Executive Intent by Dale Brown Page B

similar-size aircraft—and the Chinese fighter is…was…much bigger than the Hornet. It’s certainly not enough to dislodge a missile from a jet—especially an armed missile.”
    â€œSo you’re saying the Chinese fighter crew deliberately fired those missiles at the carrier?”
    â€œI don’t know, ma’am,” Cowan admitted. “But I find it hard to believe that the missiles dislodged, powered themselves up, fired off, and locked onto the Bush all by themselves.”
    â€œWouldn’t they need to know where the carrier was before launch?” Carlyle asked.
    â€œNot necessarily, sir,” Cowan replied. “Some antiship cruise missiles can be self-guided by radar to attack any large target; shorter-range missiles use electro-optical sensors and datalink the images back to a controller to pinpoint a particular target. Russian-made cruise missiles can do both. Such missiles can then be fired in the general direction of their targets, or programmed to patrol an area where the targets might sail into, and then lock on and attack.”
    Secretary of State Barbeau shook her hands and closed her eyes. “Hold on, everyone, hold on,” she said irritably. “We’re getting off track here. My bottom-line question: Does anybody here honestly believe the Chinese would deliberately fire a hypersonic missile at a U.S. warship in peacetime?” No one replied. “Good. I happen to agree, so we can move on from here. However it happened, I believe it was an accident. I’m going to ask the Chinese foreign minister to demand a formal inquiry and full analysis of the incident, and to have U.S. experts involved every step of the way to the maximum extent possible. China is a pretty closed society, and their government and military even more so, but I expect full cooperation. Case closed.”
    Admiral Cowan’s eyes had narrowed into angry slits. “Excuse me, ma’am, but the case is not closed. What about the casualties, the damage to the carrier—”
    â€œWhat about the loss of that Chinese fighter and its crew, Admiral?” Barbeau retorted. “We lost more, so they should pay? They fired the missiles, so they’re the bad guys? Excuse me, Admiral, but this ‘handstand’ maneuver sounds to me like showing off, not defending the carrier. It’s like Tom Cruise flying upside down over the MiG in Top Gun —he did it just because the MiG pilot was starting to piss him off. If we’re all agreed it was not deliberate, then the Chinese pilot flew toward our carrier just to piss us off. Is that a reason to blast him with engine exhaust and cause him to almost flip upside down and possibly dislodge those missiles?”
    â€œOur SOP is to do everything necessary to divert a possible hostile target away with nonlethal means before resorting to lethal force—”
    â€œYour men have their SOPs when they’re out there in harm’s way, Admiral—it’s for you and the national command authority to decide what they are and if they’re being properly performed, not me,” Barbeau said. “I know your men don’t have the luxury of sitting in a nice comfy chair and calmly debating things when they’re looking down the barrel of a gun thousands of miles from home, when the only dry landing strip and hot meal is a four-acre hunk of floating steel that might end up at the bottom of the South China Sea at any moment.
    â€œBut now we’re in my battlefield, Admiral, not yours. If we’re all agreed this was a tragic accident and not deliberate”—Barbeau paused, then pointed at each window in her videoconference monitor, querying each participant—“and we are all still agreed, are we not…?”—she waited a few breaths: still more silence—“that it was an accident, then we investigate fully to prevent such accidents from happening again; we issue the