Mark Greaney - Full Force and Effect

“And next time you come back, be ready for a discussion, not a presentation. You’ll find I’m pretty easy to chat with when I’m engaged. You guys have the knowledge, and I’m just about the most curious son of a gun you’ll ever meet.”

Another round of “Yes, sir,” and the two left the room.

When they were gone Scott Adler smiled. “That colonel looked like a recruit just off the bus. Did you see the deer-in-the-headlights look he gave you when you asked for the flare duration?”

Jack shrugged. “I guess I went a little overboard. I’ve been reading a lot of our primary intelligence on the DPRK’s systems. Frankly, I was hoping there was more intel than what was in the reports that make it to me. There are a hell of a lot of holes in our knowledge.”

CIA director Canfield said, “You can’t get too deep in the trees, boss. You are the one everybody relies on to see the entire forest.”

“Yeah. I know.”

Canfield added, “Mr. President. It’s important for you to understand why there are gaps in our knowledge of North Korea. Our SIGINT, ELINT, and MASINT are all fair to good. We have spaceborne platforms, airborne platforms, surface platforms, and even subsurface platforms, and they are all pointed at the Korean Peninsula. We have cyber-platforms too, of course. But our HUMINT is lacking. Most of the human intelligence we have comes from defectors to the south. They are usually of poor quality. Subsistence farmers, laborers, teenagers who make it over.”

Jack said, “You are saying we are in the dark.”

“From a HUMINT perspective, we are nearly that. We have some low-level government officials in our pocket. But the ones in Pyongyang we do hold some influence over are not able to communicate with us regularly, if at all. We don’t have a single, CIA-run government asset in the entire nation. Even at the absolute height of the Cold War, we always had agents in the Soviet Union. But these days we are dark in North Korea.”

“Okay,” Ryan said, then he drummed his fingers on the table. “Getting back to this failed launch. I wish we could all celebrate, but the problem with North Korea”—he held a hand up quickly—“ one of the problems with North Korea, is that bad news for them is not necessarily good news for us. We’ve all seen it before, right? They respond to an embarrassing failure with a flexing of their muscles. Saber rattling.”

Mary Pat agreed. “Their long-range missile blows up during second-stage sep so they ‘test-fire’ two dozen short-range missiles into the Sea of Japan.”

SecDef Burgess said, “Or they shell islands, or send mini-subs south of the Thirty-eighth Parallel.”

Ryan added, “The new Choi has been going out of his way to show us he is to be taken just as seriously as the old Choi.”

The national security adviser said, “Mr. President. May I be the voice of perspective here? Even with all this taken into account, the DPRK is not our main problem right now. Even if there is some new low-intensity conflict on the Korean Peninsula, there are other, more pressing issues going on in the world. I think we need to count our blessings they still can’t hit California with a plutonium bomb, and then return our focus to Russia, NATO, China, the Middle East, and all the other more critical issues out there.”

Jack nodded and rubbed his eyes. “Why can’t all the assholes out there just take a number and threaten us one at a time?” There were stressed chuckles around the room. “So . . . what do we do about this?”

Adler said, “I suggest we go back to the Security Council, push for another vote condemning the DPRK.”

“The UN? Seriously? To what end?” Ryan asked. “China will just veto. Russia, too.”

Adler shook his head now. “China and North Korea aren’t the allies they used to be. Now that Choi the son has taken over for Choi the father, his destabilizing is pissing them off in Beijing. Remember China and DPRK had that big blowup over mineral rights last year. We won’t get a vote from China, but it’s possible we’ll get an abstention.”

National Security Adviser Robillio added, “Russia will veto, but it creates another attempt to isolate Russia diplomatically. With a new resolution we can marginalize Russia and censor North Korea. Kill two birds with one stone.”

Ryan answered back, “That’s not killing two birds with one stone. That’s yelling at two birds as they fly on by without a care. Russia will keep doing what they’re doing, and Chairman Choi doesn’t give a damn about condemnation in the Security Council. His focus is on holding and exerting power. Nothing more.”

Adler was unwavering. “The UN might not have teeth, but the sanctions against the North are already as strict as we have any hope of making them without some dramatic new development. Diplomatically speaking, there is little we can do.” He looked across the table at SecDef Burgess. “Unless you are going to send Bob to attack Pyongyang, Mr. President, a UN resolution is about the only weapon we’ve got.”

Ryan dropped his elbows on the table. “Even with the broad sanctions on their weapons development programs, conventional and nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, they still manage to launch ICBMs and detonate nukes. The Chinese don’t want them armed with nukes any more than we do, so we know they aren’t supplying them. Russia is the one adding fuel to this fire.”

Canfield agreed. “That’s right. The Russians don’t care if North Korea has a nuke. It’s another headache for us to deal with, and the DPRK pays in cash. There are only two impediments to North Korea having a deployable ICBM.”

“And those are?” asked Ryan.

“One, the sanctions. Russia doesn’t want to get caught sneaking banned items and technology into North Korea, because that hurts them diplomatically. They do it, but they do it carefully, and that means the technology comes in a slow trickle.”

“And the other?”

“The other, quite simply, is money. North Korea is a hopelessly poor regime, with very little hard currency in the West. If they suddenly found themselves flush with cash, they could up the ante with Russia and unscrupulous private defense contractors and command a lot better service. Russia will sell them anything at any time. If the DPRK ever starts waving around hundreds of millions instead of millions, you’ll see the proliferation increase precipitously, and they will get an arsenal of ICBMs.”

Jack put it succinctly for the rest of his national security team. “A poor DPRK is in U.S. national interests. We can’t go out and say it to the world, because we’ll be accused of starving the citizens of North Korea, even though it is the government of North Korea that is starving its own people. But we have to do whatever we can to prevent Choi’s government from flourishing financially.”

Mary Pat said, “Violations of sanctions allow millions in wealth and goods to trickle in and out.”

Jack said, “We’ve worked for two generations to bleed them dry so they would come to the bargaining table, and still they keep moving on. We need more intelligence out of the North.” He looked to Mary Pat and Jay. “This is a critical need. I know you have a thousand other things to deal with, but after that DIA brief it is clear to me we aren’t going to have a solid handle on DPRK’s capabilities until they demonstrate their capability by dumping a payload onto San Francisco. At that point it will be too late to do anything about it. I want you to improve your HUMINT in the DPRK.”

The meeting broke up minutes later, and Mary Pat Foley stood from her chair, ready to return to her office at the Liberty Crossing complex in McLean, Virginia. Her President wasn’t satisfied with the intelligence product he was getting, which meant she had a hell of a lot of work to do. She’d meet with CIA director Canfield and discuss it, because they were both feeling the same heat.