Whitefield, General, USAF, Commander, Space Command.
Withers, John, Aide to President Thornton
Wrangell, Ed, Supervisory Special Agent, FBI Task Force in Los Angeles
JESUS GONZALEZ’S TEAM LEADERS
Fiero
Felipe
Gordo
Ramon
Francisco
Luis-secretary, aide-de-camp to Gonzalez
Chapter 1
“WALLED TOWNS, STORED ARSENALS AND ARMORIES, GOODLY RACES OF HORSE, CHARIOTS OF WAR, ELEPHANTS, ORDNANCE, ARTILLERY, AND THE LIKE; ALL THIS IS BUT A SHEEP IN A LION’S SKIN, EXCEPT THE BREED AND DISPOSITION OF THE PEOPLE BE STOUT AND WARLIKE. NAY, NUMBER ITSELF IN ARMIES IMPORTETH NOT MUCH, WHERE THE PEOPLE IS OF WEAK COURAGE; FOR AS VIRGIL SAITH:
‘IT NEVER TROUBLES A WOLF HOW
MANY THE SHEEP BE.’”
SIR FRANCIS BACON
“AN ELITE WITH LITTLE LOYALTY TO THE STATE AND A MASS SOCIETY FOND OF GLADIATOR ENTERTAINMENTS FORM A SOCIETY IN WHICH CORPORATE LEVIATHANS RULE AND DEMOCRACY IS HOLLOW.”
Robert D. Kaplan
The Coming Anarchy
"Since you were retired for disagreeing with the President over the Panama Canal situation, General, perhaps you can speak freely here. Enlighten us with your opinion as to what has happened, beginning with some background material and observations.”
“Certainly, Senator. First, I wish to thank you and your committee for inviting me here. I will be glad to express my opinion, which caused my relief in the first place.” The General thought wryly to himself, You old bastard, you just want to make political hay at the expense of your political opponent when you run for President.
In his early fifties, looking young for his age and bluntly outspoken, Ronald Craig, the retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff sat ramrod straight before the Senate Armed Services Committee. A former field artillery officer, he served in the First Gulf War as a battery commander, a battalion commander in the post Second Gulf War with Iraq, liaison officer to the Indian Field Artillery School, Field Artillery Regimental Commander and Assistant Division Commander for Maneuver as a Brigadier and the Commander with the 101st Division, he was much more of a field soldier than a politician. The third and fourth stars had come quickly. They came, however, partly as a result of lack of capable competition. The army had grown small, very small. He was the Chief of Staff, Army for only a year when he was selected to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He had worn the fourth star a little less than two years. He was wearing a civilian suit, white shirt and tie rather than his uniform.
The General cleared his throat and began, “After the end of the Cold War, the United States committed its usual strategic error. Politicians decided how much the government wanted to invest in defense and planned from there. The United States had done this after every conflict since the Civil War. We allow our defenses to erode, ignore our position in the world, engage in self-denial and self-delusion, for which we pay a terrible price in the form of the next war. The United States has never practiced the much saner strategy of defining our strategic interests, then defining what is necessary to protect them, investing adequately and simultaneously in research and development of future weapons systems, procurement of those systems, training and manning the force. The price of this failure is always paid in the next war. As the Commanding General of British Army Forces in World War II said, ‘Preparation for the preservation of our freedom must come in peacetime, and we must pay for it in money and inconvenience. The alternative is blood and extinction.’
“The first Gulf War seemed to confirm the usual approach, as it has been practiced by every administration and congress since. With the initial phenomenal success of the so-called Second Gulf War with Iraq in 2003, the concept of the classical principles of war, indicated by the acronym MOSS COMES, standing for Mass, Objective, Surprise, Security, Command, Offense, Maneuver, Economy of Force, and Simplicity, were no longer considered valid. They were considered as holdovers from Napoleonic wars, and their demise seemed entirely vindicated. The concept of war, the information war, the digital war, was validated by all the current military theorists. Very small forces, precision strikes with precision weapons within minutes of target acquisition from a variety of platforms worked wonders on a second-rate military power that utterly lacked similar information capabilities. No politician saw any massed challenge on the horizon. What little discussion of a massed threat existed only at levels lower than battalion leadership which was ignored by senior officers and squashed by politicians that did not want to offend the People’s Republic of China. Leaders of the New China lobby in the 1980s and 1990s, led by a former Secretary of State, did their work well.”
Obviously irritated, the senator snapped upright and leaned into the microphone. “Would you care to explain that comment about the New China Lobby, General?”
“Certainly, Senator. After the Cold War, American business regarded China as the ultimate market. To satisfy the employment needs of their tremendous population, China adopted the policy that if you wish to sell it here, you must manufacture it here. Consequently, American manufacturers took their expertise, techniques in manufacturing and management to China. China learned quickly, adapting new methods, technology, and efficiencies. They were less concerned about the environment, labor unions and labor organization and other aspects than they were about forging ahead into the 21st century as at least the leader in Asia, if not the world. The New China Lobby helped them in their initial endeavors by acting as an intermediary. They quickly and efficiently acquired the manufacturing and management capabilities, so they grew exponentially. Once they started, there was no reasonable way of stopping them. They were willing to pay whatever price was required to establish dominance in Asia and over the entire Pacific littoral. They surpassed both the US and Western Europe in total number of vehicles owned and operated in this decade; small, but efficient and of modern design. Their trade with us established such an overwhelming deficit with the United States that we could not possibly even hope to dig our way out. Their profits went into their military machine, unrecognized by the west.”
“General, you are a recognized authority in military matters. That is why you are here. You are not recognized as an expert in politics or business. Please confine your remarks to the military situation.”
Smiling at so easily invoking the ire of the Chairman, the General responded with a wry smile, “Politics and military affairs are inseparable, Mr. Chairman. Political, economic and military capital, or power, cannot be strategically separated. The immortal Clauswitz addressed that with his classic remark that ‘war is politics by other means.’ Soldiers don’t make policy, we don’t declare war, we go where we are told and do what is expected of us to the best of our ability with tools that you have provided us. Our resources, our weapons systems, our personnel, our training, our state of readiness, our morale, and our overall wellbeing are all controlled by you politicians. Our job is to provide the muscle for the decisions you politicians make governing our relationships with the rest of the world.”
Two years earlier, a similar confrontation had occurred between a Chinese Colonel General, the equivalent of the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, the People’s Liberation Army Navy, or PLAN, and the Security Council of the National People’s Congress.
Chang, Mao Lin was Chief of Staff, People’s Liberation Army Navy. He attended a military academy during his teen years, sort of a combined high school and junior college together. He demonstrated a propensity for foreign languages and mastered English, French and Spanish with ease. Upon graduation, he served briefly as a junior officer in the People’s Army. His talent was recognized, and he was offered the chance to study abroad. He jumped at the chance. He was accepted at Oxford University where he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree reading western history. An exceptionally brilliant man, he was allowed to continue pursuit of higher education in the west. He received a Master of Arts from Harvard University in western civilization. His doctorate came from the University of California at Berkeley, in political science.
While at Berkeley, he came to consider pacifist California with its economic woes as typical of most of the entire United States. Since he was immersed in both of them, he recognized the significant differences between the east coast philosophy and the west coast philosophy and regarded those differences as both amusing and quite disruptive. Of the two, he believed the country would not be able to philosophically re-unite, possibly even splitting apart. He looked at the United States and wondered about its Balkanization. He believed that, ultimately, the California influence would win out, if they ever did reach a confluence. “After all, California has been the cutting edge of American culture for decades,” he used to say with a smile.
While in America, he acquired a taste for many things American. He especially enjoyed dating Chinese American women, most of whom found him exceptionally charming as well as brilliant and rather good looking. He also liked American fast foods and had to watch his diet in order not to gain too much weight. He continued practicing Shaolin Do karate several nights a week just to maintain his skills and keep his weight down. At five feet ten inches tall, he was slightly taller than the average man from North China. He acquired a taste for scotch whiskey. He was always very careful not to become intoxicated except when he was alone in his apartment. He never consumed alcohol in the company of others. He made many American friends, both male and female. Many of his fellow students were slightly envious of his brilliance and impeccable charm. Inwardly, he held what he called both the California and the New York subcultures in contempt. He wondered if there was anything other than money that kept America united.
“Comrade General Chang, why do you think this enormous endeavor could possibly be successful? It is overwhelming in scale, it is tremendously complicated, it risks destroying the very ultimate things that we seek, which are markets for our goods, food for our people, health and prosperity. How will America respond to this? What guarantees do you offer of success? What will be the end point of such a tremendous undertaking? Aren’t we destroying or risking the destruction of the very things we covet? Anything of this magnitude is doomed to failure. This is an insane plan.”
“Comrade Commissar, I would point out to you that seventy-five years ago, a small island nation of less than one hundred million accomplished this much in less than fifteen years. They only failed because they overextended themselves in attacking the Americans. They failed to stop and consolidate what they had gained. They went as far west as the Indian State of Assam, and as far south as New Guinea, taking the entire Malayan peninsula. They seized what was then called Manchuria in 1931. They slaughtered our people by the millions. Had they not awakened the sleeping giant that was America, they would be our masters now. Mongols on horseback in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries invaded and conquered China in 1220, then went as far west as Baghdad, where they slaughtered millions of Iraqis. They went through Russia and placed the so-called Mongol yoke upon them. Recall that Timur the Lame stood children against a wagon wheel. If their heads were higher than the axle, they were decapitated. He built caravansaries of their skulls that still stand today in the Central Asian Republics.”
