The President handed Withers the North Korean letter, “Generals, we have heard from the North Korean ambassador. Johnny, make copies of this letter for everybody. After you read it, I’ll hear your opinions.”
After ten minutes, the Joint Chiefs glanced at each other, recognizing the feasibility of the threats stated in the document.
“Roger wasn’t able to join us initially upstairs, so this letter is also new to him. Roger, what’s your take on the letter from the North Koreans?”
Roger Gutierrez, Secretary for Homeland Security, took off his glasses. “It’s a viable threat, Mr. President. God knows it is so easy to smuggle anything into this country at any time, across any of our borders. They could have nuclear weapons here, or worse, biologicals. Either could be tactical or strategic, depending upon the nature of it, where it is deployed, and under what conditions. The real questions are: is it a bluff or is the threat genuine, and will they carry it out? God knows, they are the world’s masters at brinkmanship. They should realize, however, that we can, and probably will, blow them off the face of the earth with nuclear retaliation if they should unleash a biological weapon or detonate a nuke here. That is something we must force them to understand, regardless of our course of action.”
Roger Gutierrez had come into the United States as a seven-year-old illegal immigrant with his mother, a single parent. Working in the shadows, his mother Elena scrimped and saved at every opportunity. Realizing the necessity for money to send her son to college so that he might succeed, she sometimes did so in an immoral manner. She did not initially speak English but forced her son to do so. He quickly learned English on the street, joining a gang of street scamps to help him. Elana made him teach her what he learned when they were home together, which was not often. In two years, he had a passing knowledge of the language. At the age of eleven, he enrolled in a public school, presenting a false address, birth certificate, and claiming the legitimate Mexican American neighbors as his parents. Living in the barrio of East Los Angeles, he spent all his free time at the library learning everything he could. He went to a public high school, where he graduated with a perfect 4.0 grade point average. Rather than play sports after school, he worked for a local grocery store to help supplement the family income. He was a good worker, and the store manager who, on rare occasion and unknown to Roger, engaged the services of his mother, gave him a discount on all his food purchases. Roger strongly suspected what his mother did to supplement their income, but he chose to ignore how his mother made the money for his schooling. Instead, he was grateful and loved her for it. It made him study all that much harder.
Roger applied for, and won, a scholarship in mathematics to San Diego State. He graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts, which was well enough to be accepted into a master’s degree program in mathematics and computer engineering at the same institution. At this time, he presented himself to the Immigration and Naturalization Service and applied for citizenship. They turned a blind eye to his history and counted the time he entered high school as time towards his naturalization. After acquiring his M.S. degree, he went to work for Boeing aircraft in Wichita, KS. He became a full-fledged United States citizen. While working in classified unmanned aerial vehicles design, he earned a master’s degree in administration at Washburn University. There, he was noticed by the Federal Aviation Administration and hired by the FAA to work on control of unmanned passenger aircraft systems. He quickly moved up the bureaucratic ladder. When Jason Thornton was elected President, he needed to balance his Cabinet with a suitable number of minorities in order to achieve the politically correct balance. His choice of Roger Gutierrez was a good one.
“Admiral Stark, where are our forces, and how soon can we get the carriers there to help out?”
“One battle group was west of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, doing picket duty. It’s headed towards the Yellow Sea now but won’t get there for at least three days. We have another east of Taiwan. That group can be in the Sea of Japan in about twenty-four hours. The Marine Expeditionary Brigade off Diego Garcia isn’t large enough to really make any difference. It is only the carrier air wings at this point that can lend any real support to the South Koreans. Both carrier groups have squadrons of F-18E Super Hornets, and the MEB has about six of the new Joint Strike Fighters. Both are capable of ground attack, but that is really the specialty area of the Strike Fighters. We only have three squadrons in the Navy and two of the Marine’s version in the Marine Corps right now.”
“General Shelton, what can the Air Force do at this time?”
“Mr. President, our AWACS are flying about fifty miles out to sea, covering the entire peninsula from fifty thousand feet. I have given the order for them to retreat at any indication that they will come under attack, as they are unarmed, and we can’t get fighter escorts to them in a timely manner. They are monitoring the air traffic over the peninsula. We are not sending any data to the South Koreans from them at this time, which is probably why they haven’t been attacked.
“With the retirement of a number of the B-52s three years ago, and the F-111s last year, we have very limited long-range bombing capabilities. There are about thirty B-52s that are combat ready. We do have two squadrons of long range B-1 bombers on the west coast and a couple of squadrons of B-2s that can take off from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, refuel in Hawaii, refuel again by air over Japan if we can get tankers airborne ahead of them out of Hawaii, but it will be tough. Only about 30 of the B-1Bs and sixteen of the B-2s are combat ready. Without any land base anywhere except Guam, we are hurting. I’ll bet right now both the Koreans and the Japanese are wishing that they hadn’t thrown us out. We sure could use Okinawa. Ditto the Philippines. Without land bases, we might be able to fly no more than a squadron-sized strike every twenty-four hours due to lack of refueling capabilities. Diego Garcia has limited capabilities in this regard. Perhaps as important is the fact that the British own Diego Garcia. With their current anti-American Labor Government, I don’t know what to expect. We have to have their permission before we can utilize the base there in time of war, even though we built it. They don’t store a heck of a lot of JP-8 fuel for our aircraft, at least not in terms of extended combat operations. Perhaps enough for two weeks of round the clock combat. If we start hauling aircraft fuel to the Navy’s carriers, we might be able to conduct a dozen or so strikes before we run the well dry. The last administration regarded our renting modified 767s from Boeing for use as tankers as a sweetheart deal for Boeing. With the cancellation of the contract, we lack any strategic depth in aerial refueling.”
“Why are so few of these bombers combat ready, General?”
“Sir, the last administration raided the OPM, the Operational and Maintenance, funds for other purposes so that we don’t have enough spare parts for one hundred percent maintenance. We cannibalize the down aircraft as necessary to keep the others in the air.”
“Marge, go upstairs and get on the horn with first the Japanese, then the Filipinos. Find out if they will let us reopen our old bases there and use them as refueling and maintenance bases. Then call the Brits and see if they will permit us to use Diego Garcia. How long, Admiral Stark, will it take to get those bases operational, using your Sea Bees?”
“To be honest, Mr. President, I don’t know. It will depend upon their condition and how much of a security problem we will have. The Islamic extremists will most certainly regard this as a bonanza of a target in the Philippines. Okinawa, maybe three weeks to a month, depending on how fast we can get the Japanese out of there, our own people in, and get to work. We can use Guam as an intermediate staging area. We can get a couple of tankers started in that direction, but we won’t know the status of the pipelines, storage tanks, valves, and so on until we inspect them. Lastly, the Navy is down to three battalions of Sea Bees. We’re strapped for manpower.”
“What about this Mobile Offshore Base ship or concept that was in the news last year? Where do we stand on it?”
“There is a lot of confusion and public misconception over that, Mr. President. Funds were allotted only for proof of concept. Construction really hasn’t begun. It is a hundred-billion-dollar deal, and Congress wanted absolute proof before they voted funds to build a floating island you could land a C-130H on. No support ships, let alone the main landing ship, have been funded nor construction initiated.”
“Admiral, order that carrier battle group with the Marine Expeditionary Brigade to stand by off Pusan. If we go in, we must have that port. We will need the Marines there. We will hold Pusan regardless of the cost.”
“Mr. President, I should point out that it appears that the North Koreans launched an amphibious assault in the Yellow Sea, and we think their objective is the port of Inchon. It doesn’t seem to be a large invasion force at this time, perhaps a division or so in size, but it could cause us trouble. It does present a target for consideration for this carrier battle group. The Marine Expeditionary Brigade can continue on to guard Pusan if you so order.”
The President pondered for a moment, then said, “Good suggestion, Admiral, but I deem Pusan more important. I want that carrier air arm and naval gunfire in complete support of the Marines if we go. Pusan is of the most strategic value right now, at least until we get further information about the situation on the ground.”
The Admiral picked up the red phone in front of him and gave the order. “Pusan is the objective of the Carrier Battle Group III and the Marine Expeditionary Brigade accompanying it.”
The President spoke. “A little while ago, I heard an interesting theory from one of Secretary Talbot’s people. She believes the Chinese are orchestrating this and that it is only the opening move of a series of thrusts that will ultimately be made by the Chinese. She thinks China will strike south and west. India would be the logical target of the western thrust, and she didn’t express an opinion on the objective of the southern thrust. What do you gentlemen think China’s role is in this? General Leonard?”
“Mr. President, my Marines and I think it is entirely plausible. Our folks have never felt comfortable with China since the early 1930s.” General Craig and several of the others smiled at Mark Leonard’s homily.
“What, General, do your folks think?”
“Well, Mr. President, my intelligence people think that the real objective of China might be Caspian Sea oil. The Korean peninsula, maybe even Taiwan, and less likely India or Vietnam, could be strategic feints. Rather like the Japanese attempt to draw us off to Alaska and then take Midway, only on a far grander scale. Who knows, maybe they want it all. Certainly, they intend to bring Taiwan into the fold, sooner or later, one way or another, peaceably or by force. It could be that the Korean peninsula is a way of tying us down while they make a major move.”
“General Anderson, what’s your opinion, comments, recommendations?”
“Mr. President, we have, as you know, ten active divisions, and ten now in reserve. Those reserve divisions are not up to snuff. We are prepared to fight a limited war, but nothing like the massive capabilities of the Chinese should they enter the foray. We can have all the information we want, but without the firepower necessary to do them, we can only watch them on satellite computer screens. In order to meet any kind of mass the Chinese are capable of fielding, we would have to go nuclear.”
“Well, what about the peninsula?”
“We lack the strategic airlift to get there in any kind of timely fashion, Mr. President. It takes 600 to 750 sorties with C-17s and C-5As to get an entire heavy division into the battle. We will have to move by sealift. That will take several weeks. So, it boils down to how fast South Korea is overrun, whether or not the South can hold out until the cavalry arrives, and if enough of it arrives in time.”
“Admiral, what is the threat at sea? I don’t believe the North has any kind of a Navy that can threaten our sealift, do they?”
“Our concern in that area, Mr. President, is the submarine threat, and we believe it is substantial. We will be operating close to the mainland, well within range of the latest, state of the art diesel submarine fleet in the world. We know the North Koreans have purchased several Kilo 636s from the Russians. We also believe, but have no firm evidence, that they might have acquired several more from China. We know that the Swedes, Germans, and French have sold them the latest in diesel submarine engines and technology, sonar and detection gear, guidance systems for torpedoes and so on. We now have three Virginia class submarines as our first line submarine fleet. We have twenty-five of the Los Angeles class submarines still in service, and those platforms are all thirty-five years old or older. They are noisier, however, and not as well equipped as we believe the submarines the North Koreans have purchased are.”
“You mean to tell me, Admiral, that we are behind some lousy third-rate lunatic dictator in submarine capability?”
“Yes, Mr. President, in the littoral or brown water environment, their submarine capability exceeds ours. I would not be surprised to lose a number of our Los Angeles class nuclear attack submarines to theirs in an undersea battle. Our surface anti-submarine research has lagged for over a decade due to under funding. Our anti-submarine capabilities have atrophied over the last twenty years due to lack of funding. Our antisubmarine warfare assets are in worse shape than our submarine fleet. We might have a difficult time detecting them with air or surface assets. We have been trying to ferret them out in the Yellow Sea to record their individual characteristics, but more often than not, they give us the slip or show up tracking us without our knowledge until they are well within kill parameters. We can’t seem to track them very well with the Los Angeles class boats. We found in war gaming in the late 1990s and the early years of this century that the latest diesel-powered boats were more than a match for our Los Angeles class boats, especially in the littoral environment. In point of fact, a Chilean submarine escaped our detection in 1996. A Russian Oscar submarine trailed our USS Coronado without detection for two days in 1997. Australian submarines penetrated our best defense efforts during the war game RIMPAC 2000. Since then, our antisubmarine warfare capability and submarine fleet have deteriorated even more.
“Now, our new Virginia class submarines are a different story. They were designed and built for littoral operations. We can nail enemy submarines with those, but unfortunately, we only have three of them at this time. We were supposed to get one a year, but the previous administration saw no need for them and cancelled the contracts. One of them is in the North Atlantic, the other two in the Arabian Sea. You will recall our Sea Wolf submarine program was cancelled late in the last century. That was a superb, multi-mission, do everything, super stealthy submarine that was deemed too expensive. Now, we could use about 50 of them.”
“Well, just how many submarines do you think they have, Admiral?”
“Our estimates vary widely, Mr. President. Our best guess is that they have about thirty in total. There might be more to this story, however, Mr. President.”
“You mean more good submarine news, Admiral?”
“Mr. President, a major concern has been the People’s Liberation Army Navy, or PLAN, of China. In 2004, they began purchasing a variety of the latest diesel submarine technology from the Germans, French and Swedes and tested them. They contracted in 2007 with the Germans for their technology under license. The Germans sent hundreds of technicians and engineers to China to teach them how to build their latest model. We have unconfirmed reports of a massive submarine construction program ongoing in China. We really don’t know for sure, but some intelligence sources indicate they have been building five to ten boats a year for the last several years in different shipyards. These ships have a variety of state-of-the-art weapons systems and stealth technology. They can accurately shoot cruise missiles without having to surface. In fact, they can shoot from significant depths. If China supports North Korea with submarine forces in the Straits of Taiwan or the Yellow Sea or the South China Sea, we could have very grave problems.
“We have been in communication with our Joint Task Force, JTF-519. The Commander of this JTF is also the Pacific Fleet Commander. The Pacific Fleet has five carrier battle groups assigned to it. We retired a sixth two years ago. Two of the five Pacific Fleet’s carrier groups are on the west coast for refueling and refitting. Many members of their crews are scattered across on the country, on extended leave. They will be of little immediate assistance. The carriers are undergoing nuclear fuel rod exchange that takes weeks to months. The Commander of the JTF has ordered all ships under his command, that is all the ships in the Pacific Theater, to steam towards Korea.
“The Central Command Naval Commander is holding steady in his positions in the Arabian Sea awaiting orders.”
