it.”
The national security advisor corrected him. “Effective if the other side thinks you have the will to use it. There’s a difference between deterrence and retaliation. If Israel were really going down for the count, from a conventional or nuclear Axis assault, would they blow the bombs in Germany just for spite? Or would they fold, make peace, to prevent their own complete annihilation? Remember, Germany is a much bigger and more populated country than Israel, and this new regime is not anti-Semitic. . . . Germany would be hurt bad if ten tactical nuclear warheads went off, but their forces and command and control are dispersed throughout the occupied territories for exactly that reason. Israel, on the other hand, is the size of New Jersey. They haven’t much room to disperse. Hit a handful of cities and there’d be nothing left of the place.”
“That’s true, ma’am,” the CIA director said. “The problem is, this war is so different from the Cold War that all our old thinking and intell on Soviet thinking just don’t apply. We don’t know for sure if the Mossad sleeper agents in Germany who’d be told to set off the hidden bombs need a positive, specific, verifiable order to do so, or if they’re also held under a sort of dead-man’s switch. By the latter I mean that they need periodic ‘all’s well’ messages, and if those stop for too long, their prestanding instructions are to yank the triggers. Kablooey.”
The national security advisor looked dismayed. “With reliable covert comms from Israel to agents in Germany being so difficult, given German jamming and signals manipulation, an Israeli dead-man switch seems horribly reckless.”
“Yes, ma’am. But remember, this was all arranged before the war, as a sort of ultimate fail-safe against another Jewish Holocaust, using supposed cooperation with German authorities in the war on terror as camouflage. Israel naturally felt they could rely on their fighter-bombers with tactical nukes to take care of the Arab countries. Their Jericho ballistic missiles and submarine-launched Harpoon cruise missiles are also more than adequate for that, but only local in range. Our assessment is that with the bombs sequestered in Germany, predelivered, so to speak, over intercontinental distances, the Israelis might not have fully considered the specific conflict situation we find ourselves in now . . . and independent of that factor, they might really be that reckless, or paranoid, or vindictive, or whatever you want to call it. The bombs quite possibly are on a dead-man’s switch, with the Israelis locked into preexisting ROEs.”
“How? Why? This sounds insane.”
“Because any supposed change to the ROEs might’ve been defined as a sign of German tampering, and thus as a reason to detonate before the deterrent power was lost.”
“Jesus.”
“This raises the stakes to a whole new level,” the president said. “It seems to me it’s bad all ways, whatever Israeli A-bomb ROEs apply inside Germany. And it’s bad all ways if the Germans’ next move is attacking through Israel. Either nuclear detonations do break out, starting in the buffer zones of Libya’s and Egypt’s deserts, and ending in the middle of major population centers like Cairo and Tel Aviv and Frankfurt. Or the fighting stays nonnuclear, and if Germany wins, they impress and intimidate the neutral Muslim nations and we lose the Persian Gulf oil. Lose the oil and our war effort is crippled.”
“If Plan Pandora has something to do with attacking Israel,” the CNO said, “as combined Allied intelligence strongly does seem to suggest, then it’s aptly named. The Germans are taking a mind-boggling gamble, whatever they do.”
“I’d have to concur,” the army chief of staff said. “Our own read on signals intercepts and satellite recon is that the Afrika Korps is building up for a major strike eastward soon.”
“The NSA’s best interpretation,” the DCI added,
The national security advisor corrected him. “Effective if the other side thinks you have the will to use it. There’s a difference between deterrence and retaliation. If Israel were really going down for the count, from a conventional or nuclear Axis assault, would they blow the bombs in Germany just for spite? Or would they fold, make peace, to prevent their own complete annihilation? Remember, Germany is a much bigger and more populated country than Israel, and this new regime is not anti-Semitic. . . . Germany would be hurt bad if ten tactical nuclear warheads went off, but their forces and command and control are dispersed throughout the occupied territories for exactly that reason. Israel, on the other hand, is the size of New Jersey. They haven’t much room to disperse. Hit a handful of cities and there’d be nothing left of the place.”
“That’s true, ma’am,” the CIA director said. “The problem is, this war is so different from the Cold War that all our old thinking and intell on Soviet thinking just don’t apply. We don’t know for sure if the Mossad sleeper agents in Germany who’d be told to set off the hidden bombs need a positive, specific, verifiable order to do so, or if they’re also held under a sort of dead-man’s switch. By the latter I mean that they need periodic ‘all’s well’ messages, and if those stop for too long, their prestanding instructions are to yank the triggers. Kablooey.”
The national security advisor looked dismayed. “With reliable covert comms from Israel to agents in Germany being so difficult, given German jamming and signals manipulation, an Israeli dead-man switch seems horribly reckless.”
“Yes, ma’am. But remember, this was all arranged before the war, as a sort of ultimate fail-safe against another Jewish Holocaust, using supposed cooperation with German authorities in the war on terror as camouflage. Israel naturally felt they could rely on their fighter-bombers with tactical nukes to take care of the Arab countries. Their Jericho ballistic missiles and submarine-launched Harpoon cruise missiles are also more than adequate for that, but only local in range. Our assessment is that with the bombs sequestered in Germany, predelivered, so to speak, over intercontinental distances, the Israelis might not have fully considered the specific conflict situation we find ourselves in now . . . and independent of that factor, they might really be that reckless, or paranoid, or vindictive, or whatever you want to call it. The bombs quite possibly are on a dead-man’s switch, with the Israelis locked into preexisting ROEs.”
“How? Why? This sounds insane.”
“Because any supposed change to the ROEs might’ve been defined as a sign of German tampering, and thus as a reason to detonate before the deterrent power was lost.”
“Jesus.”
“This raises the stakes to a whole new level,” the president said. “It seems to me it’s bad all ways, whatever Israeli A-bomb ROEs apply inside Germany. And it’s bad all ways if the Germans’ next move is attacking through Israel. Either nuclear detonations do break out, starting in the buffer zones of Libya’s and Egypt’s deserts, and ending in the middle of major population centers like Cairo and Tel Aviv and Frankfurt. Or the fighting stays nonnuclear, and if Germany wins, they impress and intimidate the neutral Muslim nations and we lose the Persian Gulf oil. Lose the oil and our war effort is crippled.”
“If Plan Pandora has something to do with attacking Israel,” the CNO said, “as combined Allied intelligence strongly does seem to suggest, then it’s aptly named. The Germans are taking a mind-boggling gamble, whatever they do.”
“I’d have to concur,” the army chief of staff said. “Our own read on signals intercepts and satellite recon is that the Afrika Korps is building up for a major strike eastward soon.”
“The NSA’s best interpretation,” the DCI added,
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