Dragon Strike -- A Novel of the Coming War with China (Future History Book 1)

by Humphrey Hawksley

  `You are assuming a lot, Mr President,' interjected the Defence Minister.

  `Yes, I am,' the President replied. `But if I don't, the two Koreas will sink very quickly into an apocalyptic bloodbath of destruction far greater than loss of face and unification. The most immediate task, gentlemen, is to neutralize the special forces troops now operating here and ensure they cannot strike again. We have to believe that if we do the South will not be subject to nuclear attack.'

  The White House, Washington, DC

  Local time: 1545 Tuesday 20 February 2001

  GMT: 2045 Tuesday 20 February 2001

  The last time the President spoke to Makoto Katayama, the Japanese Ambassador, was on Monday evening, when the two had met at the National Gallery. The meeting had not gone well. Katayama wanted to press him for a decision on military intervention in the South China Sea and the President was not prepared to give it. Now Katayama had been summoned to explain why Japan had detonated a 50 kiloton nuclear warhead in the Ogasarawas.

  Ambassador Katayama was shown in. He was tall for a Japanese, nearly 2 metres, and he looked older than his fifty-four years. His hair was thinning and he had a gentle stoop which lent a slightly scholarly air to his appearance. Katayama's posting in Washington was near its end. He would be returning to Tokyo in the late spring to take up the position of Administrative Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs at the Gaimusho (Foreign Ministry). It was the most senior job a fast-track official in the Gaimusho like him could aspire to. It would place him at the head of foreign policy development in Japan and it crowned a glittering career which had begun more than thirty years before with a first-class honours degree from the law school of Tokyo University.

  The President gestured to a settee to the right of his own armchair and enquired whether the Ambassador would prefer tea, coffee, or something stronger. Katayama declined, and sat there waiting for the silence to be broken. The President cleared his throat. `Well, Mr Ambassador, what are we to make of events at Ogasawara? I can tell, just having read the Washington Post's poll of American attitudes to Japan, you have opened a hornets' nest. What do you say?'

  Katayama waited for what seemed like an eternity to reply. And then he spoke. `First of all, Mr President, may I, on behalf of the Japanese government and people of Japan, extend our profound sympathies at the loss of the USS Peleliu? It was a shock to us all. Tokyo has instructed our Ambassador in Beijing to make the strongest possible representations to the Chinese government. Now I turn to answer your question. It is a matter greatly to be regretted that things have come to this. But they have, and we have to move forward, not back,' he said. `The simple fact is, Mr President, that you and your country can no longer make good your security treaty with us. This has been amply demonstrated by the events of this week. We understand that and have understood it for some time. The days of Americans fighting wars in Asia are over. You have made your sacrifices, you have safeguarded this region while we have grown strong and rich. But there comes a time in the maturity of nations when we have to bid our foster parents farewell and stand on our own two feet. We've had our growing pains. Need I remind you of New Zealand's effective pull-out from the ANZUS treaty in the early 1980s, your ejection from the Philippines in the early 1990s, and the hostility you've found in Okinawa since the mid 1990s? That your military withdrawal from Asia should coincide with the rise of China as a superpower was, as your government well knows, a matter of grave concern for us. It was a concern that was made no easier to bear with our own people by the incessant attacks successive governments have made on us in the area of trade. And all along you have said, spend more on defence. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot on the one hand require us to pay ever increasing amounts for our own defence and on the other seek to determine how we then act. That I think is what is meant by the term "imperial overreach", is it not? Japan, Mr President, has not stood still during this period. A new post-war generation has come to power. It has no memory of the Pacific War, it only has questions as to why Japan cannot look after its own affairs.

  `Why are you surprised by our modest nuclear test? As I am sure you know better than I, the US government has been providing Japan with the technical know-how to build a nuclear device for well over a decade. We did not take the decision to go down the nuclear route lightly. This did not just mean building some bombs, it meant also having the capability to deliver them. And we have the capability, within a regional context, to deliver a nuclear warhead with accuracy.

  `What I think you want to know is our intentions. Prime Minister Hyashi will be making an address to the nation on that matter shortly. I cannot pre-empt it but I can assure you that it holds no genuine surprises, that we look forward to continued close cooperation with the United States. But let me say this. We are in Asia; you are not. We have to deal with China as a military threat and a commercial opportunity; you just have to manage a commercial relationship. Our position is more complex as well. We have the legacy of history to overcome. Even as we speak, we have to assess this new outbreak of violence on the Korean peninsula. Here is a dangerous and unpredictable flashpoint in which people will look to Japan for leadership. All this will be the challenge of Japanese diplomacy in the coming years. As for American public opinion, we look to you to give your people the lead. Racism, an ugly word, has always been part of our relationship. Through leadership, on both sides, it can be ameliorated if not completely eradicated. We cannot run our affairs on the basis of opinion polls in newspapers.'

  The Korean Peninsula

  Local time: 0600 Wednesday 21 February 2001

  GMT: 2100 Tuesday 20 February 2001

  American satellite photographs showed no abnormal activity on the heavily fortified front line between North and South. The hills and rice paddies, covered with snow, frost, and thick ice, appeared as they always had done at this time of year. North Korean peasants worked muffled up against the sub-zero temperatures and biting winds. The food and fuel shortages had gripped their country for more than six years now since the first devastating floods. Bad times had arrived shortly after the death of Kim Il-Sung and they were not so sure about his reclusive son. They called him `the iron lord of all creatures' and `the great military strategist'. But Kim Jong-Il rarely went out among the people, nor did he offer guidance on agriculture, industry, and the Juche philosophy, as his father had. In the elite circles of Pyongyang there were stories of Kim Jong-Il in wild parties with prostitutes from Scandinavia, France, and Britain; of his drinking; of his deep depressions and uncontrollable temper. No one was sure of the true character of this enigmatic leader. But for the peasants he had certainly not been able to safeguard Korea from natural disasters. They lived on barely subsistence diets and it had been more than a year since their homes had had electricity or any fuel for heating.

  Yet just underneath their fields were enough supplies to sustain whole towns, a complex of military installations which this most secretive country built to unleash its offensive against the South when the time was right. Artillery, tanks, fighter aircraft, and helicopters were hidden in tunnels and huge caves hewn out of the mountains. North Korea believed it could launch an intensive surprise attack by delivering artillery support without exposing the weapons. Short-range firepower would come from tank and mechanized units. Hundreds of amphibious vehicles would cross the Imjin River to send in troops and equipment. More than 2,000 prefabricated floating bridges were ready to replace the existing bridges which would be blown by retreating allied forces. In the late Nineties, Pyongyang had tightened its own defences with more than 15,000 antiaircraft guns, together with 500 surface-to-air missiles and a new early warning radar system to intercept intruding aircraft, while the North's 170mm cannon and 240mm rockets would pound the heart of Seoul. One of the first targets would be Seoul's 88 Freeway, which straddled the city but could be used as a runway for the South's fighter jets.

  As South Korea's special forces commandos left their submarines and headed for the Northern coastline,
defence officials in Seoul were drawing up plans to defend the city in the worst-case scenario of a full-frontal assault from the North.

  Each of the commandos knew the base he was attacking as if it was his own. They had studied photographs and been trained in model layouts, although none had believed they would ever have to move in for real as they were now. At Ma Yangdo twenty-four men made landfall inside the base perimeter to avoid the mined terrain on the other side of the fence. Six broke away, killed the guards, and waved ten other men forward. The remainder stayed with the boats. Explosives were laid around the main buildings and the fuel and ammunition dumps. Frogmen attached mines to twelve North Korean mini-subs on delayed timers. Three Soju class fast-attack craft were also in the port: mines were attached to them as well. Within ten minutes, and without being detected, the raiding party had finished its task. The explosives were designed to terrify and destroy. They cut through the buildings, spraying out smaller devices which booby-trapped the whole area around. North Korean troops were wounded and killed by them hours after the attack. The base itself was rendered inoperative, and before pulling away from the combat area mines were laid at the entrance of the port. Two of the other attacks also went according to plan, but at Sagon-ni a North Korean guard spotted the raiding party as the men came ashore. He opened fire, killing two immediately and wounding three more. Spotlights lit up the whole base and alarms wailed as the North Koreans took up positions on rooftops with heavy machine-guns. Six commandos slipped into the water and escaped. Five others were gunned down and at least four were captured alive. A television broadcast from Pyongyang showed the bodies of the commandos, filmed as they lay on the ground in the base. The newscaster interviewed South Korean prisoners, their heads hanging and rolling from side to side in what was meant to be a guilt-racked confession. The South denied the report outright. It said the men were North Korean actors. No mention was made by either side of the successful operations against the three other naval bases.

  The Guardian newspaper offices, London

  Local time: 0200 Wednesday 21 February 2001

  The exclusive front-page story in the third edition of Britain's Guardian newspaper reached the desks of world leaders less than half an hour after the newspaper hit the streets of London. It was judged important enough by the aides of the American President and British Prime Minister to be read raw without abridgement in bullet points on a briefing paper.

  The article was written by the paper's award-winning Tokyo correspondent, Martin Miller, whose contacts in the security and defence industries were legendary. The swiftness with which he had compiled his well-documented account led to accusations that Miller had known of the Japanese plans to conduct a nuclear test for some weeks. But Miller turned the finger of blame back to the American establishment. The headline read: America gave them the bomb with no regrets.

  Briefing

  How Japan acquired the bomb

  America gave them the bomb with no regrets

  Japan's explosion of a small nuclear warhead came as no surprise to many Washington officials who for some years had advocated a controlled end to the outdated American security pact with Japan. While America's public policy was one of nuclear non-proliferation, a group of powerful officials has for many years been coaxing Japan towards the hallowed nuclear fellowship. They began during the Reagan and Bush administrations when the Soviet Union was seen as the major threat in the Pacific. After that, they believed as an inevitability that at some stage America's security role in East Asia would have to end, probably because of a challenge from an unfriendly power with whom it didn't want to fight. They decided, therefore, to help Japan, a staunch ally, to obtain a nuclear arsenal, before either India or Pakistan declared their bombs or China attempted to test the military resolve of its smaller Asian neighbours.

  The policy was blindly simple. America and Europe helped Japan acquire a large stockpile of separated plutonium which immediately gave it an ability to make nuclear weapons. Much of the help came from Savannah River Laboratory. Scientists there passed on technology and hardware for use in two Japanese fast-breeder reactors (FBRs), producing high-quality plutonium, and considered a major threat to nuclear proliferation. The principal behind the FBR is that more plutonium is produced than is consumed. The extra plutonium can be used for other FBRs and so on. However, the FBRs also create plutonium which is far purer than even the weapons-grade plutonium. The International Atomic Energy Agency categorizes Japan's type of plutonium as `super-grade'.

  Congress effectively terminated America's FBR programme in 1983, even before US construction began. But Japan operates two facilities. One is the Joyo FBR at the Oarai Research Centre north of Tokyo, which reached criticality in 1977. The second is the Monju FBR near Tsuruga on the coast of the East Sea, west of Tokyo. Monju went critical in 1994. Of critical importance to the development of the nuclear programme was the Rokkasho Mura facility in Amori prefecture. Covering a vast site, the Japanese spent $18 billion on a fuel reprocessing plant alone. It is here that the Guardian understands the government also built a facility to take plutonium oxide, turn it into metal, and machine the metal into shapes suitable for weapons manufacture.

  The move to close collaboration between the United States and Japan was sealed when it became clear that Japan was proceeding with FBRs yet America was not. Documents obtained by the Guardian highlight American commitment to keeping abreast of the FBR developments even though they were banned in the United States itself. In 1987, as the programme was being formulated, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Review published the following: `. . . this collaboration will allow the United States to maintain a core of expertise; . . . technical experts can stay abreast of developments in the reprocessing field as they participate in a viable, long-term mission . . .' And a year later William Burch, director of the ORNL Fuel Recycle Division, said: `. . . the bilateral agreement will be mutually beneficial . . . Japan will be able to speed up its development period of reprocessing technology through its collaboration with the US, while also probably saving some money . . . For the US . . . the deal keeps us in the ball game . . .'

  Both American and Japanese politicians have publicly denied Tokyo's intention of going nuclear. In November 1992, as part of its attempt to develop a self-sufficient nuclear fuel cycle, Japan began to import large quantities of separated plutonium. It now has as much as 50,000 kilograms and by 2010 it's expected to have 90,000. Japan has never been more than thirty days away from constructing a nuclear weapon. All it needed was the political decision, which has now been made.

  The statistics are chilling. As little as 3 kilograms is needed for one nuclear warhead with an explosive equivalent to at least 20,000 tons of TNT. With its present stockpiles, it's thought Japan has enough super-grade plutonium for more than 200 warheads. They could be attached to advanced cruise missiles, which we may see in tests the Japanese are expected to begin in the next few days. They would weigh no more than 150 kilograms and have a range of about 2,500 kilometres. Defence experts say that at least two of the recently commissioned Harushio class submarines could now be nuclear armed. At the same time, Japan has developed its H-2 space launch vehicle, which the Pentagon says has recently been developed for military purposes. It includes an Orbital Re-entry Experiment capsule, with a payload capacity of 4,000 kilograms.

  Japan has always reserved the right to go nuclear. Even in 1957, the then Prime Minister, Nobusuke Kishi, declared it was not unconstitutional for Japan to possess nuclear weapons provided they were within the definition of self-defence.

  Since then subtle changes made to the constitution, coupled with a sea change in political thinking, has made the nuclear option acceptable. In October 1993 Masashi Nishihara of the National Defence Academy said: `We are scared of China. Either we can allow China to become dominant, or we can be more equal by confronting them.' Nishihara believed Japan should treat China as the United States had treated the Soviet Union: face them down, then negotiate arms reduction tr
eaties. But to do that, Japan needed the bomb. China's takeover of the South China Sea was the catalyst. Since the early nineties, concern has been growing throughout Asia about China's increased military budget and its plans for territorial expansion. Unconfirmed but well-publicized reports say that since the 1996 stand-off with two American carrier groups off the Taiwan Straits billions of dollars have been redirected to modernize the Chinese army and navy. But it is still no match for either America or Japan. Today, those two countries share global superpower status. Japan, as the new kid on the block, is being warned that any repeat of its Second World War atrocities will not tolerated.

  While Asia is both suspicious and resentful of Japan, the alternative is even more ominous e secretive, non-accountable, non-democratic, unmodernized regime of China. Over the next few weeks, the United States will encourage Asians and Americans to bury their memories of more than fifty years ago, and welcome Japanese military power as the new regional security umbrella. Japanese missiles may be able reach American and Indian cities. But today you can be sure they are programmed only towards China.

  The White House, Washington, DC

  Local time: 2130 Tuesday 20 February 2001

  GMT: 0230 Wednesday 21 February 2001

  The task of explaining America's hidden policy lay with Marty Weinstein, the National Security Adviser, whom the President summoned as soon as he had finished reading the article. He asked for an explicit memorandum addressing the points raised by the Guardian, and an opinion poll among those who had read the article to gauge the public level of support. Weinstein explained that while Martin Miller was broadly correct, there had not been an administration policy to help Japan build a nuclear bomb. American nuclear scientists simply wanted to keep abreast of technological development in a field for which Congress had cut off funds. No American laws had been broken. Without the cooperation of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Japan would still have nuclear weapons today.