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SEA OF SHADOWS 159
“It still doesn’t make sense,” Brenthoven said. “Selling weapons to
Siraj I can understand, even if I don’t agree with it. Germany needs a lot
of oil fast, and—in exchange for breaking the weapons embargo—Siraj is
giving it to them at a fraction of fair market value. That part I can see.
But I cannot for the life of me see what the Germans stand to gain from
attacking the Kitty Hawk.”
“That is the question,” the president said. “What do the Germans get
out of this?”
“Turn the question around, Mr. President,” the secretary of state said.
“What do we stand to lose from this?”
“We live and die by our image over there,” the CNO said. “What
success we’ve had in keeping a lid on the Middle East is largely due to our
military strength. As long as we appear to be invincible, no Middle
Eastern leader will seriously attempt to challenge us. Oh, they’ll rant and
rave on the six o’clock news and call us dirty names on the floor of the UN
General Assembly, but they’ll avoid direct conflict. It’s not a perfect
peace, God knows—some of those guys just can’t pass up the chance to
shoot at their neighbors—but it allows commerce rather than chaos to be
the dominant mode of operation in the Gulf States.”
“There’s your answer,” Secretary Whelkin said. “The Germans have
already demonstrated that they can penetrate our carrier strike groups.
Right now, their reputation is gaining ground and ours is losing. If we
can’t prevent them from delivering those subs, they’re going to look even
stronger, and we’re going to look weaker still.”
“A new Germany for the new century,” the president said. “Re-forged
as a world power. Focused, independent, and not afraid to play rough with
the big boys.”
“This whole thing has been a great showcase for their military
hardware,” Whelkin said. “Four little submarines have managed to elude
one carrier strike group and blow the hell out of a second one.”
“I can’t argue on that point,” Brenthoven said. “So far, they’ve
succeeded in making us look like idiots. And we can’t afford to lose
credibility in the region.”
“I agree,” the CNO said. “We can’t let even one of those subs get
through to Siraj. A big chunk of our deterrence comes from our carriers.
Not just the carriers themselves, but the perceptions associated with them.
The American aircraft carrier is the embodiment of force projection.
We’ve all seen it work when some pissant third-world dictator gets too big
for his britches. A carrier shows up a few miles off his coastline, and
suddenly he’s jumping through hoops to show how enlightened and
cooperative he can be. Most of the time, we don’t have to fire a single