“Mr. President, you’re not going to authorize a systematic attack on their
country, are you?” Jackson asked.
Durling shook his head. “No, that’s more than I want. The mission is to
^et the Marianas back and to prevent them from carrying through on the
second part of their plan.”
Robby took a deep breath. This was what he’d been preparing for.
“There’s a third part, too,” Jackson announced.
The two men with him froze.
“What’s that, Rob?” Ryan asked after a moment.
“We just figured it out, Jack. The Indian task-force commander, Chan-
draskatta? He went to Newport a while back. Guess who was in the same
class.” He paused. “A certain Japanese admiral named Sato.”
Ryan closed his eyes. Why hadn’t somebody turned this up before? “So,
three countries with imperial ambitions …”
“It looks that way to me, Jack. Remember the Greater East Asia Co-Pros-
perity Sphere? Good ideas keep coming back. We need to stop it all,” Jack-
son said forcefully. “I spent twenty-some years training for a war that
nobody wanted to fight-with the Russians. I’d rather train to keep the
peace. That means stopping these guys right now.”
“Will this work?” the President asked.
“No guarantees, sir. Jack tells me there’s a diplomatic and political clock
on the operation. This isn’t Iraq. Whatever international consensus we have
is just with the Europeans, and that’ll evaporate sooner or later.”
“Jack?” Durling asked.
“If we’re going to do it, this is probably the way.”
“Risky.”
”Mr. President, yes, sir, it’s risky,” Robby Jackson agreed. “If you think
diplomacy will work to get the Marianas back, fine. I don’t especially want
to kill anybody. But if I were in their shoes, I would not give those islands
back. They need them for Phase Two, and if that happens, even if the Rus-
sians don’t go nuke …”
A giant step backwards, Ryan thought. A new alliance of sorts, one that
could stretch from the Arctic Circle to Australia. Three countries with nu-
clear capacity, a huge resource base, massive economies, and the political
will to use violence to achieve their ends. The Nineteenth Century all over
. played on u far larger field. l-conomic compclilion backed by force,
I he classic formula for unending war.
“Jack?” the President asked again.
Ryan nodded slowly. “I think we have to. You can pick any reason you
want. They all come out the same way.”
“Approved.”
Going Deep
“Normalcy” was the word the various commentators consistently used,
usually with adjectives like “eerie” and/or “reassuring” to describe the
week’s routine. People on the political left were gratified that the govern-
ment was using diplomatic means to address the crisis, while those on the
political right were enraged that the White House was low-keying every-
thing. Indeed, it was the absence of leadership, and the absence of real policy
statements that showed everyone that Roger Durling was a domestic-policy
president who didn’t have much of a clue on how to handle international
crises. Further criticism found its way to the National Security Advisor, John
P. Ryan, who, though he had supposedly good credentials in intelligence,
had never really established himself as a player in national-security matters
per se, and certainly was not taking a very forceful position now. Others
found his circumspection admirable. The downsizing of the American mili-
tary, pundits observed, made effective counteraction extremely difficult at
best, and though lights remained on at the Pentagon throughout the nights,
there obviously was no way to deal with the situation in the Marianas. As a
result, other observers said in front of any TV camera with a red light, the
Administration would do its best to appear to remain calm and steady while
doing the best it could. Hence the illusion of normalcy to conceal the inhei
ent weakness of the American position.
“You ask us to do nothing?” Golovko asked in exasperation.
‘ ‘It’s our battle to fight. If you move too soon, it alerts China, and it alerts
Japan.” Besides, Ryan could not add, what can you do? The Russian mill-
lary was in far worse shape than America’s. They could move additional
aircraft to Eastern Siberia. Moving ground troops to firm up the light-
strength formations of border guards could well trigger a Chinese response.
“Your satellites are telling you the same thing ours are, Sergey. China isn’t
mobilizing.”
“Yet.” The single word had a sting to it.
“Correct. Not yet. And if we play our cards right, that won’t happen.”
Ryan paused. “Any further information on the missiles?”
“We have several sites under surveillance,” Golovko reported. “We
have confirmed that the rockets at Yoshinobu are being used for civilian pur-
poses. That is probably a cover for military testing, but nothing more than
that. My technical people are quite confident.”
“Don’t you just love how confident they can be,” Ryan observed.
“What are you going to do, Jack?” the Chairman of the RVS asked di-
rectly.
“Even as we speak, Sergey Nikolay’ch, we are telling them that their oc-
cupation of the islands is not acceptable.” Jack paused for a breath and re-
minded himself that like it or not, he had to trust the man.’ ‘And if they don’t
leave on their own, we’ll find a way to force them off.”
“But how?” the man demanded, looking down at the estimates prepared
by military experts in the nearby Defense Ministry.
“Ten, fifteen years ago, did you tell your political masters that we were
worthy of your fear?”
“As you did of us,” Golovko confirmed.
“We are more fortunate now. They don’t fear us. They think they’ve al-
ready won. I cannot say more at the moment. Perhaps by tomorrow,” Jack
thought. “For now, instructions are on the way for you to relay to our peo-
ple.”
“It will be done,” Sergey promised.
“My government will honor the wishes of the people on all of the islands,”
the Ambassador repeated, then added a new provision. “We also may be
willing to discuss the difference in status between Guam and the rest of the
Mariana Archipelago. American interest in that island does go back nearly a
hundred years,” he allowed for the first time.
Adler accepted the statement impassively, as the rules of the proceedings
required. “Mr. Ambassador, the people of all those islands are American
citizens. They are so by their own choice.”
“And they will again have the opportunity to express that choice. Is it the
position of your government that self-determination is only allowed one
time?” he asked in reply. “That seems quite odd for a country with a tradi-
tion of easy immigration and emigration. As I have stated earlier, we will
gladly permit dual citizenship for those natives who prefer to keep their
Aincricun passports, We will compensate them for their property should
they decide to leave, and …” The rest of his statement was the same.
As often as he hail observed or engaged in it, diplomatic exchange, Adlcr
thought, combined the worst aspects of explaining things to a toddler and
talking with a mother-in-law. It was dull. It was tedious. It was exasperating.
And it was necessary. A moment earlier, Japan had conceded something. It
hadn’t been unexpected. Cook had wheedled the information out of Nagumo
the previous week, but now it was on the table. That was the good news. The
had news was that he was now expected to offer something in return. The
rules of diplomatic exchange were based on compromise. You never got all
of what you wanted, and you never gave the other guy all of what he wanted.
The problem was that diplomacy assumed that neither side would ever be
forced to give away anything of vital interest-and that both sides recog-
ni/.ed what those vital interests were. But so often they didn’t, and then di-
plomacy was fated to fail, much to the chagrin of those who falsely believed
that wars were always the product of inept diplomats. Much more often they
were the result of national interests so incompatible that compromise simply
was not possible. And so now the Ambassador expected Adler to give just a
little ground.
“Speaking for myself, I am gratified that you acknowledge the uncondi-
tional rights of the Guamian people to remain American citizens. I am fur-
ther pleased to note that your country allow the people of the Northern
Marianas to determine their own destiny. Do you assure me that your coun-
try will abide by the results of the election?”
‘ ‘I believe we have made that clear,” the Ambassador replied, wondering
if he’d just won something or not.
‘ ‘And the elections will be open to-”
“All residents of the islands, of course. My country believes in universal
suffrage, as does yours. In fact,” he added, “we will make an additional
concession. In Japan the vote comes at age twenty, but for the purposes of
this election, we will lower the voting age to eighteen. We want no one to