“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.”
“Let’s get Ghandra on the phone,” said President Allaire. “From the Oval. What is very clear is that no one can predict what’s going to happen. We don’t want the war to continue. The risks grow very quickly as long as this goes on and the crisis will soon be outside of our capability to control or influence it. We need to tell Ghandra to shut this thing down. That’s the bottom line.”
“In the meantime, we need to see a full strategic capability set on what we have in the theater,” said Jessica. “Where is the closest carrier group. Harry, run the numbers on troops; what is the maximum number of soldiers we can put into India if necessary, how soon could we deploy, et cetera.”
“On it,” said Black.
“We also need better intelligence on El-Khayab,” said President Allaire. “What is he discussing? Are we capturing any of his communications with Beijing, with his war cabinet? And get on the phone with Beijing. Press them. We need them to help us keep El-Khayab in a box.”
* * *
The president was silent as the doors to the elevator opened. He said nothing, and walked down the thick red carpet of the West Wing to the Oval Office.
Inside the Oval Office, the president walked behind his desk. He removed his blazer, hanging it on the back of the chair next to his desk, then removed his red-and-blue-striped tie, threw it onto the same chair next to the blazer.
“I hate to sound like a broken record, but we have policies and ways of executing those policies that are tried and true, Mr. President,” said Jessica. “There are legitimate, fundamental reasons we agree to protect vital interests outside of our borders, such as India. Why is it that we are having debates about basic policy underpinnings at the very time we can’t afford to, at the very time these policies should form the compass points in our strategy?”
The president sat down. He closed his eyes and rubbed them.
“I need a few minutes, Jess,” he whispered. She stared at him, noticed the redness around his eyes.
A strange feeling came over Jessica then. It was a surreal sense of anxiety; part euphoria, part terror. Terror because she saw the president as he was, a fallible, insecure human being; a man adrift due to the loss of his wife at a time when he needed to be in total control. Jessica understood why she was there, that she could, and would, manage the crisis for the president, if he would let her.
Jessica reached for the phone on President Allaire’s desk.
“You don’t have a few minutes, Mr. President.”
* * *
“Good morning, President Ghandra,” said President Allaire. “How are you holding up?”
“I appreciate your call,” said Rajiv Ghandra, the president of India. “We’re in the thick of it. So let’s get to it, yes?”
“Yes, Rajiv. I’m on the line with Jessica Tanzer.”
“Hi, Jessica,” said Ghandra. “I trust you’re well.”
“Yes, thank you, Mr. President,” said Jessica. “If you don’t mind my cutting to the quick, what is the current status of the battle?”
There was a long pause, which Ghandra finally filled.
“It’s blowing up quickly,” said Ghandra. “We’re losing more than five hundred men an hour. It’s extremely violent, and there’s no letup on either side. We are inflicting as many casualties, if not more, on the Pakistanis.”
“Why is it so intense, so quickly?” asked President Allaire.
“Because we are each trying to build stable supply lines up to the battle theater. If either side lets up, what has already been put in place will be destroyed within hours. It’s like building a dam in the middle of a river: you have to keep putting the rocks in place even though many are being washed away.”
“Mr. President, surely this makes no sense,” said Jessica. “A few incidents and all of the sudden there is a flash point with seemingly no control? Why? We’ve had relative stability in Kashmir for almost a decade.”
“It has become, how shall we say, complex, Jessica. I can’t fully impress on you the deleterious effects of the incidents at Yagulung; the rape, the massacre of this small village in the middle of nowhere, on all of my people. There is legitimate anger. This anger is built on two decades of fear that the jihadists have already created in my people. Do you have any idea how many of my countrymen have been killed over the past decade by Islamic terrorists? More than ten thousand Indian citizens!
Imagine
that. People are angry. This has set them off. I have to tell you,
I
am angry. El-Khayab is a jihadist. He’s one of them. I believe we need to fight until the end. I have no interest in a cease-fire. I have no interest in moving back to the Line of Control.”
“Rajiv, you know that the United States stands behind you,” said President Allaire.
“Yes, thank you. I know that.”
“We’re prepared to step in and defend India if necessary to protect our ally and our own strategic interests in the region.”
“Yes, I appreciate that.”
“But our military support cannot protect you from an irrational attack by the Pakistani Army and by Omar El-Khayab. We will be coming in after millions have already perished.”
“What are you saying?”
“You’re in grave danger,” said President Allaire. “El-Khayab is the first Pakistani president who might actually decide to use a nuclear device. Have you considered that?”
A low, soft, humorless laugh came across the phone as President Ghandra chuckled. “Considered it? Of course we’ve considered it. But even he is not that crazy. He knows what would happen if he launched a nuclear strike on India. Even a radical cleric as hateful as El-Khayab wouldn’t do something so suicidal.”
“But if he does—” asked Jessica.
“We would annihilate Pakistan,” interrupted President Ghandra.
“We want you to consider a cease-fire,” said President Allaire. “The implications of this thing going on much longer are simply too dangerous. Under any circumstance, both countries lose. Potentially millions of people. India needs to be the reasonable player here.”