Debt of Honor - Tom Clancy [282]
"I know why they're mad. Tell me why they're scared."
"Well, hell, they still have the Russians close by, and the Chinese, both still major powers, but we've withdrawn from the Western Pacific, right? In their mind, it leaves them high and dry—and now it looks to them like we've turned on them. That makes us potential enemies, too, doesn't it? Where does that leave them? What real friends do they have?"
"Why take the Marianas?" Jack asked, reminding himself that Japan had not been attacked by those countries in historically recent times, but had done so herself to all of them. Cook had made a perhaps unintended point. How did Japan respond to outside threats? By attacking first.
"It gives them defensive depth, bases outside their home islands."
Okay, that makes sense, Jack thought. Satellite photos less than an hour old hung on the wall. There were fighters now on the airstrips at Saipan and Guam, along with E-2C Hawkeye airborne-early-warning birds of the same type that operated off American carriers. That created a defensive barrier that extended twelve hundred miles almost due south from Tokyo. It could be seen as a formidable wall against American attacks, and was in essence a reduced version of Japanese grand strategy in the Second World War. Again Cook had made a sound observation.
"But are we really a threat to them?" he asked.
"We certainly are now," Cook replied.
"Because they forced us to be," one of the NIOs snarled, entering the discussion. Cook leaned across the table at him.
"Why do people start wars? Because they're afraid of something! For Christ's sake, they've gone through more governments in the last five years than the Italians. The country is politically unstable. They have real economic problems. Until recently their currency's been in trouble. Their stock market's gone down the tubes because of our trade legislation, and we've faced them with financial ruin, and you ask why they got a little paranoid? If something like this happened to us, what the hell would we do?" the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State demanded, rather cowing the National Intelligence Officer, Ryan saw.
Good, he thought. A lively discussion was usually helpful, as the hottest fire made the strongest steel.
"My sympathy for the other side is mitigated by the fact that they have invaded U.S. territory and violated the human rights of American citizens."
The reply to Cook's tirade struck Ryan as somewhat arch. The response was that of a lead hound on the scent of a crippled fox, able to play with the quarry instead of the other way around for a change. Always a good feeling.
"And we've already put a couple hundred thousand of their citizens out of work. What about their rights?"
"Fuck their rights! Whose side are you on, Cook?"
The DASS just leaned back into his chair and smiled as he slid the knife in. "I thought I was supposed to tell everyone what they're thinking. Isn't that what we're here for? What they're thinking is that we've jerked them around, bashed them, belittled them, and generally let them know that we tolerate them through sufferance and not respect since before I was born. We've never dealt with them as equals, and they think that they deserve better from us, and they don't like it. And you know," Cook went on, "I don't blame them for feeling that way. Okay, so now they've lashed out. That's wrong, and I deplore it, but we need to recognize that they tried to do it in as non-lethal a way as possible, consistent with their strategic goals. That's something we need to consider here, isn't it?"
"The Ambassador says his country is willing to let it stop here," Ryan told them, noting the look in Cook's eyes. Clearly he'd been thinking about the situation, and that