arjun crossed his arms. “ARC is functioning exactly as expected, and you’d understand that if you would pay attention when I explain its design features. The system is supposed to identify anomalies in the ISR data and then recommend potential countermoves by U.S. nuclear forces. If ARC has recommended an increase in the readiness of the U.S. military, then we need to take it seriously.”

  “But that’s exactly the point,” Grace snapped. “It would be perfectly fine for ARC to provide recommendat
ions if it were just designed to offer better situational awareness for U.S. military and political leadership. But there’s much more to it than that, as you’ve just suggested. Both the early warning and command and control components of the system rely upon the threat context as determined by ARC’s analysis of the ISR data. Thus, any anomaly in that analysis matters for determining the margin of error in ARC’s recommendations for countermoves. The greater the margin of error, the greater chance of miscalculation, false alarms, or unintended nuclear war produced by the whole system.”

  “Grace, you’re making a mountain out of a mole hill,” Arjun said gruffly. “Do you really want to warn the chairman that the sky is falling when it’s not?”

  “Am I interrupting something?” A familiar voice boomed from down the hall behind Grace, causing her to swallow hard.

  Uh oh.

  Grace wished Martinez was there to defend her arguments, but he must be running late.

  Or maybe he’s in the room for another meeting?

  Captain Trent Dietz was a former nuclear submarine commander in the Navy and the same rank as Martinez. Though he behaved and acted exactly the way Grace expected from the worst sort of O-6 officer—self-important, consumed by his own hubris, and nasty to the bone. There was something in her boss’s tone that sent a chill down her spine.

  “I take it you’re discussing the points Major Lim sneaked into the read-ahead without talking to me first?”

  Grace turned to see Dietz approach them. Instinctively, she saluted her boss with her right hand, as dictated by protocol. Dietz wore his Navy service uniform—khaki pants, short-sleeve khaki shirt, khaki belt, and black shoes. With his cap hanging from his belt, the sparse gray stubble on his bald head was visible. But Dietz’s thick, black eyebrows were the most prominent feature on his face, and they were twisted into an angry scowl.