Overthrow: The War with China and North Korea

by David Poyer

In 1860, Secretary Cameron of the War Department had empowered Francis Blair to tender the command of the Union Army to Bobby Lee. His son Montgomery had served Lincoln as postmaster general, and his sons had continued the tradition as lawyers and politicians and generals.

  By her generation, the connection was tenuous, but she’d always cherished that history. Public service was a family tradition. She’d hoped to continue it in the House.

  Only now, was it still a tradition she should continue? Or would it be better, more honest, to quietly resign?

  On the pro side: she’d be out of a government that seemed increasing focused on suppressing dissent. And Bischoff had reiterated a point she’d heard before: that politics were “different” now, that the old checks and balances were obsolete, wasted effort. A unified country … the phrase sounded good. But there was no way to unify a political entity as huge and varied as the United States. That had once been seen as a source of strength: that so many different interests, ethnicities, political viewpoints, could swear allegiance to one flag and Constitution, and, for the most part, get along.

  Also on the pro side; spending more time at home, with her cat Jimbo and maybe, one of these days, with Dan. If everything worked out, if he made it home … this war had to end sometime. Didn’t it?

  Against resigning: now and again, she might serve as a moderating voice in a Pentagon that seemed increasingly hawkish as the tide of war turned. And how long would she actually feel fulfilled, at home with the cat, a cup of tea, and Jane Austen on audiobook?

  She made a face. If she knew Blair Titus, not very long.

  Her little motorcade turned off 395. Pros, and cons. Should she stay, in hopes of moderating Szerenci and the generals? Or resign, and try to salvage her reputation for a postwar run for Congress?

  She touched the damaged ear, winced, shifted on her seat. Her bad hip flamed, as it always did when she spent too much time sitting. A reminder that America still had enemies other than China. That someone had to fight back. Defend the country, whether its enemies were without, or within.

  “Be realistic, Blair,” she whispered to her reflection in the window. It was too late for a postwar run. The antiwa wing of her party had tarred her unmercifully for participating at all. They’d never support her candidacy; she’d be slaughtered in the primary.

  She didn’t want to stay. But if she left, she’d be out in the cold.

  There were no black-and-white answers. Not at her level.

  “Also, Blair,” the aide said, softly, as if unwilling to interrupt her brown study, “you got a call from overseas. From Ireland. No name given.” She passed over a slip of paper.

  Blair recognized the number. Liz McManus, from the previous year’s UN meeting in Dublin. But she couldn’t call back right now. And probably, if she replied at all, ought not to do so from an official phone.

  She sighed as the car coasted to a halt for the security check at Lafayette Square. And put off the decision for one more day.

  * * *

  THE West Wing portico, once again. The same Walmart-style concrete planters, so cheaply and badly made she shuddered every time she saw them. She bent to a reader for a retina scan as the Marine guards patted down her aide. Then, surprising her, turned to her. “You too, ma’am.”

  She lifted her arms, staring at the ceiling as hands ran up and down her sides, felt the small of her back, and investigated, briefly, between her legs. Well, well. This was unexpected. Had some new threat been detected? Was the president becoming even more paranoid? Or had Sol passed along some kind of warning about her? She checked her watch, worried she’d be late. But at last she and the aide were shown through.

  The Roosevelt Conference Room. She’d been here so often, during so many crises. This was the second meeting of the Szerenci-named Hostilities Termination Working Group. Today she would present the results of her DoD/State joint working group, and maybe, just maybe, some way forward might emerge. She got coffee, looked at a tray of pastries, but made a deliberate turn away. More and more often, rich, heavy foods made her feel ill.

  The usual suspects were assembling, this time without the deputies who lined the walls in the meetings across the river, in the more capacious Tank. Heavyset, slow-moving Helmut Glee, the Army chief of staff. Gray, birdlike Absalom Lipsey, Joint Chiefs Operations. Rolling in in her wheelchair, Dr. Oberfoell, from the Office of Cyber Security. Admiral Nick Niles gave a terse wave from across the room. Beside him was Jim Yangerhans, in command in the Pacific, Ricardo Vincenzo, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the bent back of Leif Strohm, the sickly, often absent secretary of defense. Blair crossed to shake Strohm’s hand and ask about his health. That courtesy accomplished—she worked for him, after all, though Szerenci seemed to think otherwise—she nodded to the CIA rep, Tony Provanzano.

  Then, as if attracted by some magnetic force, heads turned toward the door. Where a tall, gaunt, dark-skinned woman in a dark blue suit, red bow, white shirt, and dark skirt had appeared.

  Dr. Swethambari Madhurika—“Swethi,” as the mainstream media called her, or “Sweaty” to Mother Jones and the Daily Kos, before they’d been shut down—was a rarity in American politics, a first-generation immigrant. Her upswept hair was a dark, flat black. She carried through the forbidding look with one concession to femininity, large pearls at her ears. Arriving from India as a child, then practicing as a neurosurgeon, she’d built a biotech company that had IPO’d at two billion dollars. She’d entered politics in Florida, to become the first Hindu governor in the country. She’d built a reputation for ruthless pruning at HUD, cutting the staff by twenty percent while actually reducing homelessness, at least before the war wrecked everyone’s plans. Her predecessor as White House chief of staff had self-destructed in a sexting scandal.

  “The president asked me to sit in,” she said in a husky timbre. She took a seat at the side of the table. “I won’t be chairing. That will be the national security advisor. But we’re hoping for concrete options. To move forward, together, and get this war behind us.” She glanced at the empty chair at the head of the table. “And where is he?”

  Szerenci appeared in the doorway just then, looking rumpled. “Helicopter was delayed,” he muttered, and took his seat. He greeted everyone, then turned to Blair. “The war termination study. Ms. Titus, d’you want to kick off?”

  She flipped open her folder. “The heads of state meeting in Jakarta outlined what the Allies would consider a satisfactory settlement of hostilities. That may or may not include what we typically think of as victory. A lot will depend on how far the enemy leadership’s willing to go before admitting they can’t continue the conflict.

  “To reach that goal, while bearing in mind the necessity to avoid massive civilian casualties, and set the stage for a durable peace, the heads of state approved plans for the final military phase. With China and North Korea weakening, a decapitation strike was approved for Korea, with the possibility of a follow-on invasion should conditions warrant. The Indian army has taken Gwadar. Operation Rupture, the invasion of Hainan, will be under way shortly.

  “Thus, a military solution may be in sight, if two of the opposed Powers—Korea and Pakistan—can be knocked out or persuaded to surrender. Iran can be dealt with later; we think they’ll ask for terms once China capitulates. In the Gulf, we would lift the blockade and ease sanctions in exchange for cessation of hostilities and admission of UN or NPT teams to inspect for WMDs.”

  She took a breath. “That is, a military end is in sight. But that brings up new questions, that did not apply in any previous conflict. For what insight history and theory can bring to that issue, Professor Kevin Glancey, of Stanford.”

  She’d warned the historian to keep it to three minutes, and he nearly made that deadline. The thorniest problem, he said, remained. “There’s no protocol for war termination between nuclear powers. Much less, for the goals the administration has set forth—regime change, stabilization, and regeneration under a democratic government. As Bla
ir pointed out, what we used to regard as ‘victory’ may no longer be possible. And even if we achieve it, the results could be catastrophic.”

  He flicked a finger, and a graph appeared on the wall. “Note the steep, nearly asymptotic rise of risk as territory and allies are lost on one side. As that side is more seriously threatened, the possibility of escalation increases.

  “The limited number of Chinese strategic missile submarines have already been sunk or bombed to uselessness in port. Our air defenses hem in their bomber force, which was never designed for penetration of robust defenses. The stumbling block remains: his land-based missile force. A cornered Zhang will be tempted to employ them to set red lines, to demolish Allied forces or US cities, or to essentially freeze the Allied advance in place.”

  “None of this is new,” Szerenci observed. “You said the same thing at our last meeting. Unless you’re telling us something useful, we’re wasting our time here, Kevin.”

  Blair brushed her hair back over her damaged ear and hardened her voice. “The net here is perfectly clear, Ed. Unless and until we can disable those heavy missiles, the best we can hope for is stalemate. Not victory. Not peace. But the American public doesn’t do stalemate. No matter how many people DHS puts behind barbed wire, we can expect the antiwa movement to grow.”

  The White House chief of staff lifted a hand. “Then … Blair … how do we end this war? Because to me, it sounds like you’re saying we actually can’t?”

  No one stirred. Until Szerenci sighed. “Blair’s put her finger on it, Swethi. Unless we can take those heavy missiles off the table there’s no viable path to termination of hostilities with the central antagonist.”

  “And if we don’t, or can’t, disable them? Then what?”

  Blair said, “Either a full-scale invasion of the Asian mainland, or return to the status quo ante bellum via an armistice.”

  “And renewed war in ten years, when the enemy recovers. Both impossible choices,” Szerenci said. “Are we agreed on that?”

  A hesitation, then nods and murmurs of agreement around the table.

  Madhurika inclined her head as well. “All right. Both alternatives are unacceptable. So how do you plan to disable these missiles? Without bringing on central nuclear war?”

  Dr. Oberfoell stirred in her wheelchair. “We discussed this at the last meeting. War Eagle may be able to disable command and control, now that Jade Emperor’s toast. At least, we can slow their reaction time.”

  CIA said, “We’re exploring an alternative with one of the senior generals. But to be frank, we doubt this will resemble the scenario in Iraq, where the regime largely crumbled from within.”

  Blair exchanged glances with Szerenci. She’d briefed him on her meeting in Dublin, just to be safe. He’d grumbled, but hadn’t taken action against her. But neither, apparently, had he mentioned the other side’s feeler to anyone else. She tensed, though, as he tapped a pencil on the table.

  He said, “We’ve fought this entire war from a position of escalation inferiority. Which is why I’ve always advised the president against use of nuclear weapons. Even when they were used against us. Cost and danger rises with each rung up the ladder. And since Zhang had dominance, goosing the counterescalatory spiral meant we lost. Until now.”

  Szerenci turned his head, speaking now across the table directly to the White House chief of staff. “The president knows about the EP Heavy. Bigger than any previous ICBM, with four hardened earth-penetrating warheads of twenty megatons each. Accelerated on the way down with a Trident engine, the penetrators will punch through two hundred meters of granite. The harder the rock they encounter, the more destructive the shock wave they generate.”

  Madhurika said dryly, “So you can destroy China’s strategic missiles in a first strike. You think. STRATFOR thinks. So the operative word is maybe. And we still have to be ready for an all-out nuclear exchange after that.

  “So if they’ve squirreled anything away, mobile launchers we don’t know about, or have a missile sub lying low we missed somehow—”

  “There’ll be risks,” Szerenci said. “Of course. As I’ve said before, let’s rid ourselves of illusion. That’s how this war will end. With a nuclear exchange. The professor’s told us, more than once: it’s the only way it can end.

  “But that’s still my recommendation, and the recommendation of this working group.”

  He started to get up, and Madhurika’s brow furrowed. She nodded to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, to the secretary of defense. “Ricardo. Leif. You agreed to this?”

  “I see no alternative,” General Vincenzo said softly. “Unless we want to go into Asia, and fight it out there. With casualties possibly in the millions.”

  Beside him the secretary of defense coughed into a handkerchief. He nodded silently, suffering clear in his eyes.

  Blair shuddered. Was about to object when the chief of staff said, “Assuming we do as you say, Ed. Then what happens?” She leaned in, looking at an Air Force general halfway down the table. The head of Strategic Forces. “Can you shed some light on that?”

  The four-star cleared his throat. “Well … we used to play that scenario, in the old Global Thunder wargame. Back when we did have escalation dominance.”

  “The results?” Madhurika asked, sounding skeptical.

  The general said soberly, “Every scenario we played went full central nuclear exchange.”

  “And your opinion of a first strike? Can we really take out those heavies?”

  “It will be risky.”

  “Agreed. But, possible?”

  “No one can answer that,” the general said. “Ma’am. Too many unknown unknowns.”

  Madhurika pushed back from the table. She looked down it at Strohm. “Leif, you and I need to go in and see the president.” She rose, and after a moment the secretary of defense, coughing, haggard, obviously near death, rose to follow her out.

  * * *

  AT home that night, in the house in Arlington, Blair carried her tea into the library and sank into the leather recliner. Dan’s easy chair. Which he’d occupied all too seldom since they’d bought the house, though he’d built bookshelves … bought these books … she sipped and contemplated them. By now she knew what he liked. Every birthday and Christmas, the shelf grew a few volumes. Nonfiction, mostly, about history and faraway places, science and archaeology. But here and there, a novel too. Plus a whole shelf of stories of the sea. Marryat. Cooper. Melville. Conrad. De Hartog. Wouk. Reeman. Beach. Searls. Cornwell.

  Would they really retire someday? Slippers, a crackling fire … It was hard to imagine. Neither of them were the type to sit around and relax. They’d both been made in some queer way, that forced them to hammer their heads against an obdurate world. Over and over again.

  But now and then, maybe, they could make a dent in it.

  There was the matter of her debt, too. Rampant inflation was softening its impact, but she still owed nearly a million dollars on her House campaign. Perhaps Archipelago or Zuza would offer her a board position. Or she could go into university administration …

  The cat came in while she was fretting. “Jimbo, c’mere,” she muttered, scratching the arm of the chair. Black and white, very fat, he seemed to think about climbing up to her lap for a moment, but gave up the effort and curled at her feet.

  Forcing her to bend and lift him up. She stroked his back absently, sipping the tea now and then as it cooled. Contemplating, once again, her dilemma.

  Stay, or go?

  As if unwilling to confront it once again her mind gave her: Dublin. She’d never returned McManus’s call. She sighed and reached for the phone. Then hesitated, hand hovering in midair.

  Are you monitoring their families?

  If they give us reason to.

  But Szerenci knew the Chinese had contacted her. If this was what she thought it might be. He would back her up, if questions were raised. At least, she hoped so.

  She glanced at the wall clock, then decided
.

  “Yes?” A sleepy voice.

  “Hello. Ms. McManus? I’m returning your call.”

  Liz McManus, the Irish rapporteur and chairperson at the UN conference the year before. A former teachta dála, a congresswoman in American parlance, she’d led the Labour Party before retiring. “Blair … oh yes. It’s … six AM here, you know.”

  “I’m really sorry, Liz. I just couldn’t call before now.”

  “I understand how it can be. Believe me.” A silvery chuckle, and her voice became more alert. “You recall our conference in Dublin.”

  “I do.”

  “We’ve evolved the monitoring team arrangement we set up last year. It will now be the the International Commission Against War Crimes and Genocide in Asia. Our next meeting will be in Zurich. On the tenth. Do you think you could make room on your schedule?”

  “Um, let me check my calendar.” She called it up. Yes, two days free. Well, not free, but she could reschedule. “Yes. It might be possible.”

  “The handsome young man you met before may be there. And I understand he’s still interested in you.”

  A misdirection, of course. The “young man” had been a member of the Chinese delegation. Their chat in a Dublin pastry shop had been inconclusive and off the record, but it had been a contact. A reaching out.

  And if a back channel could be opened, it might offer a way forward. A way other than the full-scale nuclear attack that Szerenci, and now apparently Madhurika, were no longer just contemplating, but being driven to. Not by any excess of aggressive instinct, but by the inexorable logic of war.

  Of course, it might also expose her to accusations of treason.

  But given the stakes, a personal risk was worth taking.

  “Are you interested? I can set it up. With him. Can you get to Zurich? If so, leave the rest to me. I know your friend Miss Salyers will be there, from your State Department. Perhaps you could attach to her mission?”

  Ensconced in the comfortable chair, she lifted her hand from petting the cat. And was unsurprised to see her fingers trembling. Jimbo pushed his head into her palm, wanting more. Eyes closed, purring. Her palms were sweating. A hinge of history? Or the biggest mistake she would ever make? She had to force herself to say, “Um, I think so, Liz. I’ll call Shira tomorrow. And see what can be done.”