Coup d’État

by Ben Coes

  The door flew open and the entire room turned to look as the president walked in, accompanied by Secretary of State Lindsay and Jessica Tanzer, the national security advisor.

  President Allaire walked past his seat at the end of the conference table, crossing to one of the video screens. On the screen, the side of a small, grass-covered mountain was suddenly lit up by an explosion, temporarily shutting out the drone feed, which quickly recalibrated and adjusted, refocused and brought the shot back, now a scene of flaming terrain. The president walked to another screen, which had a wider vantage point, as if from an airplane. In bright yellow, the Line of Control separating India from Pakistan was illuminated in computer-generated yellow. This line ran in a jutting, zigzag pattern from the left of the large plasma screen to the right, giving the room some perspective as to where the battle was taking place. On another screen, the hundred-mile stretch of India highway through Kargil, at the center of the battle, was displayed. The plasma showed the brown and green land near Kargil. Kargil’s main town area, shops, houses, and streets, were interrupted by two large clusters of flames at either end of the screen as the wide shot allowed a clear view of the battle line.

  President Allaire turned and walked to his seat at the end of the table.

  “Evening, everyone,” said the president. “Go ahead, Jessica.”

  “Let’s start with a status,” said Jessica, looking at Harry Black, the secretary of defense. “Go, Harry.”

  “This is as of ten minutes ago,” said Black. “Hector might have some incremental perspective from Langley, but here goes. An incident in a small village under India’s control in the northern reaches of Kashmir Territory has sparked another conflict between India and Pakistan. Whoever started it, the bottom line is the incident resulted in an attack by India across the Line of Control. India destroyed a Pakistani military base in Baltistan, called Skardu, approximately twenty-six hours ago. Three Indian MiGs completely eliminated the base and Pakistan countered with a series of aerial attacks, destroying three small northern encampments beneath the LOC. India has now done a rapid deployment of more than fifty thousand troops to the area. They’re trucking them up from a base to the south called Pullu. They also constructed a down and dirty airstrip along the Shyok River across the Line of Control and they’re moving men frantically into the hills south of Skardu. India is now more than twenty miles into Pakistan. They’re moving a lot of men and they’re moving them quickly. From the hills, they’re overwhelming the Pakistanis as they try and reclaim the line. Pakistan is responding by going airborne, dropping clusters of bombs at the Indians more than fifty miles to the south, including population centers. Their pilots are also attempting to destroy the Indian supply line. There are multiple engagements occurring in the skies above the Line of Control in the battle corridor. Of greatest concern, Pakistan has responded with its own incursion. Following a similar attack route as the 1999 invasion, Pakistan has moved aggressively into Kargil, Drass, Mushkoh, here.”

  Black stood up and moved to the screen and pointed.

  “Pakistan now controls the Indian highway for at least fifty miles east of Srinagar, through Kargil. Kargil is now the flash point. Both sides are loading up with ground troops. There are dogfights occurring all over the skies above the LOC. It’s getting extremely violent, and lots of people are dying. There don’t seem to be any brakes, controls, or a desire on either side to calm things down. It’s getting hotter and hotter.”

  “Why does India need to be in Pakistan in the first place?” asked Jessica. “Have you spoken with anyone in their chain of command?”

  “Yes,” said Black. “I’ve spoken twice with General Dartalia, their army chief. I’ve also attempted to reach General Karreff, Pakistan’s top military commander, but he won’t talk with us, not yet anyway. Dartalia says the Indians will not retreat to the Line of Control. They believe Skardu, and, generally speaking, the northern territories, should be India’s in any event. My guess is, they didn’t expect the Pak counterattack into Kargil to come so soon and so effectively and they’re holding on for future terms.”

  “Any movement in or around the nukes, on either side?” asked Jessica.

  “Nothing,” said Calibrisi. “No redeployment or movement, which we would pick up by satellite. The one thing I should point out is coming out of Beijing. The Chinese are moving men to the northern border of India-controlled Kashmir, a region called Aksai Chin.”

  Calibrisi stood and moved to one of the large plasma screens, pointing with his finger.

  “They’ve annexed the only road into the area, a mountain pass called the Karakoram Highway that feeds directly into the battle area. So far they’re keeping most of their men inside China. But we’re detecting a big troop movement to the east, down toward northern India, here.”

  Calibrisi pointed at the screen.

  “This has got to be on your radar screen, Tim,” added Calibrisi, looking at the secretary of state.

  “It is,” said Lindsay. “I’ve spoken briefly with Secretary Chao, their foreign minister. He termed the movement of troops ‘precautionary.’”

  “Precautionary or not, I am frankly more concerned with the Chinese at this point than anyone else,” said Calibrisi.

  “What’s happening on the diplomatic front?” asked the president, looking at Lindsay.

  “We have every possible channel in play on both sides of this battle. I’ve spoken with Pakistan’s foreign minister, Darius Mohan, as well as Priya Vilokan in New Delhi. There is anger on both sides, as you might imagine. Neither country wants to discuss a ceasefire. Even the idea of going back to the Line of Control was rejected by both sides. The Russians, the French, the Swiss, everyone is trying to stop this thing, but neither side is listening.”

  “Why are the Chinese moving men to the border?” asked President Allaire.

  “In the past two months, a couple of developments have occurred that are worth reminding everyone,” said Lindsay. “First, President El-Khayab spent the better part of three days in Beijing last month, meeting with President Kim. Many people thought El-Khayab might try and extricate Pakistan from the very expensive weapons deal Musharraf signed a decade ago, which obligates Islamabad to spend more than four hundred billion dollars on jets and missiles and other assorted gadgetry, in return for the implicit understanding that China will continue to protect Pakistan from aggression by outsiders.”

  “Why would they want to get out of it?” asked President Allaire.

  “The China desk thought that the sheer cost to Pakistan was not sustainable,” said Calibrisi. “The minimum purchase requirements on military hardware and technology are staggering, especially for a country whose main export is underwear.”

  “Whatever El-Khayab went to Beijing for, he came back with a stronger, tighter relationship with Kim,” continued Lindsay. “We assume China restructured the deal. Pakistan put in a fresh order, more than sixteen billion dollars’ worth of Chinese fighter jets, the first fifty of which were delivered a week ago.”

  “Presumably the Chinese are putting men at the Kashmir border should they need to come to Pakistan’s rescue,” said Jessica.

  “Or if they see an opportunity for themselves,” added Calibrisi.

  “Yes,” said Black, the defense chief. “My theater OPS desk is estimating movement of more than half a million soldiers. That’s a big number. Now, let’s remember that China can play around with big numbers and they can do it quickly. But still, it’s a lot of men.”

  “What are we doing about it?” asked the president.

  “I think it makes sense to start thinking about scenarios,” said Jessica.

  “That’s why you’re here,” said Black, looking across the conference table at Karl Chelmsford. “What’s going to happen next, professor?”

  “Thank you for having me,” Chelmsford said, adjusting his glasses. “I just want to explain something, and that is, my analysis predicates different scenarios for an India-Pakistan war. We then pro
secute those scenarios in an implication-based framework, designed to provide you, Mr. President, and your advisors, with thoughts, ideas, possibilities, about what might make sense for America and what might not. But we are not out there in live combat theater, and policy assessments like ours, done using the best data but from the comfort of the War College and the Pentagon, have been shown to be wrong before.”

  “Yeah, kid, it’s all guessing,” said Calibrisi. “Cut to the chase.”

  “There are four main conclusions to the report,” said Chelmsford, looking at the president, then around the table. “First, if you look at the unique geography, culture, history, and religion of the Jammu and Kashmir region, there is no convenient way to slice up the land to accomplish a fair, reasonable, or logical break. Britain did a lousy job of splitting the area up but I’m not really sure anyone could have done any better. It should have remained an independent sovereign in 1947. There are large pockets of Muslims at the southern border, near India, and there are major areas of Hindu along the Pakistan border. Many Muslims are India loyalists, but there is a growing Islamist radical presence, especially in Kashmir Valley. The biggest issue, however, is not religious; it’s that neither Pakistan nor India would ever give up land voluntarily, now or in the future.”

  “The geography lesson is probably not necessary, Karl,” said Jessica.

  “It’s relevant,” interrupted Chelmsford. “The point is, we shouldn’t waste any time trying to come up with a policy-based geographic diplomatic solution.

  “Second,” said Chelmsford, continuing on. “The three wars fought between India and Pakistan were intensely bloody and were conducted in a prenuclear context. There has not been a war since 1971. Unfortunately, interviews with top decision makers from both countries involved in the most recent war, revealed that both countries would have employed nuclear weapons in earlier conflicts, had they been available. That is a fact. Does that mean today’s leaders are going to use nuclear devices? I don’t know. Someone should be thinking about it.

  “Point three,” said Chelmsford. “Potentially the most disturbing. The leadership of Pakistan is a central binary to what will happen. In nearly three-fourths of our war scenarios, the presence of a military leader or a traditional politician in the Pakistani presidency is a precursor to a reasonable outcome with India, an outcome in which nuclear weapons are kept in silo, so to speak. However, the exact opposite likelihood scenario occurs when you place an Islamist in the Pakistani presidency. More than eighty percent of the time, nuclear weapons will be introduced to the theater.

  “Fourth,” continued Chelmsford, “and by far the most important conclusion. In all scenarios where nuclear weapons were introduced to the India-Pakistan theater of war, China and America ended up being dragged into the conflict. Once this happens, the scenarios become increasingly complex and unpredictable. The most daunting implication is that in nearly a third of these war scenarios, the result is nuclear exchange between the two superpowers. As the report demonstrates, this happens for a number of reasons, one of which is a scenario in which the U.S. is stretched thin, such as in another war engagement, as we are now in Iraq and Afghanistan. Because of our obligations to India, and because of our concerns about the possibility of China annexing India, we are then left with only one option: some sort of small-scale nuclear deterrent on China. We envision a number of possible reactions by the Chinese to such a threat. Unfortunately, those reactions are not uniformly predictable or even rational. This creates, as you can imagine, great uncertainty in our ability to predict outcome.”

  “Is there a conclusion?” asked the president.

  “The main point here,” said Chelmsford, looking at the president then moving his eyes slowly around the table, “is that unless America is prepared to fight China on the ground with massive amounts of manpower, over an extended period of time, we should give up on India. Or be prepared for the consequences of keeping the Chinese out of India, which by necessity involves nuclear weapons. If we allow China to take India, we should then expect dramatic destabilization of our geopolitical relationships throughout the world, as allies would obviously reconsider their military and political reliance upon the United States.”

  “If we did engage on a conventional basis in India, what does it look like?” asked Black.

  “We worked with the China desk at the CIA and RAND to assess scenarios involving a big ground war between China and the U.S. spearheaded out of northern India,” said Chelmsford. “It’s not surprising, but it is, well, it’s quite sobering. Under a framework in which America effectively abandons both Iraq and Afghanistan to redeploy forces into a conventional conflict with China, the war would last a very long time, in no case less than a decade. The draft would have to be reinstated. There would be casualties in the millions. Outcomes become increasingly difficult to predict. Chaos theory. At some point in a conventional war, nuclear weapons could and probably would still be introduced, taking us back to the original schematic.”

  The room was silent.

  “Thank you, Karl,” President Allaire said.

  Chelmsford nodded in reply.

  “The really scary thing?” said Calibrisi. “The Chinese are aware of all of this. This small goddamn conflict in Kashmir could lead to a very fast-paced series of events, military as well as political. Many of them we will have no way of even being aware of. If, for example, we cede India and China moves to exercise what will be an uncontested supremacy in the region, they will soon look to strengthen their presence within the Arabian Peninsula. That’s just one example. There are no doubt others.”

  “I should point something out,” said Chelmsford. “And I’m sorry if this sounds, well, a little dark. But the main policy implication of the fourth section of our report is that, sometimes, mere survival of American citizens should be the primary goal of policy makers.”

  “In other words,” said President Allaire, “it might be better to allow China to take India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and whatever else comes next, because at least we, as a people, survive?”

  “The point is, we might not have the luxury of making that choice, Mr. President,” said Chelmsford. “My team and I could be wrong. But we would argue that, if events occur along the architectural lines of what we predict, it will not be in America’s power any longer to prevent one of the two nightmare scenarios. It will be one of the two. Either we will have to fight a nuclear war with China, or we will have to allow China to become the ascendant and sole superpower in the world. This is history in the making. It has the potential to be a big, big event, a redrawing of the map, as we call it. Hopefully, by knowing that this is the case, you around this table can act now to alter, stop, and divert the events that lead to this.”

  “Are there examples of the nuclear threat working to keep China away from India?” asked President Allaire.

  “Yes,” said Chelmsford. “But not, by our measure, in a great percentage of scenarios.”

  “We have to remember,” said Calibrisi, “China has a long-term perspective. That perspective is that one day China will control the world.”

  Chelmsford reached up and wiped perspiration from his forehead, then cleared his throat.

  “I must point something out,” said Chelmsford. “Of this set of war scenarios, in which China and the U.S. trade tactical nuclear weapons, events do spiral out of control in virtually one hundred percent of the modeled frameworks. This leads invariably, in virtually every framework, to full-scale thermonuclear war between China and the United States. Nuclear Armageddon.”

  Chelmsford stopped speaking and sat back. He glanced at Harry Black, the secretary of defense, who nodded at him. President Allaire sat in silence for a moment, in contemplation. On the video screen just behind his head, a large orange and red burst expanded over the screen.

  “Bottom line, we need to get on the phone with Ghandra,” said Lindsay, the secretary of state. “We need to make him understand the implications of dragging this thing out.”


  “Are you suggesting we force the Indians to surrender?” asked Jessica.

  “Surrender is a strong word,” said Lindsay. “We need to get India to agree to a cease-fire, then pull back to the Line of Control. We involve Russia on the Pakistani side to get some reason built into El-Khayab’s head.”

  “But you yourself are saying nobody is listening,” said Black.

  “Yes,” said Lindsay, “but India needs to know that if this thing escalates, we may or may not be there to defend them from China. If we’re not prepared to keep China out of India, using conventional or, God forbid, tactical nukes, we better tell Ghandra and his war cabinet right now.”

  “And then what?” asked Jessica. “Watch as the rest of America’s allies run into China’s arms? Knowing that our word is meaningless? We all at this table know how tenuous our alliance is with the Saudis. Let’s not forget that Beijing has courted them over the past five years. If our military commitment to one ally is called into question, our commitment to all of our allies is called into question, and it will have dramatic impact. Why did we spend all of this time and money and brainpower creating the greatest military threat in the world, to run from it at its most appropriate and critical time?”

  “But if that use leads to China and the U.S. emptying their nuclear weapons silos and destroying one another, will you then be glad we stood up for ourselves?” asked Lindsay. “We are here at the end of the day to protect America’s citizens. Our children and grandchildren. I would rather have my granddaughter alive and breathing, albeit with diminished American influence in the world, than dead. Three hundred years ago, this country didn’t even exist. There is nothing, there is no overarching reason, that the United States must be the world’s protector. Certainly not when doing so endangers our own safety and security, as it does in this case.”

  “I agree that we need to get Ghandra on the line,” said Jessica. “But, Mr. President, we cannot show any weakness or indecisiveness in our commitment to India. We need to simply explain to President Ghandra the very real possibility that prolonging this engagement creates incalculable risks for his own citizens, especially with a nuclear Pakistan led by a religious zealot.”