Tipping Point: The War With China - the First Salvo (Dan Lenson Novels) (7 page)

“Have you? I’m talking about major, ongoing probes of our most sensitive systems. We’ve traced the hackers, and they’re out of the Second Department—Zhang’s old outfit.

“So here’s our reasoning, in the administration. Emotion must play no part. We look only at what the numbers tell us. Comparing growth rates, they’ll outproduce us in five to ten years. You won’t quote me on this, to anyone. But war now could be better than later, with a more powerful adversary that’s already rolled up our weaker allies.”

Dan took a deep breath. He’d forgotten how icy cold Szerenci could be. He could discuss megadeaths as if they were acey-deucey points, dissect and anticipate catastrophe and holocaust almost with relish. “Do we want to roll those dice?” he asked, trying to keep his tone neutral, as if they were back in class.

“It’s the only rational way to deal with a rising adversary that won’t comply with international rules.”

“But what’s the endgame? You can’t occupy China, the way we occupied Japan—”

The door jerked, shuddering as if desperate to open; Szererenci jabbed the Close button again. “We won’t need to. Defeat in war will trigger political change.”

Blair shook her head. “How do you figure that?”

The national security adviser smiled. “Historical precedent. Russia, 1905, 1917. Germany, 1918. Argentina, 1983.”

Dan said, “And why are you telling us? Why are you even
here,
Ed?”

“Because—as I said—ships like yours will be in our front line. If you look good, even if for what I might consider the wrong reasons, that helps us toward the supplemental appropriation.” He winked, and dropped his umbrella tip from the panel.

The doors whisked open, and they walked out into wide, brightly lit corridors, into a dazzling flicker of camera flashes, men and women jostling in to shout questions. Szerenci’s boys shouldered through the scrum with professional ease, until they reached the hearing room.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Committee on Armed Services

Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee

Washington, DC, Wednesday, June 10

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:00
A.M.
in the Rayburn Office Building, the Honorable Beverly Maclay, chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.

MRS. MACLAY
. Good morning. Today, the subcommittee will consider funding of additional increment to national antiballistic missile systems. But also, significant issues that have arisen over the proper employment of current systems, notably our mobile defensive systems, such as the ABM-capable Aegis cruisers and destroyers slated to enter the fleet in the out years of the current funding plan.
    To outline the issue, I have asked Dr. Denson Hui, director, Missile Defense Agency, to address us as a backgrounder, followed by witnesses from the United States Navy, including the vice chief of naval operations, Vice Admiral Barry Nicholas Niles. Admiral Niles, good to see you here again.

ADMIRAL NILES
. Likewise, ma’am. Thank you for having us.

MRS. MACLAY
. I see we’re also graced with the presence of Dr. Edward Szerenci, the national security adviser. Welcome, Doctor. However, you are not testifying today, I believe.

DR. SZERENCI
. I am here in support of the testimony, and to be available should you have additional questions.

Dan, Niles, and Rongstad took a long table in front of the congressmen, who were seated on a dais beneath a large seal. Niles looked taken aback by Szerenci, who bent to murmur into his ear. At last he nodded, but without enthusiasm. He pointed to a chair to Dan’s left.

As usual, at least in Dan’s experience, not all the subcommittee chairs on the dais were occupied. The subcommittee was made up of nine Republicans and eight Democrats. The chairman, Mrs. Maclay, was a moderate Republican from Kansas. Mainly because of her ready gavel, there were remarkably few partisan squabbles. She wore her gray hair in a schoolmarm bun, and spoke in a dry monotone. The others, mostly male, were in business suits, all with the same flag pin Szerenci was wearing. Dan wondered if they were issued, or if they all had to buy their own in some little kiosk in the Capitol.

The witness table was filling too, which surprised him—he’d more or less assumed he’d be on his own. But nameplates were being set out for an Asian-looking civilian in a severe gray suit and other uniformed attendees. Mostly Navy, but a few in Air Force blue and Army greens as well. When he glanced back, the rows were already filled with lieutenant commanders, majors, civilian aides. It seemed like only yesterday he’d perched back there, handing slides up to his principals as they squirmed under grillings about budget overruns, crashes, missed deadlines.

When he turned forward someone new was pushing her way onto the dais. A woman, her face not quite unfamiliar. Blond. Perhaps attractive once, but now bloated with too many Capitol Hill cocktail parties. As her blue-eyed gaze fixed on his she gave a small but unmistakable smile.

Dan sucked in his breath. He whispered to Szerenci, “Isn’t that Sandy?”

“Representative Treherne now. Seventeenth District. Tennessee.”

“That’s right. I remember.” He and Sandy Cottrell had both been students of Szerenci’s … no, Cottrell had been more than just the prof’s student … but their paths had diverged since. Hers, steadily ascendant, in both politics and an advantageous marriage, while his had bumped along the seabed. Sometimes literally. They’d met only once during the years between, at a party at the vice president’s home. “I didn’t know she was on this subcommittee.”

“She isn’t. Must be sitting in.”

The gavel fell, and the room quieted.

DR. HUI
. Thank you for the chance to present the progress of our interim ballistic missile defense system. Gentlemen, ladies, unfortunately, what I am going to present really
is
rocket science. So I am obliged to begin with a short definition of terms.
    As you know, several nations which find it in their internal interest to present us as an adversary are developing, or have developed, short- to medium-range ballistic missile systems. These are what we refer to as “theater” ballistic missiles. The intercontinental ballistic missile is treated under a different legal and technical regime. The purpose of our defensive systems is not to substitute for our offensive weapons, but to strengthen deterrence by holding off a surprise attack until we can muster our offensive capabilities—to add flexibility to the range of our military and political responses.
    It is difficult to exaggerate the technical challenge. We are required to guide a warhead at seventeen thousand miles an hour, intercepting a terminal reentry vehicle—the warhead—which is also traveling at around that velocity. We’re trying to hit an object the size of a wastebasket seventy miles up, at a combined closing rate of thirty-plus thousand miles an hour. As you might imagine, this isn’t simple. A lot of subsystems have to work perfectly, within a very narrow time window—what we call the latency period.
    The flight path of the enemy missile takes place in three phases. The boost phase extends from the launch pad to engine burnout, at the edge of space. This is the point at which “ballistic” flight begins. The midcourse phase extends from burnout to reentry into the atmosphere. The terminal phase follows the reentry body, the warhead, to its target.
    Our current state of the art in sensors limits us to interceptions within the two latter regimes, midphase and terminal phase. Terminal phase TMD systems comprise Patriot, THAAD, and the Israeli Iron Dome. Midcourse intercept systems include Arrow and the Navy’s Aegis-based Standard system. It is this last system we are concerned with today, I understand?

MRS. MACLAY
. This is correct.

DR. HUI
. I will then hand off to Captain Widermann, for the Navy Missile Office.

MRS. MACLAY
. Good morning, Captain. Again, let me welcome you and the other DoD members who have come here today to testify.

CAPTAIN WIDERMANN
. Thank you, Madam Chairman. The Navy has been entrusted with a growing role in national strategic-level missile defense because of certain inherent advantages naval forces bring to the table. These include ready deployability and redeployability, and the independence of host-country politics the open sea grants us. In addition, it has proven relatively inexpensive to upgrade preexisting Aegis antiair capabilities, embarked in the Ticonderoga- and Burke-class warships, to provide a TBMD capability in the terminal and midphase flight regimes. Needless to say, this is upsetting to those who believe their own programs constitute a means of coercion or threat to us. I believe this is about all that is wise to say in open session on that topic.

MRS. MACLAY
. That’s my cue to go into closed session, is it not? Before going further, let’s make sure the room is secure.

Dan sat back, trying not to slump while accommodating the pain in his upper spine. When the room was reported secure and the mikes were off, the hearing resumed.

MRS. MACLAY
. One point we wanted to get to today is recent Navy actions in the eastern Mediterranean. Though there hasn’t been much press coverage, we’ve been briefed that two TBMs were intercepted and two were missed. Then, in a second … event, I guess you could call it, an Israeli missile was shot down and an Iranian ship was sunk. Some reports say two were sunk. Several members have called for clarification.

VICE ADMIRAL NILES
. Madam Chairman, we will go as deeply into that action as this subcommittee desires. However, let me make one point first.
    As you know, the Navy has a long tradition of allowing its commanding officers considerable latitude in how they fight their ships. We try not to micromanage them when they are deployed, especially in situations that require swift and decisive reactions for own-ship defense. Instead, we provide general combat guidance and rules of engagement.
    The surface action against an Iranian task group falls under the ROEs for self-defense. I will venture the statement, to the extent I can speak for the Navy, that Captain Lenson, of USS
Savo Island,
acted properly in responding to actual weapon launch by the Iranians. In the subsequent action, although we’re still sorting out “who shot John,” the Iranian frigate took major damage and a gunboat was sunk. Once the threat was resolved, Captain Lenson took appropriate action to rescue survivors and tow the derelict frigate to a friendly port.

MR. HOLLIGER
. This ship was captured by our forces, correct? Are you saying Captain Lenson then gave her back?

VICE ADMIRAL NILES
. A state of war did not exist, and the Iranian authorities held that their missile launch was accidental. Thus, we had no legal right to retain the frigate as a prize. Captain Lenson kept us informed of his thinking in that regard, and we concurred in his actions.
    However, to go on. Immediately prior to that engagement,
Savo Island
had engaged two Iraqi missiles targeted against Israel, utilizing a small loadout of experimental SM-2 Block 4 ABM rounds. She was the first ship to deploy with this nascent capability, and frankly, we did not expect much; both software and missile are still developmental.

MRS. MACLAY
. So it’s your opinion that Captain Lenson’s conduct in this engagement was within the guidance the Navy had given him?

VICE ADMIRAL NILES
. This indeed, ma’am, is the crux of the question. He is here with us. Perhaps it would be best to let him speak for himself.

MRS. MACLAY
. Good morning, Captain Lenson. We’re glad you could be with us today to clarify your actions. I understand from my staff that you are one of the most highly decorated naval officers still on active duty. And in fact, that you hold—and I am reading from your Navy Department summary record—the Silver Star, the Navy Cross, the Navy–Marine Corps Medal, the Navy Achievement Medal, the Navy Commendation Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Legion of Merit with a V, a Defense Superior Service Medal, four Armed Forces Expeditionary Medals and one Navy Expeditionary Medal, six Navy Sea Service Medals, four Purple Hearts, a POW Medal, two Overseas Service Ribbons, the Southwest Asia Service Medal with two battle stars, the Presidential Unit Citation, the National Defense Service Medal with one star, and various other ribbons, some, I note, from other countries—Indonesia, France, the Republic of Korea. I congratulate you on what has obviously been a long and no doubt stressful career.

CAPTAIN LENSON
. Thank you, ma’am.

MR. LA BLANC
. Is the chairwoman’s summary essentially correct, Captain?

CAPTAIN LENSON
. Um, if it is from my record, probably. I would have to check before I could say it was definitive.

MR. LA BLANC
. Meaning you have been decorated so much and so often you no longer are able to keep them straight. I would submit that Captain Lenson is a warrior. Unlike most who testify before this committee, who are rear-echelon figures.

MRS. MACLAY
. Thank you, Mr. La Blanc. Captain, would you summarize your actions this winter, specifically those which led to your firing four antiballistic missiles?

CAPTAIN LENSON
. Yes, ma’am. USS
Savo Island
was posted off the Levant on a defense of Israel mission. I have brought a copy of those orders for the record, if desired. They are classified. During our time on station several enhanced-range Scud-type variants knows as Al-Husayns were fired from the Western Operating Area.
    On the night in question, three TBMs were fired simultaneously from the Al-Anbar area. We were cued via satellite and prepared to engage. However, I had only two missile defense rounds available at that time, due to a casualty in the after magazine. The impact point prediction for the first missile resolved to an aim point directly over
Savo Island
. Missiles 2 and 3 were targeted against cities in Israel. I directed that we take missiles 2 and 3 with Standard.