Rogue Republic

By Andy Butfoy

Professor Greta Kurgan has an audacious plan to make America great again by dramatically reshaping global order. She has sold the idea to the national security advisor and secretary of defense. Now they must persuade President Marriott to rubber stamp the plan before he fully realises just what's to be unleashed.
Only Kurgan's inner circle are aware of the plan's shocking culminating moves. A country is to be targeted in an explosive and risky experiment to demonstrate America's supremacy.
When Major David Tyndale stumbles onto Kurgan's scheming, all he knows is that an unspecified strategic project is being hatched outside of proper channels. Then the project takes-off, triggering an international emergency which draws him deeper into the tempest. Tyndale works with a small group from the FBI and Defense Intelligence Agency, as well as a gritty journalist, to unearth the conspiracy.
The affair escalates towards a global catastrophe threatening the survival of nations and the lives of millions. Scrambling to keep pace with the unfolding crisis, the Pentagon faces its greatest ever challenge.
It all points to a perfect storm: constitutional crisis, strategic nightmare and humanitarian calamity. Tyndale is determined to halt the slide to disaster. But time and the surge of events are not on his side.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Aug 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781528943888

Andy Butfoy

Andy Butfoy has been an international security analyst and university lecturer for many years. He also commentates on world affairs in the print media. He lives on twenty acres of bush in Australia, about an hour out of Melbourne.

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About the Author

Andy Butfoy has been an international security analyst and university lecturer for many years. He also commentates on world affairs in the print media. He lives on twenty acres of bush in Australia, about an hour out of Melbourne.

Dedication

To Amber

Copyright Information ©

Andy Butfoy (2018)

The right of Andy Butfoy to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalog record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781788235297 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781788235303 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781528943888 (E-Book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2018)

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Acknowledgements

Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

George Orwell, 1946.

Abbreviations

AFP: Australian Federal Police.

AGB: Australian Grain Board.

ASAT: Anti-Satellite.

ASD: Australian Signals Directorate.

ASIO: Australian Security Intelligence Organization.

ASIS: Australian Secret Intelligence Service.

ASW: Anti-Submarine Warfare.

AWACS: Airborne Warning and Control System.

CIA: Central Intelligence Agency.

DEFCON: Defense (Readiness) Condition.

DIA: Defense Intelligence Agency.

DNI: Director of National Intelligence.

ETDB: Expanded Target Data Bank.

EW: Electronic Warfare.

FBI: Federal Bureau of Investigation.

IAEA: International Atomic Energy Agency.

IC: Intelligence Community.

ICBM: Inter-Continental (Range) Ballistic Missile.

JCS: Joint Chiefs of Staff.

KT: kiloton (equivalent to 1,000 tons of high explosive).

LNO: Limited Nuclear Option.

LUA: Launch under Attack.

MAO: Major Attack Option.

NRO: National Reconnaissance Office.

NSA: National Security Agency.

NSC: National Security Council.

NPT: (Nuclear weapons) Non-Proliferation Treaty.

PD: Presidential Directive.

POTUS: President of the United States.

RAF: Royal Air Force.

SAS: Special Air Service.

SecDef: Secretary of Defense.

SIAC: Special Irukistan Analysis Center.

STRATCOM: Strategic Command.

SRF: Secure Reserve Force.

SPI: Strategic Paradigms Institute.

TNW: Tactical Nuclear Weapon.

UN: United Nations.

VP: Vice President.

WHCA: White House Communications Agency.

WMD: Weapon of Mass Destruction.

Selected Characters

Ackermann, Donald: president’s national security advisor.

Adakai: vice chairman of the JCS.

Booker, Chuck: the administration’s press secretary.

Bradley, Carol: vice president of the USA.

Carver, Ron: Republican rival to President Marriott.

Fernandez, Ricardo: head of strategic command.

Fordham, Ray: Australian intelligence agent.

Geski: head of Russian strategic rocket forces.

Hennessy, Harry: deputy director, DIA.

Higgins, Amber: acting director, DIA.

Johnson, Julie: initial secretary of state.

Kempler, Joshua: senator.

Kurgan, Greta: professor and head of the Special Irukistan Analysis Center, promoted to secretary of state.

Krasnov: chief of the Russian general staff.

Marriott: president of the USA.

McGuire, Tim: SIAC analyst.

Pakenham, Ted: director of national intelligence.

Rogers: a colonel in strategic command.

Rutherford, Stan: lead anchor for MAXX News.

Sanchez, Carlos: FBI agent.

Schroeder: replacement chairman of the JCS.

Smith, Kirsty: the president’s chief of staff.

Sokolov: Russian tactical nuclear weapons officer.

Siddler, Gerry: SIAC dirty tricks operative.

Slessor, Jack: commander of USS South Dakota.

Standish, Robert: secretary of defense.

Stanisky: president of Russia.

Taylor, Mack: initial chairman of the JCS.

Townsend, Mary: journalist at The Independent Times.

Tyndale, David: DIA officer.

Wong, Lenny: SIAC analyst.

Zargov: prime minister of Irukistan.

Chapter 1: THURSDAY, 15th AUGUST

What if the document leaked? Congress and overseas allies would go into shock and question the president’s sanity. The United Nations would go ballistic. Moscow and Beijing could lash out.

That wasn’t all that worried the Secretary of Defense, Robert Standish. His carefully cultivated reputation for providing judicious policy advice would be dragged through the mud. For the first time in his professional life, the distinguished public servant was in danger of becoming a victim of events.

He looked again at the matter-of-fact spreadsheet. It projected well over one hundred thousand casualties, including seventy thousand fatalities, mostly civilian. Damn, he thought, we wanted to make a big impression, but this will look awful. A few weeks earlier, the project seemed so convincing, even compelling. Not tonight, not looking at this stark document—and especially not with that exposé in The Independent Times and its poisonous allegations of a conspiracy.

Solving the problem required immediate intervention. Making the document disappear would be ideal, but it wasn’t a realistic option, at least not today. Instead, his focus shifted towards changing and reframing the numbers. That might take the edge off the looming public relations disaster. He would get the spreadsheet relabeled an ‘administrative draft outline’, then order an ‘enhanced evaluation’. Later, he would quietly shred the original.

With this bureaucratic vanishing act in mind, SecDef Standish looked across his desk to General Ricardo Fernandez, head of Strategic Command, determined to at least get the casualty calculation below a hundred thousand, believing five digits would look significantly better than six. So far, his efforts to coax the officer into revising the troublesome figures had failed. This was surprising, since the president had picked Standish to manage the Pentagon because of his adeptness in dealing with powerful people.

As a recent article in The Washington Post reminded readers, fifteen years of having occupied senior positions meant Standish had become one of DC’s leading players. He looked the part as well: late middle age, alert but calm eyes, neat silver-gray hair, lean build with no hint of a stoop, six-foot, invariably dressed in an immaculate dark suit with a crisp shirt, plain but expensive Italian tie and wearing perfectly proportioned, almost invisible wire-rimmed glasses. A stereotypical high-achieving Ivy Leaguer from privilege and old money who never put a foot wrong; the complete package, exuding gravitas. Few could take him on, no one could do so with genuine confidence.

Yet today, the general was not following the SecDef’s lead. Worrisome, although not a cause for excessive agitation. Standish simply needed to recalibrate. The circumstances now called for a sterner tone, instruction rather than persuasion. As always, he remained clinically self-controlled.

"General Fernandez, the numbers, especially for the Castigate-Rebuke target set, are to be revised. That’s a direct order. See if your team can shave off twenty-five percent, even more would be better. It’s not like I’m saying ‘make the numbers up.’ You’ve acknowledged that there’s a wide range of uncertainty. As I see it, there are lots of variables, all sorts of unknowns, projections which amount to guess work, etcetera. We’d all be better off if you simply adjusted toward the lower end of the range. Better that than emphasizing the higher number, a number which is, frankly, somewhat melodramatic and unhelpful."

General Fernandez initially looked as though he’d launch a spirited reply. It didn’t happen. Haggard from days of intense and disturbing work, the general’s demeanor gave way to resignation, Very well, Mr. Secretary. I’ll go back to my team, see if they can reprocess the data using a different model.

Thank you. An enhanced, innovative approach—offering a more positive outcome—is in the nation’s interest going forward at this challenging time.

Fernandez winced at his boss’s turn of phrase. In today’s context, he considered the language especially offensive. Euphemistic, jargon-ridden, management-speak crap, he thought, although a mixture of tiredness and what little remained of his respect for the chain of command kept the instinctive reaction unsaid.

As Fernandez got up to leave, SecDef Standish fired a precisely timed and well-weighted passing shot, its significance obvious to the general, as it would be to anyone versed in bureaucratic politics. One last thing, I see how onerous the task is. Let my people assist. My office will provide an explanatory preamble to the revised projection. It’ll help keep everything in perspective.

As STRATCOM’s senior officer made his way out of the Pentagon, his earlier resignation gave way to annoyance. By the time he’d reached the parking lot, worry had taken over. Operational commander or not, his lines were being re-written on the run by a civilian. More importantly, strip away the SecDef’s bureaucratese, and the fact remained that the country they’d both sworn to serve had planned a terrible deed. It now faced the possibility of dreadful consequences. As he reached his car, Fernandez threw up.

Chapter 2: TUESDAY, 23rd JULY

Three weeks before the SecDef’s testy meeting with the head of STRATCOM, Major David Tyndale neared the half-way point of his shift at the Special Irukistan Analysis Center, or SIAC, an obscure sub-branch of the National Security Council. Tyndale opened the latest file from the CIA, drawn to a two-page update on Irukistan’s chemical industry. It was dry reading and hardly revealing. Still, he had instructions to look out for this type of thing.

Muttering, At last, one for the psychos, he dropped the report in the ‘to be actioned’ tray. From there, it would go to the ‘Hot Zone’.

It had been another uneventful day. Even so, his workmates buzzed around with almost juvenile excitement. An atmosphere of near constant but apparently meaningless enthusiasm characterized the place, which both bemused and irritated him. Nothing wrong with being keen, he thought, but there’s something weird about this.

That was one reason for the relief Tyndale felt to be on a temporary posting. He’d been called-in a week earlier to replace an office regular requiring a knee reconstruction following over-energetic attendance at a holistic fitness and wellness course. SIAC needed to borrow an analyst from the Defense Intelligence Agency, or DIA, and Tyndale had drawn the short straw.

So be it. Despite thinking it odd work for an officer of his considerable experience, he simply got on with it. Unlike many of his colleagues, Tyndale never made a fuss about jobs that didn’t advance his résumé. This attitude had had a mixed impact on his career. The only negative comments in his commanding officers’ annual appraisals had been that Tyndale seemed content to underachieve. He was also modest and allergic to networking, which happened to be the biggest game in Washington. There’d long been an implicit consensus among colleagues that, hard-worker or not, Tyndale lacked ambition.

The major knew that the army didn’t tag him as a high flyer. He could decipher the institutional tea leaves. The fact that a few years earlier an air force general had accused Tyndale of insubordination did not improve his prospects either. Not that he worried about the low expectations. So what if the army didn’t consider him cut-out for bigger things? He agreed, never imagining himself climbing to general. As for the alleged insubordination, his conscience remained clear. He’d found an aspect of nuclear policy troubling and had said so, during a planning workshop and in writing, using correct channels and polite language. Tyndale didn’t regret upsetting the well-positioned senior officer. On the contrary, he was relieved to get the concern off his chest.

The thirty-six-year-old felt at ease with himself. He’d do another year in the army, while seriously assessing the pros and cons of either applying for promotion or moving into the civilian world. Perhaps, he’d have a go at risk assessment or maybe even teaching, although that last option would dumbfound his family and higher-flying friends.

***

The Special Irukistan Analysis Center was managed by Professor Greta Kurgan. Major Tyndale was familiar with the name. They had overlapping professional interests, though he doubted his temporary boss realized it, because Tyndale’s previous work had been highly classified.

Following orders to report to SIAC, he brushed up on Kurgan’s career, consulting every intelligence officer’s best friend, Google. Most of the information, he already knew. Kurgan, fifty-eight years old, had been suggested as a deputy head of the Pentagon, an idea quickly shot down as it became clear that she’d never get senate confirmation. Too tarnished by her role in the 2003 Iraq business and its aftermath.

On that issue, she was forever associated with a quote from British General Smyth-Robert’s memoirs describing her as the stupidest official I’ve ever worked with. The respected, normally temperate Smyth-Robert had a bad experience working with Kurgan in 2003-4. Compounding the impact of his best-selling book’s description, he’d blurted out the derogatory phrase at a seminar examining why the post-invasion operation had turned into shambles. Veterans of the Iraq disaster knew the British officer’s uncharacteristic remark wasn’t about Kurgan’s academic capacities, it was aimed at her poor real-world judgment. She simply couldn’t read what was going on in the field, despite blustering claims to have an intuitive understanding of geopolitics and the ‘Arab Street’.

On the other hand, although Kurgan’s fingerprints were all over the Iraq mess, she had developed a knack of slipping away from responsibility, blaming everyone else for the tactical stuff-ups, while taking the credit for what she called necessary, even heroic, strategic policy. Kurgan was thick-skinned and persistent. Within a few years, and along with many others implicated in the decision to invade, she had clawed her way back into public life as an analyst and prominent commentator on international security. To this clique of academics, officials, and news media personalities, being wrong was no disqualification from expert status.

Kurgan’s earlier spell in academia had signaled the doggedness that would later serve her well. She had been ranked right up there as one of the best. She’d got her PhD before she was twenty-seven, and her thesis, Wasted Power: Lessons from the Carter Presidency, had attracted good reviews in leading journals. She was accomplished and habitually hard-working, even driven. It was no surprise that she had advanced so far so fast, with a succession of promotions.

Not that Kurgan stayed too long in one place. Promotions were to somewhere else, never within her existing workplace. Shifting from academia, she was slotted into a position at the Defense Department. That was Kurgan’s base for two energetic years, it was how she got embroiled in the Iraq mess. She then went through the revolving door that led into the world of think tanks, specifically to the conservative Strategic Paradigms Institute, better known as SPI. There, she edited a report on The Salience of Great Power Credibility. The work required collaboration with eight leading strategic policy analysts and provided the perfect platform for making a mark in the right circles.

Unkind observers remarked that Kurgan’s rise through the ranks reflected more than intellect. While climbing academia’s greasy pole, she’d been abrasive to peers and overweening—sometimes, downright bullying—towards underlings. The unpleasantness seemed inextricably linked to a type of competitiveness. Even some of Kurgan’s supervisors found her off-putting, despite the deference she displayed to superiors. They recognized that her winner-take-all and obsessively calculating attitude could be needlessly unsettling in the workplace.

So, after a short honeymoon period, workmates found Kurgan alienating. Her tone-deafness to the rhythm of whatever department she was in, along with her kiss-up, kick-down form of careerism, generated widespread relief whenever she applied for a new job, or announced she was moving on. If cementing this relief by facilitating her speedy departure called for colleagues to puff-up her references, so be it.

Of course, Kurgan had her admirers. Donald Ackermann, the president’s National Security Advisor, was among them. Years before, while SPI’s Research Director, Ackermann had noticed Kurgan’s toughness and refusal to suffer fools gladly. He saw her as a can-do academic. Applied to anyone else, he would have considered the term oxymoronic, but in Kurgan he spotted an aggressive go-getter and liked what he saw. Furthermore, her ideological leanings were a good fit with SPI. Apart from right-of-center political views, they also shared a belief that the US was drifting along without purpose, its power being squandered by liberals in pointless, half-hearted, peace-keeping operations and wasteful ineffective institutions like the UN. All for an ungrateful global audience. The pair sarcastically labeled Democrats’ foreign and defense policies as ‘international social work’. The sneer proved to be a useful political device, playing well to SPI’s conservative donors and sponsors.

Kurgan and Ackermann also had similar ideas on how Washington should regroup, shed its internationalist ‘do-gooder’ baggage, and strengthen the country’s power to better assert its interests. That’s why Ackermann had invited Kurgan to join the SPI team. Once she was on board, he took an even keener interest in her quick mind, impatience with academic orthodoxy and increasingly incisive, even acerbic, critiques of the State Department’s stance on foreign relations. Kurgan was so unrelentingly hostile towards State’s efforts that within the department she became known as ‘The Wicked Witch of the West’.

So, despite having generated considerable bad feelings, Kurgan found an influential Washington niche. Furthermore, because many of her ideological associates often struggled to articulate ideas as fluently as her, they naturally considered the Professor to be brilliant. The next Kissinger, according to some.

For conservative allies, she could see through a tangled policy issue, produce a succinct summary, and deliver a sharply crafted recommendation. Alternatively, she could slice up a bureaucrat’s considered, but overly nuanced and verbose position paper. Kurgan could also roast the latest Democrat talking point from regular spots on shock-jock radio and appearances on the MAXX News Network.

In other words, despite her tarnished reputation, Professor Greta Kurgan was a formidable political weapon. Ackermann realized she’d make a valuable ally and persuaded the president to get her on-board the new administration. Ackermann wanted Kurgan to report directly to himself, somewhere mid-level and beyond reach of direct congressional over-sight. He had the perfect slot: heading-up SIAC’s small office.

***

Kurgan’s briefing to Major Tyndale a few days earlier had started professionally and politely. Then, towards the end, a patronizing and dismissive tone surfaced. His new boss told Tyndale that he was to filter classified papers for anything suggesting hostile intent by Irukistan, but that the more interesting interpretive work was not his province. That, he was brusquely informed, was for the specially vetted and cleared senior analysts.

Tyndale thought reinterpreting already processed strategic intelligence on Irukistan was strange. Although the troublesome Central Asian nation had long been a source of concern to Washington, it was unusual to have a stand-alone outfit focusing on a single country, especially when the State Department, CIA, and Pentagon already had desks covering the case. Few other third-rate countries were scrutinized by so many professionally suspicious spooks.

Kurgan wrapped up her summary of Tyndale’s tasks with an almost curt, Any questions?

He replied how anyone in his position would have: What about the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the State Department? How do their assessments fit in here?

Kurgan realized the question was code for, ‘Why don’t you trust DIA, CIA and the rest?’ She knew the matter would come up sooner or later. Without missing a beat, she offered the standard answer, The president wants a fresh set of eyes to go over the intel and present him with an appraisal based on the merits of the case, rather than rehashing bureaucratic groupthink. It’s just another input for policy makers to consider. For years, we have been stuck in a rut in our dealings with Irukistan and the boss wants to figure a way out.

Tyndale’s cubicle was in a large sorting area leading off the main entrance lobby. Going further into the building, on the far side of his workplace, was a door labeled ‘Research Section & Director’s Office’. It led to what colleagues colloquially referred to as the Hot Zone. This inner sanctum housed the director, two administrative personnel, two senior analysts—Tim McGuire and Lenny Wong—and a ‘special consultant’—Gerry Siddler.

Tyndale didn’t have access to the Hot Zone, that required clearance above his current, standard ‘Top Secret’ rating. Entry required the relevant ESCI, or Especially Sensitive Compartmented Information tag, which in this case meant only personnel with ‘Top Secret: Orange Glow’ could pass the door. The fact that Washington had become so politicized and was leaking like the proverbial sieve, together with scandals like WikiLeaks and Israeli and Chinese penetration of the Pentagon, meant that increasing layers of compartmentalization had been introduced into the security system. In any case, standard ‘Top Secret’ no longer carried the cachet of the good old days. To be seen as anyone on the inner, one needed to be ‘Top Secret-plus’. Although SIAC kept out of the spotlight, it fit the classification status bill, because the president’s national security advisor had signed-off on only eight people with ‘Orange Glow’—himself, the SecDef, and the Hot Zone personnel.

Tyndale knew plenty about classification levels. He had drafted guidelines on the subject for the joint chiefs of staff, or JCS, as a spin-off from his days working on a closely-held review of nuclear strategy. At that time, he’d been cleared for ‘Top Secret: Primal’ (the details of nuclear strike operations), ‘Top Secret: Sigma-B’ (mid-level nuclear weapon design information) and ‘Top Secret: Scrabble’ (the generation of higher than top-secret code words). Just why a data filtering center would need a higher level of security clearance than America’s plans for World War Three was beyond him. Nevertheless, he didn’t read too much into the puzzle, assuming that the over-blown classification simply reflected Kurgan’s conspicuous self-importance.

***

Unlike Tyndale, the two senior analysts who disappeared each day into the Hot Zone did not perform simple filing tasks. McGuire and Wong were both in their late thirties, buddies since their days in the US Air Force. Both were military geeks, technocrats rather than pilots. Kurgan thought of the pair as Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Although bright, they had limited interest in the big picture stuff; they were obsessed with technical and tactical details. That was OK for Kurgan as she had the strategic part of the operation covered. The ex-air force boys had a different, more specific, and quite rare set of skills. Skills vital to the success of her pet project.

Gerry ‘Geronimo’ Siddler, the mysteriously labeled special consultant, was a rather different character. Sixty years old, his expertise lay in bugging, small-arms, explosives and an innate mastery of the emotional levers needed to manipulate persons of interest. Siddler was a one-man dirty-tricks department. Kurgan employed Siddler for his street cunning, contacts on both sides of the law-enforcement fence, his connections with the Irukistani exile community living in North America and Europe and his singular combination of loyalty and absence of scruples.

Siddler was ex-CIA. It was his duties at the Agency that opened doors to Irukistan and its diaspora. Back in the day, one of his jobs was to recruit assets, meaning establishing relationships with people who provided information or influenced events. He still had an active and impressive list, ranging from an officer in the Republican Guard who supplied juicy sexual gossip about a member of the Irukistani cabinet, to most of the senior players in various overseas opposition groups.

He had fifteen people on his books. Some of their scraps of information were nonsense, most of it was more-or-less true, but trivial and some of it was invaluable. He used this information to puff up his importance to Kurgan. After all, he often said to himself. I’ve got bills to pay just like anyone else. Siddler had few qualms when it came to offering Kurgan the sort of intel the SIAC director wanted to hear, even if it was light on verification. Adroit at massaging ambiguous data into firmer sounding intelligence, Siddler instinctively understood his boss wouldn’t mind this approach. He already knew Kurgan didn’t really give a damn about details. Or rather, she wanted the appearance of detail to fill out her reports to Ackermann, making them seem authoritative, but she wasn’t concerned if supposed facts lacked proper verification. Siddler realized that the key mission was to dig-up support for what Kurgan kept referring to as the ‘narrative’ underpinning her precious project.

This was not the limit to Siddler’s accomplishments. He’d also been a successful conflict zone entrepreneur. Where others feared to step in to make a buck, Siddler, after due risk assessment, would take advantage of the extra commissions to be had. Some deals were modest, twenty thousand dollars here and ten thousand there, hardly worth the effort. Other business arrangements had been more impressive. Especially that time in 2002 when he hit the jackpot with the Australian Grain Board. The AGB had scored a lucrative deal to supply Saddam Hussein’s Iraq with two billion dollars’ worth of foodstuffs. Associated shenanigans involved Australian officials agreeing to divert about two hundred million dollars’ worth of illegal kick-backs to the odious government in Baghdad. The maneuver busted a UN effort to keep foreign currency out of the regime’s hands. For facilitating the scheme, Siddler raked off about one percent from the kickbacks. His bank account read an extra $2,100,000 from that one venture. The dirty money got channeled into off-shore bank accounts in Argentina, Brazil, and Belize. Siddler then swiftly burnt the paper trail.

His accountancy bonfire was necessary because Siddler was about to join a combined CIA-special forces team preparing for the 2003 invasion of the same country he and the AGB had previously helped prop-up. But, as they say, when one door closes, another opens. Indeed, the 2003 adventure greatly boosted his unofficial superannuation arrangements. His keenness for action and