War Of Honor

"Unfortunately, what I wanted—or any of us wanted—doesn't really matter. Thanks to domestic political considerations, like the empire-building ambitions of a certain Secretary of State who shall remain nameless, the President and I found ourselves with no option but to go public with the new fleet. What we haven't yet told Congress, although I feel confident that some of them at least suspect the a

His gaze swept over all of them, but it settled on Giscard, and his eyes held the admiral's steadily as he continued.

"I'm not at all certain I agree with her reasoning. I can't really offer a better plan, however. And even if I could, the fact is that she's the elected President, and that means policy is hers to make, not mine. To be perfectly honest, that principle is important enough that even if I vehemently disagreed with her, I'd shut up and carry out my orders when she gave them.

"In this instance, those orders were to a

If the temperature had seemed to drop earlier, now it was as if an icy wind had blown through the briefing room. The fleet commanders and their chiefs of staff sat very, very still, eyes fixed on the Secretary of War. Only Marquette, Borderwijk, Foraker, and Anders had known what he was about to say; the other four looked as if they wished they had never heard it.

"Let me emphasize," Theisman went on in a firm, quiet voice, "that neither the President nor I are actively contemplating operations against the Manties. Nor do we have any desire to contemplate them at any time. But it's our responsibility to be certain that if something goes wrong, the Navy is prepared to defend the Republic."

"I'm sure all of us are relieved to know we're not pla

"I take your meaning, Lester. And I agree with you," Theisman said after a moment. "In fact, that's one of the main reasons I a

"I don't know how 'vigorous' their countermeasures are likely to be, assuming they don't go for a military option," Giscard observed. "But all they really have to do to offset any edge we may have is to complete all of those damned SD(P)s and CLACs they laid down before the Cromarty Assassination."

"Exactly," Theisman agreed. "I'm hoping, probably with more optimism than rationality, that High Ridge will authorize as small an increase in naval spending as he thinks he can get away with. That would extend our window of relative naval security."

"I think you're right about optimism getting the better of reason, Tom," Giscard replied. "Not necessarily about how High Ridge's priorities would work out if he were left to his own devices, but about how likely we are to be able to keep Manty intelligence in the dark about our true capabilities indefinitely. I know we seem to've kept the wool pulled over their eyes for a lot longer than I would have thought we could have, but the cat's out of the bag now. They know we fooled them, and that's going to make them even more determined to get at the real numbers. Even someone like Jurgensen is going to be able to form a much more realistic estimate of our total ship strength than we'd like if he makes it the number one priority of their ONI."

"I know," Theisman admitted. "And all I'm really hoping to do is to delay that moment for as long as possible. Our own building programs are continuing to accelerate out at Bolthole. And Sha

"But there's no denying that we face both a window of opportunity and a window of vulnerability," he continued in a graver voice. "The window of opportunity is defined by however long we can keep the Manties from realizing our actual military potential and taking steps to neutralize it. The window of vulnerability is the period in which the Manties have time to neutralize it if they decide to do so. The most dangerous aspect of the entire situation, in many ways, is that the awareness of our opportunity makes it very tempting for us to take action in order to close the window of vulnerability. Frankly, that temptation becomes even stronger whenever I consider our responsibility to devise a general war-fighting plan with the Manties as our most probable opponent."

"That's a very dangerous temptation, if you'll allow me to say so, Tom," Tourville said in the quiet voice which always seemed so startling, even to his intimates, in contrast to his public "cowboy" persona. "Especially since I'm sure that somewhere deep inside, at least a part of a great many of our officers and enlisted perso

"Of course I'll allow you to say it," Theisman told him. "In fact, I'm delighted to hear you say it. I assure you that it's something I'm trying very hard to keep in mind at all times, and having other people remind me of it can't hurt.

"Nonetheless, I think it behooves us all to admit that if worse came to worst and we went back on active operations against the Manties, our best option at this point would be to adopt a basically offensive stance. Particularly now, while they're hopefully unaware of our true potential, a hard, carefully coordinated offensive offers us at least the potential of neutralizing their fleet and driving them back onto the defensive in a way which might convince them to negotiate seriously with us for the first time.

"No one in the administration, with the possible exception of the Secretary of State, would even consider suggesting that we run such military risks in an effort to unjam the diplomatic process. I'm certainly not proposing that we do any such thing, either. I'm simply pointing out that when it comes to devising war plans, I feel we need to look very closely at the advantages of a powerful offensive strategy rather than restricting ourselves to a purely defensive one."

"In the final analysis, an offensive strategy is a defensive one," Giscard said thoughtfully. "When it comes right down to it, for us to win, the Manty fleet and industrial infrastructure both have to be neutralized. If they aren't, and if we don't manage to do it early, then even with all Sha