by Bobby Akart
“Governor, may I interrupt you there,” said the moderator.
“It appears you just did,” Governor Burnett bristled. She had little use for the media, whether friend or foe.
“Governor, there have been occasions where Texas was forced to call upon other, adjacent utilities for power when ERCOT customers were underserved.”
“That is true, and it has happened on rare occasion, which is why we maintain a working relationship with our partners in El Paso, Lubbock, and Beaumont to pick up the slack. Despite those isolated regions being outside of the ERCOT power network, we do help one another at times.”
“What about Mexico?” asked the moderator.
“What about Mexico?” Governor Burnett fired back. She took another drink of water and glanced over at her opponent, addressing him directly. “Am I debating you or these people?”
The debate moderator continued. “Governor, there have been occasions where ERCOT has received power from Mexico, correct?”
“Sure, once, so let’s not overexaggerate, shall we? In 2011, a decade or more ago, the state experienced rolling blackouts and imported some power from Mexico. At the time, ERCOT had three ties to the grid in Mexico, and the governor elected to tap into that resource for a short-term fix. That has not happened since, and ERCOT has taken measures to prevent it from happening again.”
“Governor, are you opposed to the Southern Cross project, which has been endorsed by your opponent?” asked the moderator. The Southern Cross project was a proposed transmission line capable of transferring enough electricity for hundreds of thousands of homes between East Texas and Mississippi. The project was to be financed by private investors and carried a two-billion-dollar price tag. Southern Cross had been proposed by the Department of Energy to help Mississippi and Louisiana recover from hurricanes.
The governor responded without hesitation. “I’ve been clearly against it. Listen, I’m sorry for the problems our neighboring states might have following a storm. We’ve had our share, and Texans always pull together to help one another. From the first time I announced my run for the governor’s office, I let Texans know who I was and what I stood for. I stand for Texas and Texans. What happens beyond our borders is not my concern. You can call me isolationist, selfish, a horrible person, I don’t really care what names or labels you throw at me. Blowing out someone else’s candles won’t make yours shine any brighter.”
Governor Burnett leaned forward into the camera, revealed her toothy, signature smile, and paused before finishing her statement. “A strong, self-reliant Texas is a free Texas. Texans who agree with me will vote their conscience on Tuesday, you can take that to the bank.”
Chapter 20
November 7
Oval Office
The White House
Washington, DC
President Harman studied the faces of her chief of staff, Charles Acton, and her chief political strategist, Jackie Jennings, a longtime political operative who had worked for campaigns on both sides of the aisle and was known for candid, apolitical analysis of any issue that an administration faced.
Her closest confidants had arrived prior to the President’s Daily Brief in order to inform her of an early morning vote at the United Nations General Assembly. As the verbal battle escalated between the United States and North Korea, news surfaced that Kim Jong-un had ordered another intercontinental ballistic missile test.
After the president had been sworn in, she immediately labeled the North Korean hostilities the biggest threat to America’s sovereignty in modern times. At the time, she drew the proverbial line in the sand, stating that further ICBM testing by Kim would be met with military force in the form of U.S. missile defense systems shooting down their rockets.
Since that statement, the North Koreans had tested their ICBM missiles twice, and the president stood down. Now they were readying a third launch in seven months, and the president ordered the ambassador to the United Nations to take action.
The UN ambassador lobbied the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, to stand with the United States in approving new sanctions against the Pyongyang government. The proposed resolution would ban North Korean imports of coal, iron, lead, iron ore, and seafood products that were worth over a billion dollars a year to the North Korean economy.
This embargo on a third of the nation’s gross domestic product represented the single largest set of sanctions ever leveled against the dictator. The U.S. ambassador argued to the Southeast Asian countries that the threat of a rogue nation like North Korea would impact all of them if war broke out in the region. She also encouraged them to discourage any joint venture agreements with North Korean companies.
Harman stood in front of her desk and waited for her advisors to take seats opposite one another on the sofas. Neither spoke up, so she started the conversation.
“Well? Out with it. What happened?” she demanded.
Chief of Staff Acton spoke first. “Not good, Madame President. The entire assembly turned against us. The measure was soundly defeated.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” said President Harman, both confused and angry. “We had the support of ASEAN, the countries in the region who stand the most to lose if war breaks out.”
“The vote was one-ninety-one to two. Only Israel stood with us.”
President Harman shook her head in disbelief and fell into a wing chair between the two sofas. Her slumped posture was indicative of her mood.
“It actually gets worse, Madame President,” started Jennings. “The Secretary General issued a stunning rebuke of our request. He urged us to stop taking advantage of the international community’s goodwill with continued provocations of the North. He said that we’ve, quote, engaged in harmful verbal discourse against North Korea, and that none of our fears have materialized.”
Jennings stopped and gestured to Acton to elaborate.
“Our belief is the Chinese have flexed their muscle in favor of their ally. They’ve been actively working behind the scenes with their Southeast Asia neighbors, both politically and economically. At this point, only the Philippines, South Korea, and Japan stand with us.”
“With the Philippines and South Korea gradually distancing themselves from our hard-line policy,” interjected Jennings, “the fact of the matter is we’ve complained for decades about the North Korean nuclear program, and nothing has come to fruition. I believe we’ve screamed fire in the movie theater once too often.”
President Harman stood up and retrieved a bottled water from her desk. She stared out the windows of the Oval Office onto the South Lawn, where the leaves had changed color and begun to fall.
“The world has turned against us,” she surmised. “Just that quickly.”
Acton continued with his analysis. “Madame President, this would have been the eighth round of sanctions imposed upon the DPRK, none of which have deterred their nuclear goals. We have taken every step imaginable to stem the advance of their ICBM and nuclear program, to no avail.”
“Jackie, how is this playing in the polling and focus groups?” asked the president, who was always aware of the political ramifications of every decision she made.
“First, with respect to today’s vote, it won’t impact your favorables at all and will have no impact on the midterms tomorrow,” responded Jennings. “This issue is more a long-term one.”
President Harman addressed her advisors. “I’m getting pressure from the Pentagon. My whole national security team is urging us to take action to stop the proliferation. And based upon this morning’s UN lack of action, we apparently are on an island here, all alone with our loyal and faithful friends in Jerusalem. I’ve got to make a decision here.”
“Do you?” asked Jennings.
The president tilted her head slightly, trying to discern the meaning of the question.
Jennings continued. “I mean, really? Do you need to make a decision? For nearly four decades, presidents have made the same moves you have with re
spect to North Korea—public statements, back-channel negotiations, and UN sanctions. Nothing has worked, yet nothing has happened either. Why not continue to play this charade with Kim Jong-un?”
“Madame President,” interrupted Acton, “I think Jackie may have a point. We’re in a catch-22 when it comes to North Korea, and the world knows it. If we undertake a first strike, world opinion may come down on us hard, or worse. China may stand up for their ally and retaliate on their behalf. North Korea will go after the South and Japan. Iran may use our weakened condition and decide to take on Israel and the Saudis. Who knows what the Russians might do?”
“I get it, a first strike may bring matters to a head, but we may not be pleased with the results,” said the president. “Secretary Gregg and his staff will have the floor during today’s PDB to outline our first-strike options and our defensive positioning. Let’s see what he has to say, and then we’ll make a decision that’s based upon military options and additional diplomatic approaches.”
Chapter 21
November 7
Roosevelt Room
The White House
Washington, DC
Only students of history and military strategists fully understood North Korea’s attitude toward the rest of the world. Most don’t realize the tiny nation’s moniker as the Hermit Kingdom applied long before it’s modern isolationist policies of the last seventy years.
For centuries, Korea had been under siege by the Mongols, who slaughtered two hundred thousand men, women and children as they embarked upon their East Asian scorched-earth conquests. Then the Manchu invasions from China in the sixteen hundreds replaced repeated Japanese wars that plagued the Korean peninsula.
This was a nation that knew nothing but war. But it wasn’t until the last great power clash after World War II when Soviet and American political leaders agreed to divide the Korean peninsula along the thirty-eighth parallel in the name of peace that North Korea truly pulled within itself and gave rise to the Kim dynasties for decades to come.
Beginning with Kim Il Sung’s repeated provocative actions against South Korea, through the rhetoric of the Kim Jong-un regime, the DPRK dictators had shown little regard for global political opinion and even less for the lives of the North Korean people. The regimes had adopted a communist-style division system, which had failed miserably. Kim Jong-un’s only means upon which to hold power was to isolate his people from outside influences and continue to blame others, namely the United States, for the people’s poor living conditions. By casting blame everywhere else and instilling fear of military attacks upon their country, Pyongyang rallied its people against a common enemy for the hope of a better life someday.
In 1951, during the Korean War, when General Douglas MacArthur was unceremoniously dumped by President Harry Truman for insubordination—he dared to disagree with the president publicly on the progress of the war—he was very vocal in stating the United States should drive the communists from the North to create a stable, unified Korean Peninsula. President Truman disagreed, instead adopting a limited-war approach, which did not include regime change, but strictly focused on driving the North Korean Army back across the 38th parallel. MacArthur disagreed, maintaining a divided Korea would necessarily result in instability in the region.
The general, who famously said old soldiers never die, they just fade away, knew seventy years ago what the rest of the world had come to accept. The North Korean problem was not going to fade away.
“Madame President,” started Secretary of State Jane Tompkins, “before I turn the floor over to Secretary of Defense Gregg, I can confirm through our conversations with the Chinese ambassador that North Korea is readying another nuclear test at their facility at Kusong. Their primary test site, especially for nuclear weapons, has collapsed.”
“What do you mean by collapsed?” asked Chief of Staff Acton.
“Their missile-testing site adjacent to Mount Mantap in the northern part of the country has been experiencing what’s known as tired mountain syndrome,” continued Secretary Tompkins. “Recent USGS reports have indicated their underground nuclear testing and detonations have taken its toll on the surrounding rock mass and along the tectonic faults. Several temblors have been recorded, and then late last night, a strong 6.6 magnitude earthquake was reported.”
A representative of the NSA interrupted and began to hand out some photographs. “Madame President, one of our birds flew over this morning and have provided the following imagery. As you can see, the image on split screen left is the original testing site. On the right, you can see a chasm has opened up and the missile launchpad was swallowed by the earth.”
“This development hasn’t slowed them down, has it?” asked Chief of Staff Acton.
“No, sir, it hasn’t,” replied Secretary Gregg. “We suspect the North Korean geologists anticipated this, which is why they relocated their next ICBM missile test to Kusong, hundreds of miles away.”
“Do we have an estimated date for this new test?” asked President Harman.
“We do, Madame President, based upon our past observations,” replied a representative from the CIA. “Once site preparations begin, the launch takes place within two to three weeks, pending weather.”
“Okay, keep me posted, naturally,” said the president. “Today, as you know, we suffered a stunning defeat in the United Nations General Assembly. I want to make one thing perfectly clear. This does not mean we are going to abandon our diplomatic efforts or any other types of overt political pressure at our disposal. With that said, I’ve asked Secretary Gregg to brief us on our defense options and then what our first-strike strategy looks like. Every time Kim Jong-un readies another ICBM missile launch, we have to work under the assumption it’s meant for us or our allies. General.”
General Gregg stood and instructed his aide to bring up a series of graphics on the large monitor installed on the end wall of the Roosevelt Room opposite the portrait of President Teddy Roosevelt as a Rough Rider.
“Thank you, Madame President,” Secretary Gregg began. “I want to address our defensive posturing in generalities first, and then look at our specific deployments. First screen, please.”
“Currently, we have thirty-six interceptors. Thirty-two at Fort Greely in Alaska and four at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Our mobile interceptors consist of Aegis Destroyers equipped with ship-based missile systems deploying Ratheon Standard Missile 3 short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. The SM-3 has advanced avionics, which can track and destroy an ICBM mid-flight.
“As you can see from the graphic, however, the reaction time and the margin of error associated with destroying an ICBM based upon our Aegis positions is not optimal. During the boost phase, minutes after launch, the ICBM will be difficult to intercept. Let me add, however, that the change of locale from Mount Mantap to Kusong allows our destroyers a few additional, vital seconds to accomplish this task.”
The president got out of her chair and walked toward the monitor. “You show the Block IIA as under development. I understood during last year’s budget battle that continuation of this project was necessary because it was near completion. Was that incorrect?”
“No, Madame President,” replied Secretary Gregg. “The SM-3 Block IIA, a joint effort between Raytheon and Mitsubishi, is fully operational and ready for deployment to the Japanese Navy. It hasn’t been tested yet by our Navy, so the Pentagon hasn’t provided its final stamp of approval for deployment on our vessels.”
“Has Japan tested the new technology?” asked the president.
“Yes, with limited success,” replied Secretary Gregg. “But I’m not willing to pass judgment on its effectiveness until our people have conducted a controlled test.”
“Let me ask this, hypothetically,” began the president. “Could we deploy this SM-3 and test it on the DPRK’s upcoming ICBM launch?”
“We could, Madame President, but that could have serious repercussions,” answered the Secretary of State bef
ore Secretary Gregg could answer. “This could be seen as a provocation and an act of war.”
“We’re already at war,” said Secretary Gregg with a snarky tone. “Let me remind everyone, the Korean War never ended with the Korean Armistice Agreement. They just hit the pause button. Make no mistake, Kim Jong-un looks at our relationship that way.”
“Point taken, Mr. Secretary,” said Acton. “Yet we’ve managed to avoid shooting at one another for nearly seventy years. Why start now?”
“Okay, perhaps it was a bad idea,” said the president as she found her way back to her chair.
Secretary Gregg resumed his presentation. “Madame President, to answer your question,” he started, providing the Secretary of State a dirty look. “The bigger problem with your hypothetical is if the new Block IIA technology fails to bring down their ICBM, the ramifications of a failed intercept could be much greater than a successful one.”
“Understood,” said the president.
Secretary Gregg nodded to his aide. “Next slide, please.”
“This graphic illustrates our existing missile defense program, and it allows me to point out the various defense weaponry at our disposal. From the Sea of Japan to the coast of California, we’ve deployed a variety of defenses to bring down a North Korean, Russian, or Chinese nuke. For years, many in Congress have questioned the Defense Department’s expenditures on the THAAD system and the Aegis Ashore deployments as overkill.