Stephen Coonts - Combat

“China’s response in turn was to augment her East Sea Fleet presence in the region with elements of her North and South Sea Fleets, greatly outnumbering us.”

Carpenter shuffled some papers in front of him. “Four weeks ago our two Third Fleet carrier battle groups — the Nimitz and John F. Kennedy — arrived from Honolulu to cover Taiwan’s north and east coasts, which prompted China to completely strip her North and South Sea Fleets, concentrating every ship that they could commission in an area barely three hundred miles long and half that wide. In addition, the entire PRC Air Force has been moved east. Along with their army and Missile Service, the entire military might of China was placed this morning on DEFCON One.”

“My God, what the hell do they want, war?” Attorney General Dorothy Kress demanded angrily. “Over one man?”

“They’ve done this before,” Admiral Richard Halvorson, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said. “The last time they rattled their sabres was during Taiwan’s elections. So long as we stand our ground they back down.” He turned to the President. “Hell, Mr. President, Shizong isn’t worth that much to them.”

“How much is Taiwan worth to us, Admiral?” McGarvey asked across the table. All of them were in for a rude awakening that morning. They would be faced with recommending one of the toughest decisions any president could ever be faced with.

Halvorson shrugged. “That’s a civilian policy decision, one thank God that I don’t have to make,” he said. “Ask me if we can defend Taiwan against a PRC invasion, I’ll give you the numbers. And frankly, at this moment they do not look good. We’re spread too thinly.”

“But that’s exactly the decision we’re going to have to work out here this morning,” McGarvey pressed. He didn’t know why he was angry, except that we had worked very hard and long to get ourselves into this position. Getting ourselves back out wasn’t going to be easy. Nor would it be safe.

The President motioned for McGarvey to back off for the moment. It was the same game we’d been playing out there ever since Nixon had opened the door and stuck his foot into it, McGarvey wanted to tell them. But they knew it; hell, everybody knew it. China was getting Most Favored Nation trading status because she was a vast market. It had to do with money and almost nothing else. The fact was we couldn’t ignore a country whose population was one-fourth that of the entire world’s. But we couldn’t give in to them either; abandon our friends and allies just as the British had abandoned Hong Kong. When the solution to a little problem was distasteful Americans lately seemed to put it off until the problem got much bigger and the solution became even tougher. Sooner or later, as Roswell suggested, the situation over Taiwan was going to bite us in the ass.

Like now.

“Okay, Gene, everything we’ve tried so far has failed,” the President said. “Tell them the rest.”

“I’ve just returned from a three-day shuttle-diplomacy mission between Beijing and Taipei. I was trying to talk some sense into them; find an opening, even the slightest hint of an opening, so that we could resume a meaningful dialogue.” Carpenter pursed his lips. “I was afraid that I was coming back with the worst possible news: that there was going to be no simple way out of the morass except to continue the Mexican standoff between our navy and theirs. I thought that the best we could hope for would be, as Admiral Halvorson suggested, that the Chinese would sooner or later tire of the exercise and go home.

“But then the Nanchong incident occurred last night while I was over the Pacific on my way home. Now all bets are off.”

“What do they want?” Secretary of Defense Arthur Turnquist asked. His was one cabinet appointment that McGarvey never understood. The man was an asshole; he spent almost as much time saving his own reputation as he did on any real work. But he was well connected on the Hill.

“The mainland Chinese want the immediate return of Peter Shizong, dead or alive. And the Taiwanese want nothing less than their independence unless mainland China is willing to open itself to free elections and a totally free market economy. Neither side is willing to discuss the issue beyond that.”

“That’s hardly likely anytime soon,” the President’s advisor on national security affairs, Dennis Berndt, pointed out unnecessarily.

“It comes down to the simple question: Do we abandon Taiwan? Do we turn tail and run? Or do we stay and risk a shooting war?” Carpenter said. “The sinking of the Nanchong may well be the catalyst. We have to consider where our breaking point is.” He sat back, the effort of bringing the discussion this far completely draining him.

“What’s the military situation out there at the moment?” the President asked.

“It’s a mess, Mr. President,” Admiral Halvorson answered. “We’ve offered to help with the search-and-rescue mission, but the Chinese have refused, as we expected they would. The actual effect of the sinking was to move the bulk of the PRC’s naval assets about twenty-five miles closer to Taiwan.”

“What about the Taiwanese military?”

“Fortunately their naval units in the near vicinity have all moved back an appropriate distance, but they, along with their Air and Ground Defense units, are at DEFCON One. In the meantime we’re keeping four Orions and five A3 AWACS aircraft in the air around the clock to make sure that this doesn’t spin out of control and blindside us. All of our carrier fighter squadrons are at a high state of readiness, as are our Air Force fighter wings in Japan and on Okinawa.” The admiral looked around the table at the others to make sure that they all would catch his exact meaning. “If someone starts an all-out shooting war over there, we’ll be the first to know about it. The PRC knows that we know, and so does Taiwan.”

“If we have the region so well covered, how’d the Nanchong get hit without warning?” SecDef Turnquist asked peevishly.

“I can’t answer that one, Mr. Turnquist,” Admiral Halvorson admitted. “Al Ryland’s people are the best, and he told me this morning that he was damned if he knew what happened.” Vice Admiral Ryland was the Seventh Fleet CINC. His flag was on the George Washington.

“If it happened once, it can happen again.”

“No, sir, that’s not a possibility you need consider,” the admiral said in such a way that it was clear he would not be pushed. “Mr. President, I would sincerely hope that we can come to some sort of an agreement with Tiawan over Shizong. I’m not saying that we turn him over to the Chinese, but Taipei could certainly be made to stop his radio and television broadcasts. Christ, it’s driving them nuts.” He looked around the table at the others to emphasize his point. “The longer our military forces are in such close proximity to the Chinese the more likely it’ll become that there’ll be a serious accident. We’re going to start killing people over there — our own kids. And on top of that my commanders have their hands tied.”

“They are authorized to use whatever force necessary to defend themselves, Admiral,” the President said. It was clear that he wasn’t going to be pushed either. Unlike his predecessor, he had spent time in the military.

“That’s the point. Mr. President. They might need more authority than that, and they might need it so fast that there’d be no time to phone home. Al Ryland would like full discretion—” Ryland was in overall command of the combined fleet.

“No,” the President said even before Admiral Halvorson finished the sentence. He sat forward for emphasis in his tall, bulletproof leather chair. “This will not spin out of control into an all-out shooting war between China and the United States.”