So, what are we going to do?” Bob Holtzman asked. “We’re beginning to deploy forces to support our allies,” Ryan answered. “We hope that the PRC will see this and reconsider the activities that now appear to be under way.”
“Have we been in contact with Beijing?”
“Yes.” Ryan nodded soberly. “The DCM of our embassy in Beijing, William Kilmer, delivered a note from us to the Chinese government, and we are now awaiting a formal reply.”
“Are you telling us that you think there will be a shooting war between Russia and China?”
“Bob, our government is working very hard to forestall that possibility, and we call on the Chinese government to think very hard about its position and its actions. War is no longer a policy option in this world. I suppose it once was, but no longer. War only brings death and ruin to people. The world has turned a corner on this thing. The lives of people—including the lives of soldiers—are too precious to be thrown away. Bob, the reason we have governments is to serve the needs and the interests of people, not the ambitions of rulers. I hope the leadership of the PRC will see that.” Ryan paused. “A couple of days ago, I was at Auschwitz. Bob, that was the sort of experience to get you thinking.
“You could feel the horror there. You could hear the screams, smell the death smell, you could see the lines of people being led off under guns to where they were murdered. Bob, all of a sudden it wasn’t just black-and-white TV anymore.
“It came to me then that there is no excuse at all for the government of a country, any country, to engage in killing for profit. Ordinary criminals rob liquor stores to get money. Countries rob countries to get oil or gold or territory. Hitler invaded Poland for Lebensraum, for room for Germany to expand—but, damn it, there were already people living there, and what he tried to do was to steal. That’s all. Not statecraft, not vision. Hitler was a thief before he was a murderer. Well, the United States of America will not stand by and watch that happen again.” Ryan paused and took a sip of water.
“One of the things you learn in life is that there’s only one thing really worth having, and that’s love. Well, by the same token there’s only one thing worth fighting for, and that is justice. Bob, that’s what America fights for, and if China launches a war of aggression—a war of robbery—America will stand by her ally and stop it from happening.”
“Many say that your policy toward China has helped to bring this situation about, that your diplomatic recognition of Taiwan—” Ryan cut him off angrily.
“Bob, I will not have any of that! The Republic of China’s government is a freely elected one. America supports democratic governments. Why? Because we stand for freedom and self-determination. Neither I nor America had anything to do with the cold-blooded murders we saw on TV, the death of the Papal Nuncio, Cardinal DiMilo, and the killing of the Chinese minister Yu Fa An. We had nothing to do with that. The revulsion of the entire civilized world came about because of the PRC’s actions. Even then, China could have straightened it out by investigating and punishing the killers, but they chose not to, and the world reacted—to what they did all by themselves.”
“But what is this all about? Why are they massing troops on the Russian border?”
“It appears that they want what the Russians have, the new oil and gold discoveries. Just as Iraq once invaded Kuwait. It was for oil, for money, really. It was an armed robbery, just like a street thug does, mugging an old lady for her Social Security check, but somehow, for some reason, we sanctity it when it happens at the nation-state level. Well, no more, Bob. The world will no longer tolerate such things. And America will not stand by and watch this happen to our ally. Cicero once said that Rome grew great not through conquest, but rather through defending her allies. A nation acquires respect from acting for things, not against things. You measure people not by what they are against, but by what they are for. America stands for democracy, for the self-determination of people. We stand for freedom. We stand for justice. We’ve told the People’s Republic of China that if they launch a war of aggression, then America will stand with Russia and against the aggressor. We believe in a peaceful world order in which nations compete on the economic battlefield, not with tanks and guns. There’s been enough killing. It’s time for that to stop, and America will be there to make it stop.”
“The world’s policeman?” Holtzman asked. Immediately, the President shook his head.
“Not that, but we will defend our allies, and the Russian Federation is an ally. We stood with the Russian people to stop Hitler. We stand with them again,” Ryan said.
“And again we send our young people off to war?”
“There need be no war, Bob. There is no war today. Neither America nor Russia will start one. That question is in the hands of others. It isn’t hard, it isn’t demanding, for a nation-state to stand its military down. It’s a rare professional soldier who relishes conflict. Certainly no one who’s seen a battlefield will voluntarily rush to see another. But I’ll tell you this: If the PRC launches a war of aggression, and if because of them American lives are placed at risk, then those who make the decision to set loose those dogs are putting their own lives at risk.”
“The Ryan Doctrine?” Holtzman asked.
“Call it anything you want. If it’s acceptable to kill some infantry private for doing what his government tells him, then it’s also acceptable to kill the people who tell the government what to do, the ones who send that poor, dumb private out in harm’s way.”
Oh, shit, Arnie van Damm thought, hovering in the doorway of the Oval Office. Jack, did you have to say that?
“Thank you for your time, Mr. President,” Holtzman said. “When will you address the nation?”
“Tomorrow. God willing, it’ll be to say that the PRC has backed off. I’ll be calling Premier Xu soon to make a personal appeal to him.”
“Good luck.”
“We are ready,” Marshal Luo told the others. “The operation commences early tomorrow morning.”
“What have the Americans done?”
“They’ve sent some aircraft forward, but aircraft do not concern me,” the Defense Minister replied. “They can sting, as a mosquito does, but they cannot do real harm to a man. We will make twenty kilometers the first day, and then fifty per day thereafter—maybe more, depending on how the Russians fight. The Russian Air Force is not even a paper tiger. We can destroy it, or at least push it back out of our way. The Russians are starting to move mechanized troops east on their railroad, but we will pound on their marshaling facility at Chita with our air assets. We can dam them up and stop them to protect our left flank until we move troops in to wall that off completely.”
“You are confident, Marshal?” Zhang asked—rhetorically, of course.
“We’ll have their new gold mine in eight days, and then it’s ten more to the oil,” the marshal predicted, as though describing how long it would take to build a house.
“Then you are ready?”
“Fully,” Luo insisted.
“Expect a call from President Ryan later today,” Foreign Minister Shen warned the premier.
“What will he say?” Xu asked.
“He will give you a personal plea to stop the war from beginning.”
“If he does, what ought I to say?”
“Have your secretary say you are out meeting the people,” Zhang advised. “Don’t talk to the fool.”
Minister Shen wasn’t fully behind his country’s policy, but nodded anyway. It seemed the best way to avoid a personal confrontation, which Xu would not handle well. His ministry was still trying to get a feel for how to handle the American President. He was so unlike other governmental chiefs that they still had difficulty understanding how to speak with him.
“What of our answer to their note?” Fang asked. .
“We have not given them a formal answer,” Shen told him.
“It concerns me that they should not be able to call us liars,” Fang said. “That would be unfortunate, I think.”
“You worry too much, Fang,” Zhang commented, with a cruel smile.
“No, in that he is correct,” Shen said, rising to his colleague’s defense. “Nations must be able to trust the words of one another, else no intercourse at all is possible. Comrades, we must remember that there will be an ‘after the war,’ in which we must be able to reestablish normal relations with the nations of the world. If they regard us as outlaw, that will be difficult.”