“We are preparing a briefing for you on those additional nations combined military strength. We will have that briefing within the hour. Their troop movements are on such a massive scale that we have nothing on the ground in the region that can stop it. From the air, with what we have in the region, we can slow it down and we can annoy it, but we cannot prevent it if they are willing to continue dying for a cause.”
The President interrupted, “So, we have to let Israel fall?”
“No sir, we have at least two alternatives to that. First is nuclear. I wouldn’t recommend that yet, but I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that the scale of this action on their part is that big. The other is an all out air to ground assault on their forces. We use our air assets to kill or destroy their ground forces of all kinds, not just the tanks. We would have to use air to ground missiles to take out their armored forces, as well as bombs, and cluster munitions to deal with the ground troops themselves. This will have to be fast, ruthless and messy if we are to have any impact. It will not look good on television, so the propaganda they could, and most likely would, run is a concern.
“They can’t match us in the air, even if all three air forces were combined, as a result we are confident we can continue to control the air and harass the ground. We can slow them, and even shrink their offensive capabilities, but we can’t contain them forever with this method. However, if we do this in a rapid enough fashion we can, perhaps, shock them with such swift losses that they will surrender, and hopefully go home.
“However, if we do this, it would leave us unable to answer an aerial attack, of any size, almost anywhere else on the globe. We will have to move aircraft from all over the world into this region to make this possible. This is a real danger.
“I assume by messy what you really mean is heavy casualties?” asked Chief of Staff Johnson.
“Yes sir, they will take very heavy casualties but very minimal, if any, civilians will be hurt. However, as I said, we can expect to see a lot more in the way of propagandist press releases of the type they recently released accusing us of sending in assassination squads in to murder civilians.
“With us doing a nuclear strike of our own it would result in very heavy civilian casualties, just as it did here, but it would decimate their military capability. I wouldn’t want to go nuclear because, once we do, there is no turning back. There will probably be, if there hasn’t been already, a public outcry to do just that. I hope that our air campaign will also cause that outcry to be minimized,” answered the Chairman
The President had questions and they came all at once, “Forget nuclear. We aren’t going to do that, at least not yet. However, I reserve the right to change my mind on that if things go badly at some point in time in the future.
“Why has this kind of troop movement not started before now? How come all these troops were not ready before they hit us? What was the trigger for this action? Was it that we grabbed their scientist? What I mean by all that is, wouldn’t it have been better, from a strategic perspective to kick this off right after, if not at the same time they hit us?”
“That is what I would have done, Mr. President. I would have attacked right away. It would allow me to take advantage of the confusion,” admitted the Chairman.
“So why now? What are we missing in their strategy?” he asked.
Captain Banner was fidgeting in his chair, unsure of the protocol of adding to the discussion at this level. He was sure he was just there in case people had questions about his mission, or perhaps even as a courtesy for a job well done.
“Captain Banner, you have a suggestion concerning their possible strategic intent here?” asked the General putting a huge spotlight on the young officer.
In his extensive experience, prior to becoming Chairman, good ideas came from almost anywhere. Rank was not an indicator of brilliance.
The Captain stood up before speaking, “I have a thought, but it may not be valid, Mr. Chairman. The nuclear attack may have been hastily put together, and they may have stove-piped the decision. The Commanders for their ground forces may not have known what the nuclear guys were doing, so they may not have had any sort of chance to prepare ahead of time. The other thought is that it could very well be that in case of failure they didn’t want the attempt to be known. Alternatively, they know our satellites watch them constantly and may not have wanted to tip us off. Or, more likely some combination of all of those things.”
Realizing everyone was still looking at him, he continued, “Think about it, Sirs. We were in political chaos, leadership was in flux, a President disgraced and removed from office, the Vice President assassinated, and a Congressman elevated to one of if not the most important leadership posts in the free world. No one on an international level knew much about you, Mr. President.
“Put all of that together with the ludicrously weak, or amateur, resistance we found guarding a key person and you have all the signs of an unprepared to execute organization. The only real challenge that the world will face comes from what will might do if they are cornered. Do they become even more fierce, and launch another attack with a WMD of some kind, perhaps chemical or biological here inside our homeland, Sirs,” the Captain’s voice was shaking slightly.
He preferred being out in the field to this kind of office discussion. Special Forces Operators were just that, Operators, they weren’t briefing room guys, unless discussing the plan for an upcoming mission.
The President stood from his seat at the head of the table, “Prepare the all out air assault and at least slow them down at bit Gentlemen. I really don’t care if it is messy for their military, but work around civilians as much as is humanly possible. Captain, I like your theory. Let us hope and pray they are as amateur or as unprepared as you say. We all want this thing to be over as quickly as it began.
“Hopefully, with a few days of heavy bombing we can convince them to come to the peace negotiation table. We at least need to give it a try.
“General, I’d like to see some ground forces ideas, if they exist, on how we get our troops in there and hold these guys, not just slow them down. In other words, if we follow on with an invasion can we do more?
“Hopefully our air assault can weaken them to the point where we can be effective with a ground assault if it comes to that. Perhaps if your shock effect plan works we might get really lucky and they may have a civilian uprising followed by a regime change,” the President said.
He placed his hands on the table and bent over resting his upper body, turning to his Chief of Staff, “Lester, any word on them coming to the UN to discuss an end to this?”
Lester replied solemnly, “Only two Mr. President, ‘Hell’ and ‘No’.”
“Well, maybe losing an even larger number of their tanks and some large portion of their ground troops will help convince them to talk, especially if they can’t do a hard hit here again. Terror attacks and WMD are possibilities but so far, I am going to say that is conjecture until we start seeing something more concrete. Please watch intelligence sources for that.”
The President stood and straightened his suit jacket before continuing, “General. Get them, do it with all possible speed. I don’t want Israel to fall.
“We have a lot of infrastructure rebuilding to do here, an economy teetering on the brink and this nonsense needs to end. They have to know they can’t match us, even in our weakened state. These people can’t push us around like this. Stop them, this is of vital importance, and please call me if you need me, but I have a meeting with some people in the automobile industry who are here to help us figure out how to rebuild our ground vehicle capability as well as domestic auto manufacturing. General, I will leave you to it, you have my orders to start the air campaign, please keep me in the loop at least every other hour, if I am needed sooner, you know how to get me,” he left the room with Lester on his heels.