“Correct,” Jonathan replied. He watched her study the overhead imagery. Given how bloodshot her eyes were this morning, he was mildly surprised that she could see anything.
“Do they think Tian is moving tanks because the PLA needs to burn up some surplus diesel?” The Vicodin was doing good things for her headache but nothing for her patience.
“Hardly,” Jonathan said, unmoved. “But you may be right for the wrong reason. With Kinmen occupied, this could be the buildup of an invasion force for Penghu. If they’re going to move on Taiwan in stages, it’s the next logical step.”
“You could have just said ‘I agree,’” Kyra said, satisfied and annoyed at once.
“That wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun,” he replied. “In any case, we should focus on the Assassin’s Mace. APLAA tried to preempt us by offering their collective wisdom on the matter.” He tilted the monitor toward her.
“That was fast,” she said.
“The China analysts have been waiting a long time for this,” Jonathan said. “The running joke is that they have stacks of prewritten President’s Daily Brief articles on a Chinese invasion of Taiwan sitting on their desks, though I suspect they had to think about this one a bit.”
For the President
Tian Threat Likely Refers to PLA Submarine Force
Chinese President Tian Kai’s claim that the PLA Navy (PLAN) could threaten US naval vessels likely depends on four Russian Kilo-class submarines purchased starting in 1995. Despite progress in the PLA’s shipbuilding efforts, the Kilos remain the most advanced attack submarines in the Chinese fleet.
• The PLAN fleet also includes seventeen Ming-class, thirty-two Romeo-class, and five Han-class submarines. All three classes are older than the Kilos and suffer from outdated designs and technology that leave them at a disadvantage against newer US submarines.
The PLAN also has four Russian-made Sovremenny-class destroyers in its surface fleet, but getting them within striking range of US aircraft carriers would be difficult. Despite acquiring the Sovremennys, the PLAN surface fleet remains more of a coastal defense force than a long-range force.
• The PLAN surface fleet carries several classes of antiship missiles in its inventory, including a reverse-engineered version of the French Exocet. However, the PLAN has struggled to train its personnel in effective over-the-horizon missile targeting tactics.
This article was prepared by CIA.
The facing page was a montage of photographs of Russian-made ships and missiles. A small map of the Chinese coast covered the lower right corner and displayed icons marking PLA naval base locations.
“I take it you think they’re wrong?” Kyra asked. It always seemed to be his default answer.
“Russian-made ships and subs in the hands of the PLA Navy are a threat,” Jonathan admitted. “But we know that the Chinese didn’t restrict their little carrier-killer research project to buying up Russian equipment.”
He walked around a group of short filing cabinets to the whiteboard, then took up a red marker and eraser. He stopped short, staring at the scrawls of his previous thought experiment on the slick surface. Jonathan frowned, then finally began to erase.
“Giving up on detecting confirmation bias?” Kyra asked.
“Hardly,” he said. “But the more interesting problem gets the space.” He wiped the board clean, then retrieved a large bound volume from a nearby desk and dropped it on Kyra’s with a loud thump. “I’ve been going over the Agency’s last National Intelligence Estimate on the PLA — everything the intelligence community thinks it knows about Chinese military capabilities in one report. It’s two years old and this is the short version. The long version has an extra hundred pages with the really good intel; it backs up what APLAA said. China doesn’t have the combat power to force unification. No exceptions for an Assassin’s Mace. The other intel backs that up. Variations on a theme, but everything says the same thing.”
“APLAA wrote it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that explains it,” she said.
“Yes and no. They accounted for the PLA’s known capabilities, no question, and I didn’t doubt they would. What we need to determine is whether there are gaps in the intelligence that point to unknown capabilities.”
“Where do we start?” Kyra asked, frustrated. “We’ve got reports on the PLA going back to Mao.”
“Nineteen ninety-one, I think, unless we can find something more recent and conclusive,” Jonathan said after a moment’s thought. “The Gulf War inspired the PLA’s push to modernize their arsenal.”
“That was twenty-five years ago,” Kyra noted.
“Weapons platforms aren’t developed on a short schedule.”
“And what if we don’t find any that APLAA hasn’t considered?” Kyra asked.
“Then we tell Cooke that APLAA is right. And I hate for APLAA to be right about anything,” Jonathan said.
Kyra held out a paper two hours later. “The original PDB on the ‘Assassin’s Mace from ninety-seven.”
Jonathan took the paper and scanned it quickly, then began reading aloud. “ ‘Jiang Zemin Speech Augurs Increase in Military Spending. PRC President Jiang Zemin’s call for an ‘assassin’s mace’ weapon could spark a significant increase in PLA research and development spending.’” He dropped the article on the table. “I’m sure it was exciting at the time, but it’s hardly news to us now. Certainly nothing there that narrows down the technology. What else?”
“Since that PDB was published, nineteen hits that didn’t appear totally useless,” Kyra said. She laid a printed page on the desk and grabbed a yellow highlighter. She marked off a text block in the list. “These five are NSA reports, all PLA discussions about whether an ongoing project should qualify for the Mace label. Somebody up at Fort Meade probably tapped some PLA colonel’s phone. Some projects qualified, some didn’t, but none of them say what the criteria are.”
“We can assume ‘anything that can cripple a carrier’ and start from there,” Jonathan said.
“Works for me,” Kyra continued. “These”—which took up more than half the page with reference numbers and titles—“are excerpts translated from Chinese military publications. Those start in 1999. They all talk about possible changes to PLA military doctrine to accommodate Assassin’s Mace weapons but they don’t give specifics. This last one talks about proposed changes in PLA Air Force doctrine and strategy to accommodate new weapons, but again, no specifics on the weapons.”
“Which month?”
Kyra checked the report header, which mashed together both the date and time when the report had been issued. “May ninety-nine.”
“What does it say about the source on that one?” Jonathan asked.
“It’s a HUMINT report, human source who has access to the information because of his position, has an established reporting record, and is reliable. That doesn’t tell us anything.”
“By design,” Jonathan said. “The NCS doesn’t give information to DI analysts that could identify sources.”
Kyra shook her head and threw the highlighter across the desk. “So how can you tell if two reports are from the same source?”
“Call a reports officer and offer to buy him a beer.” Jonathan kept his focus on the paper. “Not much fun to be on the other side of the divide, is it?”
“It’s necessary,” she answered quietly. She saw his point.
Jonathan studied Kyra for a moment before speaking. The girl had gone on the defensive, but not in a hostile way. Interesting. “So why only the one report from the human source?” he asked. “If he was in position to report on the project in the first place, why not task him to follow up?”