Thanks to CajunBear73, OechsnerC, and everyone else for their reviews, commentary and input.

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Chapter 29: No Nuclear Use Threshold

Portland National Capital Region

Joint Government of the Pacific

The Secretary looked out the window. The trees of the front lawn had turned glorious shades of orange and red, and their leaves were positively glowing in the dawn light. A steady stream of traffic moved smoothly, efficiently, the midmorning snarl still an hour away. The city beyond thrummed with life, commerce, and smog.

He sighed as he contemplated his fruitless meeting with the Indian representative at the British Embassy. With no formal diplomatic relations with the Republic of India since the Bengali partition and concurrent nationalization of Pacifican assets, diplomacy with India was a slow, messy affair.

Oh, who was he kidding? Trying to negotiate with India and the Soviet Union simultaneously was a slow, messy affair. The two communist allies hadn't even bothered to create a unified negotiating position on the entire crisis.

And it had finally gone nuclear. Sure, the only casualties from the nukes had been half a dozen Scud missiles in flight, but that hadn't changed the news that was carrying headlines across the nation. The Secretary's eyes followed a newspaper delivery van as it scooted down the street.

A small crowd of people were milling in front of the wrought-iron fence, some with placards held high.

Kill or Be Killed. Nuke 'em till they glow. A Chief Protects His Own. Strike First. Commie Stooge. Traitor.

The last two irked him so. He had not spent his entire Provincial career running against closet socialists to be called a Commie Stooge. He turned to exit the office – the view of the gardens from his own office would be much better for his blood pressure. The door suddenly opened, and a ceremonial Marine guard ushered in the National Security Advisor.

"Richard, how did the Indians take the proposal?" The Advisor took a seat, and the Secretary poured her a cup of coffee.

"Another flat-out rejection. They've convinced themselves that developing nuclear weapons is an inalienable right of sovereign nations, that we should not have to 'guarantee' their nuclear program, and so our guarantee isn't a concession at all." He sighed. "I guess it makes a kind of sense, but…"

The Advisor tilted her head. "And the Soviets?"

The Secretary shook his head, causing his jowls to shift. "They want our nukes out of Europe. They might be willing to settle for Turkey, though."

The Advisor seethed. No. Frickkin'. Way.

She shrugged. "Well, at least they can agree that they don't want to remove their nukes. We've got news coming out of Europe and India, all of it ugly." She took a sip of coffee. "There was a ten-minute firefight in Berlin last night. Two dead, six wounded. Everyone's on edge there, and GSFG's holding a major military exercise. But the kicker is the SIGINT from India. Troposcatter intercepts between Soviet rocket jockeys and higher headquarters. They're not using Indian landlines."

The Secretary gritted his teeth. "What's got their goat? A first strike?"

"We've corroborated from other sources, but reports indicate a split between Indian and Soviet intentions. And other communications are hodgepodge requests for security troops, supplies… someone's running scared."

"What kind of split?" The Secretary hushed. "Do the Indians want to launch? Can they launch at all?"

"We… are no longer sure who's really in charge of the missiles. It's not even clear that it's the Prime Minister who wants to launch anymore." The Advisor whispered. "The Indian counterattack's stalling - badly, and it's getting very unhealthy in New Delhi."

"That fast?! That's not good news, isn't it?" The Secretary shook his head.

The Indian Scuds had been launched as part of a major Indian counterattack, with the apparent goal being the reclamation of the disputed territory. The failure of this attack would put a lot of pressure on the Indians to escalate – even when it was crystal clear that global thermonuclear war would be suicidal for India while being 'merely' severely damaging to the Joint Government.

"Nope."

"Well, at least they're not having more fun than we are." The Secretary gestured out the window at the growing crowd of increasingly concerned citizens.

Chants began to come in through the window.

Nuke them! Nuke them! Nuke them! Nuke them!

The Secretary sighed. "You know this means we're going for Tutti Frutti, right?" Confusion and nuclear weapons were a really, really bad combination.

The Advisor nodded. "Given the escalation, the confusion in the Soviet nuclear command in India, and the escalating risk of an accidental or unauthorized launch? Yes. Operation Tutti Frutti is the least escalatory option available." She handed him a report.

The Secretary frowned. "Any bigger options?"

"Tutti Frutti involves massed coordinated airstrikes from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean. How much bigger do you want to go?"

"You know what I mean." The Secretary stared flatly at the Advisor.

The Advisor chuckled. "The Secretary of Defense advises me that we can pick big nuclear, small nuclear, or non-nuclear. What else do you want, the Drago sundae?" The Advisor chuckled.

The Secretary ran through the permutations of the plan he had been presented. Options ranged from strikes just against short-range missiles to strikes against all missiles to strikes against the Indian nuclear program… all the way up to attacks on Indian infrastructure, industry, and urban floor space.

His eyes went wide as he studied the report. The consensus position had changed. It was all there, spelled out in black-and-white, in neat little columns in cost-benefit matrices, line graphs, and scenario trees. "Janet, did you read the report?"

"Just the gist." The Advisor started to leaf through the report, and grew quiet. "Oh."

The President walked into the room, a grim look on his face and bags under his eyes. He'd practically aged a decade in the past two weeks. Members of the Executive Committee followed him in.

"Mr. President! We need to make a decision. Fast." The Secretary leaned forward as the President collapsed into a chair. "It is the collective opinion of myself, Janet, the Director of State Intelligence and most of us…"

"All of us!" The Treasury man piped.

"Okay, all of us …that that the present situation has become untenable. The Soviet and Indian reaction to the failure of the Indian counteroffensive and use of nuclear anti-ballistic missiles has been uncompromising, and there are signs of confusion and panic in the Soviet nuclear missile command in India." The Secretary proceeded to outline the situation.

"We advise implementing Tutti Frutti. Now."

The President looked nonplussed. "Eh. While you people were assessing the strategic situation, our friends in Congress practically kidnapped me… for a long talk." He shrugged.

The Secretary turned pale.

"Relax. I knew it would take a few hours for the picture to clarify, and I had the football next to me at all times, so I let them waste my time." He sighed. "Our friends in Congress… can no longer ignore our 'inaction in the face of this escalating crisis'."

"I thought I was going to be impeached before the day was out, and Ike thrown out with me until they found someone who would push all the buttons." He shrugged again. "Thinking about how to weasel out of it with emergency war powers hurt my head."

"But now… I can stay in office and uphold my oath to act in the best interests of this nation at the same time! For now naked violence is finally more profitable than negotiation." He chuckled darkly. "Okay. Tutti Frutti. Big nukes, small nukes, or no nukes?"

"It's a sliding scale of escalation risk versus effectiveness, time, and casualties. We expect the Indians to use nuclear SAMs against our strike force; using nukes runs the risk of Indian nuclear attacks on our ground forces." The Secretary opened his report. "But the latest graphs aren't straight – it's more of an S-shape…"

The Secretary of Defense put down the phone. The door opened, and a military attaché walked in.

"No nukes then. We'll have to risk missing a few missiles." The President declared.

The attaché spoke. "We would advise against that, sir. Tutti Frutti no-nukes will require twelve hours to generate the necessary forces. Tutti Frutti small-nukes, which is our favored option, can be launched in as little as two hours. And I would like to remind you, sir, the forces involved in Tutti Frutti no-nukes are an order of magnitude greater in scope – instead of a few dozen supersonic bombers, we're looking at hundreds of strike and escort aircraft. Losses will be correspondingly greater – especially against nuclear SAMs and nuclear air-to-air missiles. Tutti-Frutti big-nukes, our most responsive option, is a massed IRBM counterforce strike, with which we can eliminate the Indian nuclear deterrent and associated facilities in under fifteen minutes should the need arise, at the cost of expending five hundred one-megatom missile warheads. We believe the latter option to be grossly escalatory at this point in time."

The President shook his head. "If I recall, the small-nukes option will involve the detonation of up to three hundred one-kiloton bombs on Indian soil. That's… unacceptable as a first move."

"The missile sites are a mix of soft and semi-hardened sites. We're talking dirt embankments for most of them; concrete shelters for some. With precision-guided nuclear weapons, groundbursts up to 0.5 kilotons will ensure destruction of the target set. In addition to the main heat and blast effects, prompt neutron radiation effects and fallout will be substantial; but the fallout effects will lie primarily with short-term radiation sickness over small-to-medium-sized areas – think a small town - in the short term. Fallout effects will last two weeks tops, except for relatively small hotspots around the craters, which will likely remain unsuitable for long-term habitation for some decades unless remediation measures – like scooping out all the dirt and burying it – are performed."

The attaché pulled out a diagram. "We anticipate… ten thousand civilian injuries and deaths at most. We've already inflicted that level of civilian casualties in West Bengal over the past two weeks of bombing. Long term effects, based on data from Japan, will be minimal. Perhaps a three percent absolute increase in cancer rates only among the ten thousand people who got radiation sickness in the initial attack."

The Secretary's sighed. "If I may, sir… an analysis of the enemy's pattern of behavior suggests that they are likely to escalate regardless of what we do. They blew up the crisis every time we tried to compromise. Stealing a march on them might be just what the doctor ordered."

The President's jaw was set hard. "This will irrevocably poison relations between India and the Pacific for two hundred years. If nothing else, we will be blamed for every goddamned cancer case and birth defect in the subcontinent for generations to come, whatever the science says!"

The Treasury man spoke. "Now hold on there. We dropped two dozen nukes on the Japanese, and, well, we're best buddies now! What was that, two dozen twenty-kiloton nukes… five hundred kilotons of kaboom? Here we're talking about barely three hundred kilotons total!"

"Less, actually." The attaché raised a finger. "The nukes are adjustable – what we call dial-a-yield. We can dial 'em down to 100-tons TNT-equivalent. Baby nukes. No bigger than a B-52 raid. Thirty kilotons total. By tonnage, we've dropped more bombs over the past two weeks."

The President looked somewhat sick. "We occupied Japan for a decade, and reshaped their entire society – of course they're our best buds! And they started the war by invading us, fair and square – so we were well within rights to finish it with extreme prejudice! Loosing nukes on India – even tiny ones - would be un-Pacifican!"

The Secretary of Defense knelt down. "Mr. President, consider this. Like the Secretary said, they'll probably drop nukes on the Airborne whether or not we use nukes first – they're probably making arrangements for it right now. What happens then? We nuke what's left of their arsenal? We take the punch and withdraw? We feed the Airborne into a nuclear meatgrinder? We order the Drago Sundae? Either way, Pacifican nukes – big ones - will be going off on Indian soil. Might as well roll the dice, and nip this situation in the bud." He sighed. "And since we'd be flying in low-level tactical bombers, their nuclear SAMs will be going off at low level even if our bombs were all non-nuclear. If they wanted to, they'd blame us for that, too."

The President looked up. "The Soviet reaction…"

The Advisor scoffed as she closed her copy of the report. "The Soviets are probably as worried about losing control of their nukes as we are. It hardly makes sense for them to escalate if we solve their problem for them. I say screw it. Small nukes all the way."

"This also has a good chance of shocking the Soviets into pulling back from the brink." The Secretary added.

The President gulped. "That's what the other guys thought when they tested that nuclear missile! Or when they shot our men! Or when they, god forbid, launched a senseless counteroffensive! And this will play horribly to the world press! We need to contain the Soviet Union. We cannot afford to lose credibility with the Third World for decades – possibly centuries to come!"

"India left the Third World when they sided with the Soviets! The Soviet Union gave nuclear weapons to a nation with evidently poor decision-making! They are reaping what they have sown, and setting an example for the ages!" The Secretary pointed out. "And like you said yourself: We can always win the escalation!" He paused. "It is rational for us to escalate! Right now, it's the least costly option!"

The President looked around the room. The men and women of the Executive Committee stared back at him. He stood, and looked at the very large crowd of concerned citizens that had now gathered beyond the fence – and the bustling city beyond.

The Secretary walked up next to him. "Mr. President. I know we both viscerally distrust the cliché where the hard decision is the right one. We saw where that sort of thinking got the bad guys in World War II - damned Japanese and Germans decided to roll dice and fight unwinnable wars instead of capitulating."

"But it's different this time – or at least, it looks that way, I guess. Winning through nuclear war was always, on some level, part of the plan. We've actually crunched the numbers – or at least tried our best. This is as by-the-book as it gets." He glanced at the President.

The President gritted his teeth. "Tell the generals to prepare their forces for Tutti Frutti. Small nukes. Prepare to contact the Soviet and Indian representatives for negotiations immediately after the strike concludes."

He dismissed the Committee, and the attachés left hurriedly as long-standing plans were hastily set in motion.

The President sighed, and grumbled. "We miscalculated after all. I just hate that the damned idiots who jump at shadows think they were right. And how the demagogues of the future will spin this."

The Secretary shook his head. "The war's not over yet, sir. We'll just have to… see how it goes."

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Author's note: Judging whether the decision-making was sound or not is an exercise for the fictional historian and, of course, the reader. We'll see what happens. *Author laughs maniacally*