Battlefield Taiwan

Revelations

Tom McMillan had just spent the last fifteen minutes bringing everyone in the Situation Room up to speed on the interrogation of Wu Bangguo, the Deputy Minister for Chinese State Security and Chairman Zhang Deijang’s righthand man. His capture had been an absolute coup and had provided a treasure trove of information. The CIA had spent the better part of five days debriefing Mr. Wu and then going over every piece of information with a fine-tooth comb, authenticating as much of it as possible before passing the information up to Tom and the President.

Gates looked at his NSA with a bit of a bewildered look. “So, what you’re saying, Tom, is that this whole war, this ‘Operation Red Storm,’ has been methodically planned out for years? Basically, no matter what we had tried to do at the outset of this war with Russia or Korea, it was still going to happen?” Gates asked.

Tom nodded. “Yes, Mr. President. This entire war comes down to China and Russia seeing this as their time to replace American hegemony. With our forces bogged down in the Middle East, Afghanistan, and parts of Africa dealing with Islamic terrorists, they felt Europe and the rest of Asia were ripe for the taking—”

The Secretary of Defense jumped in at this point. “—Tell me more about the social media plan, and this techno-communism argument they’re launching.”

The Secretary of State held up a hand before anyone could say anything further. “Listen, I know everyone wants to get wrapped up in this social media business, but we have a real problem in Europe and Asia right now. Don’t you think we should focus on the military situation there first Jim?” asked Travis Johnson.

Waving the question off, SecDef Castle insisted, “The social media angle is huge, Travis. If we don’t find a way to counter this message they’re planning to blanket the internet and social media platforms with, then we’re going to lose the war of public opinion and confidence in the government. While I’m not one to lead by opinion polls, we can’t turn a blind eye to the propaganda they’re about to unleash. We can’t let the Russians and Chinese turn the perception of the war in their favor. I mean, they’re calling for rioting in the streets, work stoppages and all kinds of other civil unrest. This is a tactic right out of the old communist playbook, and I, for one, do not want us to fall prey to it.”

The others at the table thought about that for a moment.

“Jim’s right,” the President asserted. “We need to get ahead of this. We know what they’re planning, but we also know we don’t have much time.”

He turned to one of his trusted security advisors, John Winters. “John, I want your team to put together a social media campaign to counter this techno-communism message they’re about to flood the internet with. Do your best to preempt them and get our message out before theirs hits. Maybe we can blunt it and discredit it before it starts.”

The others in the room nodded at this suggestion. They just hoped they would be able to counter it soon enough to make a difference. Dr. John Winters had been a premier expert in counterterrorism at the Department of Defense under the previous administration and a special advisor to the President during his campaign and now into his presidency. There wasn’t a single person in the room who didn’t respect him. If anyone could pull a rabbit out of a hat, it was Dr. Winters.

“We’ll get on this right away, Mr. President,” John replied confidently. “Now that we know what they’re planning, we’ll be a step ahead of them.”

With a game plan in place to deal with the social media firestorm that was about to kick off, they moved back to the kinetic part of the briefing.

Admiral Meyers signaled to his briefer, who immediately brought up the slides for their presentation. “After reviewing the information Mr. Wu provided, we now have a firm understanding of what the Chinese army is planning to do in Korea. Two days ago, the Chinese launched a massive counterattack against our forces. While we anticipated them doing this at some point, we were caught a bit off guard by the volume of troops they were able to bring to bear against us so quickly. Per Mr. Wu, this had all been part of an elaborate plan and trap. The PLA’s intent was to allow us relatively tough, but winnable engagements to overinflate our confidence in our ability to take and hold ground in China proper. These initial successes led us to rush forward faster than we probably should have. Unfortunately, this is exactly what the PLA had wanted us to do.”

A few of the men in the room grunted; no one liked walking into a trap.

Admiral Meyers continued, “General Bennet, the Allied commander in Korea, has ordered his forces to fall back to the Yalu River and use this as a last line of defense. It’s a natural barrier that will be hard for the Chinese to cross under fire. The real challenge is going to be controlling the northern part of the Korean border between China and Russia. That area is a lot more rugged, and the Yalu is not nearly as wide or deep there. The Tumen River is the next natural barrier. For the moment, we are leaving that portion of the country largely to the ROK and Japanese to defend while we focus our forces to face the main Chinese army—”

McMillen interrupted to ask, “—What about troops and equipment? How are we faring in that department?”

The SecDef signaled he’d answer this question for the admiral. “We’ve moved the Roosevelt Strike Group into position to take over the air superiority mission from the Air Force; we need the Air Force to focus on providing air support for the ground troops. We just made this change a couple of days ago, and so far, we are seeing good results. For each Allied aircraft we are losing, we are shooting down eight PLA Air Force fighters. As for troops and equipment, our forces in Korea are hurting in both areas. I’ve had to divert some of our new recruits from our buildup in Europe to Korea to keep up with the casualties our forces have been sustaining. I highly recommend that we divert more resources to Korea until we can stabilize the lines a bit more.”

Jim sighed as he explained the situation and then sat forward in his chair, looking the others in the eyes before turning to the President. “We have to slow the pace of the war in Korea, along with Europe, so we can catch our breath. The draft has started, and we’re finally starting to fill out the ranks of the new units we’ve reactivated. We need time to get those units the equipment they need. While I recognize that time is not on our side, this is also not something we can rush any further than we already have.”

The President rubbed his temples. None of this was what he wanted to hear.

Jim cleared his throat. “Another issue we’re running into with the new draftees is the high percentage of them that are medically unfit for service. Never in my life did I think we would have so many young people unable to serve in the military because they were so fat or out of shape that they’re more of a liability than a help. Shoot, half of the new recruits showing up for training can’t go more than a few hours without access to their smartphones or they freak out. We’re having a host of new discipline, morale, and medical problems we never thought we’d have. It’s truly concerning, especially if we have to increase the size of the military again.”

Jim’s cheeks were red. It was tough enough trying to get the military the equipment they needed without having to deal with new personnel issues.

The others in the room also seemed concerned by what the SecDef had just brought up. While several media stories about this very subject had been making waves, the issue itself had not made it into a presidential meeting until now. It was clear that Gates was also not happy with the new information.

Lack of parts, ammunition, fuel and money had plagued the military prior to the war. Now, with a major war going on between Russia, Korea and China, the military found itself stretched beyond its ability when the country needed it most.

Disgusted at the situation, the President thought, “It always comes back to time. How has our country been so thoroughly unprepared to handle a war like this? Have we truly been a paper tiger?”

After weighing his options for a moment, Gates asserted, “OK, then we have to slow the war down. How do we do that and not lose the conflict in the process?”

All eyes turned to Jim. Placing his reading glasses on the table, the SecDef looked at the President and bluntly stated, “We change tactics with the Air Force. For the last month, we’ve had them focused on strategic bombing missions, going after Russian and Chinese infrastructure, blunting their ability to move personnel, equipment, and material from one part of the country to another. We’ve been able to hurt their ability to produce war stocks and other materials, but while that effort will help us win, it isn’t helping our situation on the ground right now.”

“My recommendation is that we change their target set and have them start near round-the-clock bombardments of enemy positions. In the case of Korea, we have our B-2s and B-1s work in tandem with our B-52s to carry out massive bombing runs of enemy troop positions. Let’s keep them from massing their forces. We can insert more Special Forces behind enemy lines to specifically call in air strikes against enemy troop concentrations wherever we find them.”

The President nodded. “Makes perfect sense to me,” he thought.

Jim continued, “In Europe, we should do the same thing — have the bombers specifically work over the Russian troop positions. We should also rely a lot more on our NATO allies in Europe to do more of the air strikes. The challenge we face in Europe is a bit different than in Asia. The Russians new SA-21s are really hurting us; until our electronic warfare guys can figure out how to defeat their new targeting systems, we’re only able to use our F-15s, F-16s, and B-52s in a limited fashion. It’s the same with our European allies.”

Jim paused for a second as he reached for his bottle of water, opening it to take a quick drink while the others in the room thought about the situation.

“I will say this,” Castle insisted, “the Germans and French have really come around since the start of the war. I spoke with my German counterpart this morning, and he assures me they will have two full German army groups ready by the start of summer. That’s 125,000 combat soldiers. Both army groups will have two full armored divisions with 2,500 Leopard 2A6 main battle tanks. Their automotive groups are producing tanks and other armored vehicles on near round-the-clock production cycles right now. Likewise, the French are also looking to field two army groups by the start of summer. I’m very pleased with how fast both nations are moving towards being ready for our summer offensive.”

Castle managed a smile, the first one he had cracked since the start of the meeting.

Admiral Meyers added, “With the French and German army groups, and the reactivation of Fifth Corps and the added units to Third Corps, that will place the US and NATO Forces at roughly 560,000 combat troops by the first of June, with another 310,000 support troops. At that point, we will no longer need to stay on defense, and we can push the Russians out of Ukraine once and for all and threaten Moscow.”

Meyers then turned to the Secretary of State and the Director of the CIA. “If Operation Strawman is ready, we may not need to invade Russia proper, but we’ll be ready if we have to.”

The new Director of the CIA, Jedediah “JP” Perth, cleared his throat at the mention of his pet project. “After consultation with my counterparts in British MI6, and BND, the German Federal Intelligence Service, we are moving forward with Operation Strawman. This is an incredibly closely held operation, with very few people having been read into it. In two weeks, we will begin to insert the clandestine team that will make contact with Strawman, Alexei Kasyanov. Once the offer has been made and he has agreed to it, we will set into motion a plan to break him out of house arrest and arrange for a series of safe houses for him to begin the resistance movement.”

“Because of the summer offensive, we obviously don’t have a lot of time to get the ball rolling, but with the help of my social media gurus from Google and Facebook, we’re going to spread his message far and wide within Russia and will hopefully be ready for our part when the time comes. It is my firm belief that the Russian people will rally around Alexei, and he will successfully become the new Russian president,” JP explained.

Some of the men in the room smiled, while a few of the military members looked at him with obvious skepticism.

Gates grinned at his new CIA Director. “I knew JP was the right guy for the job. If he can pull this off, this may be the single biggest coup of the entire war,” he thought.

Jedediah Perth had taken over as the Director of the CIA roughly two months prior. As a senator, JP had been an ardent advocate for the intelligence community, though he’d often butted heads with many of the leaders within the various organizations. Prior to becoming the junior senator from Arkansas, JP had been an intelligence officer in the US Air Force and had continued to serve as a reservist until he’d accepted the director role at the CIA.

As an intel officer, and a man who had served in both Afghanistan and Iraq, he brought with him real-world firsthand experience that the leadership of many of these organizations either lacked entirely or had experienced in a completely different time. JP understood that the wars of the future would be fought not just on the battlefield, but in social media and cyberspace, areas JP felt the dinosaurs who been running the various agencies did not fully understand. While JP had only been at the Agency for two months, he had been hard at work gutting it of the political appointee holdovers and bureaucrats who were more interested in proving a point or advancing their careers than they were in defeating America’s enemies and moving the Agency into the 21^st century.

Prior to the war with Russia, JP had been analyzing the political opposition groups within Russia. In short order, his two-man research team had identified the People’s Freedom Party, or PARNAS, as a real possible alternative to the Petrov regime. Their party motto, “For Russia, with free will and without corruption,” along with their strong anticommunist stances and alliances with other liberal European organizations, meant they would probably have strong support from other countries in Europe. That would be critical in any post-Petrov period. The problem was that the current leader, Alexei Kasyanov, was currently under house arrest. An article in the Wall Street Journal had claimed this was the one man Petrov feared most. A self-described nationalist democrat, he might be the one man that could replace Petrov and still hold the country together.

The President closed the meeting. “Whatever resources or assistance you need, JP, just let us know and we’ll make sure you get it. If your plan works, it may save us from a costly invasion and occupation.”

Three hours after the national security meeting ended, Dr. John Winters walked into his office and called his small cadre of team members to his office to discuss their new task. It was important that they develop a plan to counter the upcoming Chinese and Russian propaganda campaign. Thanks to the information provided by Mr. Wu, they had a heads-up on the overall strategy and details of the message. Now they needed to create a counter-message.

Clearing his throat to get everyone’s attention, Dr. Winters began. “As you all know, I was just at a meeting with the President and the national security team, discussing the war. What you are about to hear is highly classified and extremely sensitive information. Clare is going to hand out a special nondisclosure agreement that you all will need to sign to work on this next project. I’m giving you the option to opt out if you want to, but if you opt out, you are not going to be able to join this special project later. Also, if you do sign the NDA, you will only be working on this project for the next couple of weeks.”

They all seriously considered their options. Of his team of twelve team members, only four opted not to be a part of the project — not because they didn’t want to participate, but because they felt they were already over-tasked and didn’t want their other projects to suffer. The four of them were excused from the room and went back to work.

“Those of you who are still here are about to work on one of the most sensitive and perhaps important projects of the war,” Dr. Winters began. This introduction caused everyone to perk up. “A little while ago, the CIA carried out a snatch-and-grab mission of Chinese Deputy Director of State Security Wu Bangguo, the righthand man of Chairman Zhang Deijang. During his interrogation, Mr. Wu revealed to us a propaganda campaign that has the real possibility of not just turning the public opinion of the war in their favor but resulting in open revolt within our countries. We don’t know the exact time when it will start, other than it will begin soon, perhaps in the next few days or within a couple of weeks. In any case, the President has directed our office to put together a counter-message.”

The members of John’s team were excited now. An opportunity to go head-to-head with their adversary in the ultimate battle: the conflict of the mind.

One of the women in the group asked, “Why would this new propaganda message be more powerful or effective than what they’ve already been flooding the internet with? No disrespect, but the millennials of the country are already practically siding with them as it is, and college campuses are practically socialist embassies for all intents and purposes.” She spoke with contempt in her voice.

Several members of the team chuckled at her comment, and one of the women couldn’t help but roll her eyes at Cindy, who had come to be known as the group’s extremist. “I don’t know if it’s that bad,” she insisted.

John watched his team go back and forth for a few minutes as the group discussed the flood of propaganda that had been hammering the Allies. The Russians had expertly used raw combat footage of the war, the death of Allied soldiers, and the proliferation of fake news stories; it had all been taking a terrible toll on the populations of the Allies. Already, this campaign had succeeded in getting Turkey to leave NATO, and massive protests across Hungary, Spain, Portugal and Italy had forced those governments not to back NATO. The protests had gotten so out of control in many parts of the UK that the Labour Party members of parliament had almost garnered support from the Tories to hold a no-confidence vote in the government and had only been narrowly defeated. The Russians were using information technology to wage war in a way the Allies had not anticipated, and frankly had discounted. Now the Allies were paying dearly for that mistake, and it was not one they could make again, with China now entering the fray.

One of the men, who had stayed out of the conversation up to this point, put down his folder and looked up at the team. He had just finished reading the summary of “techno-communism.”

“You guys, I think that this new approach could be incredibly effective against the younger generations in the Allied countries. You should really give this a read.”

They all took a break from their conversation and dug into the files before them. Finally, Cindy asserted, “Frank, you’re right. This ‘techno-communism’ is going to be very alluring to the restless youth of society, since it basically guarantees them a job as a right. The Chinese are selling this as a way to use technology to enforce a ‘social justice’ model, punishing those who have views that are considered hateful, racist, or otherwise harmful to the population or government as a whole.”

Dr. Winters cut in at this point. “If we’re going to counter this appeal, then we need to pick it apart piece by piece. Do you all have any suggestions?”

One of the younger women on the team, Stephanie, spoke up. “We need to sell that this version of communism is not only a disaster for the future, but also means a complete and utter censorship of free speech. We could have a commercial where someone is being kicked out of college because they disagreed with their professor, and another person is fired from their job for working too many hours because that would deprive another individual from obtaining a job.”

Frank added, “I can just picture a Google Home or Amazon Alexa device being used under this system to rat out an individual’s non-sanctioned beliefs. What if an Xbox recorded someone praying and their religious convictions were not considered legal under the State’s demands?”

Cindy chimed in, “You know, a lot of people don’t realize that the microphones on their phone are never really turned off. Picture a commercial where all these devices are listening in on conversations and reporting actions, and the jails are filled with political dissidents.”

Dr. Winters nodded emphatically. “Exactly, Cindy. Those are the exact points we need to make to counter what the Russians and Chinese are proposing. The enemy is going to use our open society, our freedom of the press, and the internet to flood the minds of our young people and those disenfranchised voters to turn the people against not just the war, but against our form of government. Their arguments will sound appealing, but in the end, techno-communism would be the death of the very freedom our people now enjoy.”

Winters’ teammates nodded.

“We have a lot of work to do and not a lot of time to get it done in,” Winters asserted. “I need everyone to work together on this and crank out some ideas quickly. I would like to start getting some of our messaging points ready over the next couple of days.”

As John finished giving his team their marching orders, the group went to work tackling the challenge.