“Military cooperation between the two has been increasing over the past ten years at least,” National Security Adviser Carlyle said. “I wouldn’t say it’s as close as it was in the sixties, but it’s an easy way for China to quickly and easily build a world-class military.”
“What else has Russia been selling to China?”
“You name it, Madam Secretary,” Carlyle said. “Naval weapon systems, long-range precision-guided weapons, spacecraft, maritime attack, air-launched missiles-big-ticket, relatively low-tech, high-volume items.”
“Is this carrier a threat to us?” Barbeau asked. “Is it like our carriers?”
“It is a monster, on a par with any of the world’s carriers with the exception of America ’s,” Raydon went on. “It is over nine hundred feet long, two hundred and fifty feet wide, and has a seventy-five-thousand-pound displacement fully loaded. It features two aircraft elevators, four steam catapults, almost thirty-knot top speed, and forty fixed-and rotary-wing aircraft aboard, including thirty-two former Russian Sukhoi-34 advanced fighter-bombers ruggedized for catapult and tailhook operations. Total crew complement is four thousand sailors, and it usually embarks a company of special operations forces. Because it was designed for ‘greenwater’ operations, within easy reach of supply ports, it does not have a nuclear power plant, although the 190 has been deployed as far as East Africa in support of Somali antipiracy missions, which means the Chinese have gotten very good at long-range naval operations with extended supply lines.”
“But it can’t match an American carrier, right?” Barbeau asked. “It’s smaller, and they only have one? We have twelve, plus its escort ships, and are building four more.”
“The 190 is China ’s second carrier-they have a smaller carrier, purchased from Iran, that’s been used to train crews on carrier ops,” Carlyle said. “But a Chinese carrier shadowing an American carrier battle group is emblematic of a growing trend: China is building its ability to project naval power far beyond its home waters in order to protect its business interests around the world, protect shipping lanes, and counter American hegemony.”
“American hegemony?” Barbeau asked with playacted southern-belle innocence. She knew exactly what that term meant, but she wanted to hear the military’s spin on it. “What are the Chinese worried about? We’re not at war-we don’t even compete with them. We buy billions of dollars of their goods, and they buy trillions of dollars of our debt. China is under no threat of invasion from anyone I’m aware of, except perhaps internally, and they employ very effective anti-insurgency intelligence and interdiction forces to eliminate unrest.”
“The situation is plain and simple, Madam Secretary: the U.S. Navy is the world’s best, and the second-and third-string players don’t like it and will do anything they can think of to bust us up,” Raydon said.
“Thank you, General Raydon, but I can take it from here,” Carlyle said. He spread his hands and nodded. “But as the general said, Stacy, China depends on exports-selling their goods to every corner of the globe, sent mostly by oceangoing vessels. Everywhere they go, in every ocean and sea near any major port of call anywhere on the planet, they are confronted by the same thing: the U.S. Navy. They know the Navy patrols and controls the world’s sea-lanes, and has the power to deny access to anyone if they so choose.
“Therefore, China wants a blue-water navy to challenge American dominance and protect its interests around the world,” Carlyle went on. “They bought themselves an aircraft carrier from Russia and are undergoing a massive crash training course to make it fully blue-water operational. Additionally, we know they’re placing ground-launched ballistic hypersonic antiship missiles in their sea-launched ballistic-missile submarines’ operating areas and sea- lanes near their shores as a warning to our survey ships and hunter-killer sub patrols to stay away-”
“And now they’ve engineered this so-called accidental launch as another warning: Your carriers are at risk, so stay away,” Raydon said. “They say it was an accident, and we’re buying into it.”
“Thank you, General Raydon,” Barbeau said irritably. “If there’s nothing more you have for us, you can resume your duties up there…wherever you are.”
“Over the South Atlantic now, ma’am,” Raydon said. “I do have one more comment to make regarding China. Their new manned space station, the Golden Wing Ten, maneuvered itself into an almost mirror orbit recently. We’re still separated by altitude and distance, but it clearly is a hostile move on their part.”
“I don’t understand, General,” Miller Turner said. “What’s hostile about this? The so-called Chinese space station is a couple of space capsules docked together with a central engineering and mating module. There are only four Chinese astronauts aboard.”
“It demonstrates some important capabilities, sir: the ability to maneuver, to be refueled, and to track another spacecraft with accuracy,” Raydon said. “Moving a spacecraft into a different orbit requires a lot of fuel, and unless the fuel is replenished, the service life of a satellite is greatly shortened when it’s moved, especially to the degree this one has been. It’s a relatively simple task now to maneuver within striking distance of Armstrong Space Station.”
“‘Striking distance’?” Carlyle remarked. “You mean, deliberately collide or attack the space station?”
“Why else would you send a spacecraft on nearly the same orbit, sir?” Raydon asked. “We don’t know that much about the Golden Wing Ten. The Chinese tell us it’s to expand their knowledge and experience in orbital operations, but that’s about it. We speculate that it’s akin to our early Gemini-Agena spacecraft docking missions, where we learned docking, handling, and equipment-transfer procedures that we eventually used on Skylab, lunar, Shuttle, and International Space Station missions, but again, we’re making excuses for the Chinese that are not backed up by any evidence. We should-”
“We’re completely off the topic here, gentlemen,” Stacy Anne Barbeau interrupted, “so let’s save this discussion for another time, shall we? We’re agreed that the Chinese missile launch was most likely accidental; we want to participate in a full-scale investigation; and we’d like the Chinese to stay away from our carriers and point their missiles in some other direction. In return, we’ll pledge to use less aggressive maneuvers to warn foreign pilots to turn away, in order to avoid possible damage that might result in accidental launches. Can I go to the president and recommend this course of action to him?” Kai Raydon looked as if he was going to raise his hand, but no one else said anything, so Barbeau said quickly, “Thank you for your inputs, gentlemen. My staff will follow up with each of you for details for the report to the president, and I’ll call if I have any more questions. Thank you.” And her videoconference window disappeared.
“Thanks for the good work, General Raydon,” Secretary of Defense Turner said. “Please pass along your full report of the Bush incident to Air Force as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir,” Kai responded, and signed off.
“Opinionated SOB, isn’t he?” National Security Adviser Carlyle remarked. “Seems that flying…or according to Raydon, falling…through orbit in a space station gives you the right to say whatever happens to be on your mind.”
“They’re doing great work on a shoestring budget, Conrad,” Turner said. “Every time they go out and capture, repair, refuel, and reorbit a satellite, they save us about a hundred million dollars compared to the cost of launching a satellite from Earth.”
“If he shoots his mouth off at Barbeau again like that, he’ll be beached faster than any rocket ship,” Carlyle said. “After putting up with McLanahan for so long, Barbeau’s not going to let another cocky space cowboy stay put.”
“Speaking of the space station, I got the initial report from Air Force about a test of a new space weapon,” Turner said. “They call it Mjollnir, or Thor’s Hammer, a system that reenters titanium bars through the atmosphere at thousands of miles an hour. They hit a small ship-size target from a hundred miles in space with one big metal bar. They had a bunch of congressional staffers observe the hit-I guess it really watered their eyes.”
“The ‘Rods from God’ actually worked, eh?” Carlyle remarked idly.
“Blew the hell out of the target. Direct hit.”
“Mil, I gotta admit: The space stuff is cool, and I’m sure the Air Force’s recruiting numbers are going through the roof, but there’s not any money in the budget for Rods from God or any more space stuff,” Carlyle said dismissively. “The president wanted aircraft carriers, Congress said yes, so there’s going to be aircraft carriers.”
“I know, Conrad, I know,” Turner said. “Building four more carrier battle groups has sucked up every available dollar out of the next ten defense budgets. But I’m already getting queries from Congress about the space stuff. When the word gets out about this incident in the South China Sea and then the success of this space-weapon test, the obvious questions will arise: Why are we building carriers that are so vulnerable?”
“We, especially the president, have the answer: The carriers are the ultimate in power projection,” Carlyle said. “You park an aircraft carrier battle group off someone’s coastline, and the negotiations start soon afterward. And
