Executive Intent

“I think I know what they’ll say: It’s to protect vital Chinese shipping lanes and the free flow of commerce around the world,” Barbeau said. “They’ll openly cite Somali and Philippine pirates; less overtly, they’ll say that American domination of the world’s oceans is a threat.”

“Get it firsthand, and then we’ll hold their feet to the fire,” Gardner said.

“Yes, Mr. President,” she said, taking that opportunity to look Raydon up and down again. He did the same to her, but more discreetly.

The president turned to Ann Page. “Dr. Page, you have a long and distinguished career, but to me you seem to take great delight in shaking up the system. As an engineer and former member of Congress, that’s probably a good thing-but as a member of my administration, it most definitely is not.”

“Mr. President, it’s not my intention to shake anything up,” Ann said. “We had the technology to build an entirely new defensive and offensive weapon system and take the U.S. military to the next level. The technology may be immature and imperfect, but as we saw, it’s viable.”

“Viable? You missed the target and killed a lot of civilians, Dr. Page.”

“I’m sorry about that, Mr. President,” Ann said sincerely. “While I don’t believe that the ends justifies the means, we did stop the Pakistanis from launching any more rockets.”

The president closed his eyes and shook his head. “I’ll tell that to the United Nations: We put out a house fire by blowing up the dam and flooding the town,” he said. “So we have an immature and unreliable weapon system that is controversial to say the least, incomplete, and bound to cause a major outcry if not an outright global arms race. What do you propose I do about this?”

“Resolve to win the race, sir,” Ann said immediately. “With current funding, it will take another fifteen to twenty-four months to complete the Kingfisher constellation. We have a plan to draw on Air Force and Navy budget resources and complete the constellation in ten months or less, along with making improvements in detection capabilities, self-defense to counter the growing Russian and Chinese antisatellite threat, and weapon accuracy.”

“Navy budget resources, eh?” Secretary of Defense Turner asked. “Such as?”

Ann looked at Secretary Banderas. When he hesitated, she replied: “BAMS and ForceNet, Mr. Secretary, among others.”

“What?” Turner exclaimed. His astonished expression slowly turned into one of amusement. “You want to downsize two of the biggest and most cutting-edge naval surveillance and information networking systems?”

“We don’t want to downsize them, Mr. Secretary-we want to cancel them,” Banderas said.

“Cancel them?” Turner asked incredulously. “They’re not even fully implemented yet!”

“Exactly why they should be canceled, sir,” Banderas went on.

“The Broad Area Maritime Surveillance program is based around old technology-”

“Global Hawk may be old, but it’s proven technology.”

“Global Hawk is proven, but compared to emerging space technology, it’s slow, vulnerable, costly and difficult to sustain and support, limited by availability of shore facilities, and in its current configuration has no strike capability, sir,” Banderas went on.

“ForceNet is seven years in the making but is far over budget, is still not fully operational, and isn’t fully integrated into other services’ computer network systems. For network systems managed by major non-Navy commands such as U.S. Strategic Command, ForceNet will demand an upgrade of their network infrastructures to mesh, with the costs estimated in the tens of billions of dollars and another ten years. That means that ForceNet would probably never be tied into other networks as it was designed to be.”

“Once completed, Kingfisher can act as a global fleet communications-and-reconnaissance system,” Ann jumped in. “Our systems are already tied into several services’ reconnaissance and surveillance networks, including the Navy’s, along with Strategic Command, the National Reconnaissance Office, and even the CIA. Everyone in Washington has accessed our imagery, used our communications relays, and taken advantage of our global Internet access and secure data network-and the system is only half finished.”

“The Navy is never going to cancel two vital programs to invest in these orbital weapon garages,” Turner said.

“Nor should they,” the president said. “It’s not going to happen. I supported maritime Global Hawk and ForceNet from day one-I’m not about to kill them, especially for an unproven system.”

“It’s not unproven anymore, sir,” Kai said. Barbeau’s eyes fairly twinkled when he spoke.

“I’m not convinced the land-attack missile portion is ready, General,” the president said. “The missile defense part is impressive, but I’m not ready to cancel important programs for other services for a global missile defense shield. We spend a lot of money on missile defense for the United States already-defending India is not in our budget.”