The president shook his head. ‘I don’t know where we go if we start talking like that.’
‘Exactly. Where
do
we go?’ Ehrenreich sat forward in his chair. ‘Mr President, I don’t mean to speak out of turn, and I sense I take a little more historical a view than Mr Abrahams is comfortable with, but … I’m going to say it anyway. You’re a pawn in this process. You’re a tiny little piece in the middle of a big historical process, as the peoples of this planet become so integrated that a bunch of interests have to be balanced against each other for the good of all peoples as a whole. Because if they’re not – everyone suffers. Not just them, but us. It’s impossible to overstate how new, how utterly new, this situation is for our civilization. That’s why it’s so hard for us. But Mr President, here’s the thing. It’s going to happen whether you want it to or not. You, and the United States, are not powerful enough to stop that. The only question is, how much pain is it going to take as this historical process plays out? Is it going to be excruciating, are we going to fight war after war as a way of balancing those interests, and perhaps destroy ourselves entirely? Or is it going to be peaceful? Disorienting, but peaceful? Are we going to be able to live with the ambiguity long enough to construct a way to do it without violence? That’s the choice. You do not have the power to take that choice away. No one does. But in your position, you do, sir, have the ability to influence the choice that we make. It could be that this financial crisis is the chance you have to start exerting that influence. It could be that it isn’t. But what it definitely isn’t – what I can guarantee you, absolutely, one hundred per cent guarantee you that it isn’t – is an opportunity to make that choice disappear. The process is in place and has been for decades. It can’t be stopped, sir. Whatever you do, please don’t mistake it for an opportunity to hold it back. There is no such thing.’
The president was silent for a moment. ‘You put that forcefully,’ he said.
‘Marion should have warned you what I’m like.’
‘You make it sound like we’re in some kind of global endgame.’
Ehrenreich shrugged. ‘Maybe we are. A long one. If that’s what this is, we’re at the very start of it, but how we start might make a big difference to how we end and how long it takes us to get there. You know, there’s a saying attributed to Bismarck about what makes a great statesman. Do you know it, Mr President?’
Knowles shook his head.
‘Bismarck said, the truly great statesman is the one who hears the distant hoofbeat of the horse of history, and through an extraordinary effort manages to leap and catch the horseman by the coat-tails and be carried along for as far as he can be. Not ride the horse, Mr President, not replace the horseman, but just to catch him by his coat-tails is a great feat. Sir, most statesmen who think they’re great – who their own times think are great – when the horse has gone by, and the horseman looks around behind him, it turns out they actually just stood in the way and got trampled into the dust.’
‘And you hear the hoofbeats?’ said the president quietly.
‘I do, sir. They’re loud.’
‘Then what would you do to catch on to the horseman?’
Ehrenreich smiled. ‘I’m not a great statesman.’
‘Pretend you are.’
Ehrenreich shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’d make a start.’
‘How?’
‘However it looks like.’
‘Do something in the G22? The UN?’
‘No. That’s not going do it.’
‘Then what?’
‘I don’t know. Call a summit with Zhang? Get him involved. Make him part of the solution, not part of the problem. Throw open the question of regulation of funds. Their funds, other funds. Make some changes that suit them.’
‘Roll over, you mean?’ said Rose.
‘No. We have to stand firm as well. It’s not one way. Whatever else it is, it can’t be that. It’s give and take.’
‘What if he refuses to get involved?’ said Abrahams.
‘I don’t know. Ask again? And again? I said it’ll take more than one big politician. This isn’t all our fault, Mr Abrahams. I’m not saying it is, and we have to remember that.’ Ehrenreich looked back at the president. ‘You know what my fear is? That it will take some kind of massive catastrophe, some kind of horrible and bloody confrontation, before we get enough big politicians to realize what has to be done. Historically that’s how it’s always been. The tragedy of our species is that we can react to a catastrophe that we’ve actually experienced and yet we seem consistently unable to react ahead of time when it’s obvious we’re heading towards a new one. Somehow we can never really believe it’s going to happen.’ Ehrenreich paused. ‘If we do start on that road towards a new way of doing things, no one will know what the end will look like. It’s a transitional process. We’ll have to live with uncertainty for a good long while. Not just our generation, but generations after us. It doesn’t happen all at once. You’re changing the governance of the world. We’ve had presidents who have tried to do that before. Woodrow Wilson tried and failed. FDR arguably succeeded because of the unique moment of power he enjoyed, which gives us the system we have to change today. George W Bush, you could argue, was the last one who tried, even on a relatively limited scale, and he failed miserably because he completely misunderstood how much our military power could really be expected to achieve. But the change needs to happen. With every year that goes by it needs to happen more. Someone’s got to start. We’ve got to get them in the tent. We’ve got to have them in the tent pissing out. But that does mean, and we have to accept, the tent’s going to look different after a while.’
‘Wet,’ said Abrahams. ‘And smelly.’
Ehrenreich smiled. ‘Maybe. So we have to live with a wet, smelly tent for a while. At least we’ve still got a tent. That’s the road we have to take. I’m not pretending I can see where it goes. I can see the start but I can’t see the end. That’s a difficult thing. But then I look at the alternative, the road we’re on, and I can see the end. And you know what?’ Joel Ehrenreich took off his glasses and gazed at the president with his myopic eyes. ‘I may not have the best eyesight in the world, but I can tell a dead end when I see one.’
‘That’s well put,’ said the president.
Ehrenreich put his glasses back on. ‘You can use it if you like. Be my guest. Keep taking us down that road, Mr President, take us down that road until we slam into the dead end, and I fear for my children. Not my grandchildren, sir. My children.’
55
JOEL EHRENREICH HAD
been shown out. Only the president and Marion remained in the Oval Office.
‘He’s big on the history stuff, your professor.’
Marion nodded.
‘That kind of talk can sound a little delusional.’
Marion smiled. ‘On the other hand, it can be right. Once in every five hundred years.’
‘You think it is?’
‘Broadly. Not every word, not every implication, but a lot of it. The gist of it.’
‘And that bit about making a start and seeing where it goes?’
‘After two years on the Security Council, Mr President, I’m with Joel a hundred per cent on that.’
Knowles was silent for a moment. ‘Marion, last time we met you told me you were thinking of resigning.’
Marion nodded. Until she got to La Guardia that afternoon and discovered that Joel Ehrenreich was with her on the plane to the White House, she had thought the president had asked her down to fire her.
‘I want to tell you about something that’s happening right now but I can’t do that unless I know you’re not resigning. Not yet anyway. I need you to stick around a little longer. Are you prepared to do that?’
Marion frowned.
‘I need to know you’re going to do that, Marion.’
The president was almost imploring her. She nodded. ‘Okay.’
‘Thank you. I want to tell you something.’
Marion listened as Knowles told her about the events of the past two days and the clash that was coming as the Chinese and American strike groups converged across the Indian Ocean.
‘We would have about forty-four hours now until they get to Lamu Bay,’ he said, glancing at his watch. ‘Call it forty hours. The navy boys can’t be sure exactly how quick they’ll get there.’
Marion was silent, trying to take it all in.
‘What do you think Professor Ehrenreich would say if he knew about it? You think this is the war he was talking about?’
‘It could be,’ said Marion. ‘One of the battles, at least. I think he’d say if it wasn’t this it would soon be something else.’
‘He has a damn pessimistic outlook, doesn’t he?’
‘Actually, he can be quite a humorous guy. He does quite a good Eddie Murphy impression.’
‘You’re kidding me.’
‘It’s true.’
The president shook his head, laughing. Then he was serious again. Ehrenreich had talked about an awful confrontation, a massive catastrophe that would have to happen before things changed. ‘What do you think he would say if I told him what I just told you?’
‘I think Joel would say now’s the time. Now’s the time to do something different.’
‘Now? With everything that’s happening?’
‘Extraordinary events make for extraordinary opportunities. He’d say something like that.’
The president’s eyes narrowed slightly.
‘But as you’ve seen, Joel takes a long, historic view of things. If I can be frank, sir. If I can be completely frank …’
‘He doesn’t think I’m the guy to grab on to the coat-tails. That’s what you’re about to say, isn’t it?’
Marion nodded. ‘He’s never been one of your fans. I think Joel would say you’re not big enough to do it.’
Knowles took that on the chin. ‘General Hale and the Joint Chiefs have developed four plans,’ he said. He outlined them.
‘What happens afterwards?’ asked Marion.
‘The military boys have got plans for that as well. They’re anticipating an escalation. They’re briefing me as soon as I’m finished with you.’
‘What if we lose this engagement? The plans all seem to envisage us winning.’
‘We will. On a military level, we will.’
‘Then we create an enemy that’s going to come back for more.’
‘You don’t think they’ll learn a lesson?’
‘No, sir. They’ll be back for more. And in the meantime, whatever happens militarily, we’re going to have the biggest economic war we’ve ever seen.’
‘So which of those four plans would you choose?’
Marion thought for a moment. Then she looked back at the president. ‘None.’
56
THE MEETING WITH
the Joint Chiefs took hours. The president saw plans for the defense of Taiwan, the abandonment of Taiwan, the defense of Japan, response to Russian aggression against China on its northern border, Indian aggression against China on its southern border, Chinese aggression against India and Russia on both borders, attacks on US facilities in east Asia, submarine-launched attacks on the US west coast, a crackdown by the Chinese regime and collapse of the Chinese regime. But none of these was likely to take place in isolation. The more plans he saw, the more Tom Knowles realized that only one thing was certain: when shots were fired, the first casualties would be the very plans he had just seen.
In Sudan and off Lamu Bay, the standoff continued. The situation was exactly as it had been that morning, except the strike groups were now ten hours closer to each other.
He went up to the residence floor and took some time out in his study. As far as he was concerned, each of the military plans was as bad as the next. He didn’t want to get there. He thought over the discussion with Joel Ehrenreich. He didn’t know quite what to make of what the professor had to say. It was appealing to think you could change everything with good will and a couple of smart decisions. But the world didn’t work like that.
And yet Ehrenreich’s logic was obvious. Blindingly simple, which was what made it so hard to dismiss. And maybe extraordinary moments do create the opportunity to do extraordinary things. Not to change the world, perhaps, but to nudge it in a different direction.
But was he the man to do it? And more importantly, was Zhang? What if neither of them were the men to catch the horseman’s coat-tails, as Ehrenreich had put it? Maybe they were going to be merely two more that the horse left trampled in the road – together with all the men and women whose lives might be lost because of their miscalculation.
At about nine o’clock he called down and asked Roberta Devlin to get everyone into the Oval Office. No military men. Just his closest advisors. And Marion Ellman. He had asked her to stay after Joel Ehrenreich was flown home.
No one had gone far. By nine-ten, everyone was there.
‘I know we’re all tired,’ he said. ‘Let me explain where I’m at.’ He frowned for a moment, gathering his thoughts. ‘We’re in a multi-front confrontation with China. The truth is, I don’t know why. Couple of months back, everything seemed fine. Now it looks like we’ve got a financial crisis, we’re starting up a trade war and we’ve got a fullblown military confrontation going on. And every time I try to get some kind of a compromise and try to find a way out, it just gets escalated. And within the next thirty-six hours, when those ships get together, it’s either going to get very, very escalated or something else is going to have to happen first. And the hell of it is, apart from us backing away and leaving our guys in Sudan – which just isn’t acceptable – I don’t know what that something else is. I can’t see it.’
He paused again. Everyone in the room continued to watch him.
‘Now, as most of you know, I had a meeting today with someone who told me he thought war with China some time in the not too distant future was inevitable unless we start to do business in a radically different way. By the way, he didn’t know about what’s happening out there in the Indian Ocean, so it was kind of eerie to hear him say that. His view is that we share certain global problems but we deal with them through the prism of national interests, and that means by definition we can’t solve them. And eventually, when nations can’t solve their problems, they fight. That’s why he said at some stage we or our proxies are going to have a war – unless we find a way of dealing with these problems through a global prism. It sounds logical but it also sounds theoretical and I don’t know how you do what he’s talking about. I don’t think he does either. Marion, is that a fair summary of what he said?’