Chimera

Air-Marshal Iyer walked into the underground planning center at SFC headquarters. The large room was populated with a large conference table and a variety of different ranking officers from all three services plus several officers from RAW and the other intelligence agencies. The table had chairs along its edges but they were all pushed in since nobody was sitting down when Iyer entered. Two opposite walls had large digital displays of all territories currently of interest to the SFC and the table was strewn with loads of papers, satellite imagery and an assortment of maps. It was, quite visibly, Iyer’s “thinking room”, as his staff called it.

“Okay gentlemen, let’s have the latest,” Iyer ordered politely as he walked around the table to the wall map of Tibet showing dispositions of the various brigades of the Chinese 2ND Artillery Corps.

“Not much has changed since yesterday,” an army Brigadier said. These morning meetings were being held every six hours on Iyer’s orders for the last ten days. They were on the verge of being monotonous…

“As per our last count,” the Brigadier continued, “we have over three hundred missiles of all types in northern Tibet right now. Heavily guarded but not yet deployed.”

“Composition?” Iyer asked blandly and without looking at the Brigadier as he went over the latest situation reports in his hands. The routine was the same for every meeting.

“Mostly DF-11s, DF-15s and DF-21s. Several DF-31 launchers in the mainland displaying higher levels of activity than last week but not deployed yet. However, we are keeping an eye on that.”

“They are not going to touch those unless they are deciding to go after our southern cities,” Iyer said as he finally looked up from the papers in his hands. DF-31s were ICBMs, and activity on that front was always worthy of attention. He glanced at the other wall screen showing the location of the DF-31 unit. “Activating those DF-31s will actually reduce their options instead of increasing them. Keep an eye on them as you said, but expect the first shots to be fired by the Tibet based launchers.”

“Are they nuclear tipped?” Vice-Admiral Valhotra, the SFC second-in-command, asked the Brigadier, referring to the Tibet based units.

“Hard to be sure which ones are and which ones are not when you consider that all we have is overhead satellite intel,” the Brigadier said and walked over to the wall map. He pressed some buttons and pulled up the imagery over one of the DF-21 batteries and another of the DF-11 and put them side by side. The images were in gray-coloration and showed a good resolution of the launchers and the security around the battery vehicles by PLA infantry and light-armor units. “But you can make out from the level of forces guarding a given battery here whether its nuclear tipped or not. Those that are very heavily guarded are likely nuclear-tipped. Others are conventional.”

“That’s one hell of an assumption there,” Iyer noted as he faced the map from where he stood. “Have you considered that they might try to fool us on exactly that issue by either giving all of their launchers the same security or messing with our heads by giving higher security to conventional launchers as well?”

“Yes it is an assumption and potentially a deadly one,” Valhotra agreed and looked back Iyer: “But not much we can do outside of that. Besides, if Beijing wants to use conventional ballistic-missiles in the war, they will want to ensure that there is no confusion on our side on the escalation.”

“You assume that they don’t want nuclear war with us,” Iyer cautioned his colleague and continued: “I cannot make that assumption. We need better intel and a clearer analysis on their motives and unit deployments. Such a simplistic argument cannot hold water in this room. I know that we have been doing this for quite some time even before the war started. But now that the war is on, peacetime computations cannot be applied. We have to be more careful and must take into consideration outside factors such as the state of the war and its effect on the enemy deployments. Understood?”

Iyer looked around to see everybody nodding. He turned back to the Brigadier: “So what’s the count based on the current estimates?”

“About seventy-five nuclear-tipped launchers in northern Tibet as of right now.”

“God! Seventy-Five?” Valhotra blurted out.

“Yes sir,” the Brigadier added. “Mostly deployed on DF-21s. That’s almost their entire DF-21 force and also a good chunk of their overall nuclear warheads.”

“Think they are sending us a message?” Iyer asked Valhotra.

“If they are, they sure as hell not pussyfooting it,” Valhotra responded.