Chapter 638 Electronic Reconnaissance
Later that day.
Across the Pacific, Arlington County, Virginia.
Defense Secretary William Cohen, who has become a veteran in the past two years of work, came to the office and began to routinely review the official business that needed to be handled that day, and then asked his secretary to arrange the schedule.
Thanks to the series of scandals caused by the Donkey Party president in the past two years, although he is still the only Elephant Party member among the major ministers, his living environment has improved significantly.
They even gradually began to compete for dominance in national defense affairs.
Of course, in the late 1990s, the United States, which had just won the Cold War, was at its peak.
When the cake is big enough, the differences between the two parties are not big enough to break up.
For Cohen, compared to the almost lonely state when he first took office, now he has basically completed the replacement of the important people around him, and is able to handle various tasks in the ministry with ease without having to do everything personally. The pressure naturally decreased.
Even his complexion is much rosier than before.
"A Chinese delegation will visit next week, which will last for nine days, including a visit to the Army Replacement School at Fort Benning. They need to be prepared to attend and hold talks..."
"In the afternoon, they will have a meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the The President's National Security Advisor discussed the specific details of Operation Desert Fox..."
"There will also be a press conference on the recent situation in the Gulf region in the evening..."
Items 1 and 3 A secretary will help him prepare all the details for the first job, and he only needs to read the memo. Only the second job requires him to go to the White House in the afternoon.
Although some quarrels with several other people were inevitable, there was no disagreement between the Donkey and Elephant parties regarding the matter of launching a large-scale air raid in West Asia.
Cohen hummed a tune happily.
It seems like today is another relatively relaxing day.
He poured himself a glass of sparkling water, then sat back behind his desk and prepared to process several documents on the desk that needed to be corrected.
However, at this moment, the intercom phone next to him suddenly rang.
His new secretary’s voice sounded on the receiver:
"Mr. Secretary, Ms. Henrion is outside."
"Ask her in."
Therese Henrion, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).
She does not take a position between the donkey and the elephant. Of course, it can be said that her position is flexible and she is always on the winning side
In today's context, she is naturally inclined to help Cohen.
"Good morning, Mr. Minister."
Henriang held a stack of documents in his hands and sat directly on the chair opposite Cohen after entering the door.
"Good morning, madam."
While greeting the latter, he poured another glass of sparkling water and placed it in front of Henrion, and at the same time saw the document in the other person's hand:
< br>“Is there something new happening in the Gulf area?”
Cohen asked logically, given the content of this afternoon's defense meeting.
After receiving the support of the Defense Intelligence Agency, he can see a lot of useful information earlier than the White House and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and make effective responses in advance.
"Unfortunately, the direction of the bay is very calm."
Henry Ang shook his head, then put the information on the desk and pushed it forward in front of Cohen:
"It's news about the South China Sea. I think you might be interested."
"South China Sea..."
Cohen said as he opened the folder, but the contents were obviously not something that could be read in a few minutes.
In the past, he had never quite understood why intelligence documents had to be written in such a long and unfocused way.
Later I realized that this was Henrion’s core competitiveness that allowed him to have both sides for a long time -
It was impossible for the administrative officers to have time to read the content word for word. Even if they did, Complicated technical terminology is also deliberately added so that outsiders can only have a partial understanding of it.
So the conclusions therein depend a lot on how she reports it.
Cohen also tried to find some key points on his own, but even though he had been working as a defense chief for two years, he was still confused by "The bigger the fish, the bigger the thorns, the bigger the thorns, the less meat, and the less meat." The less, the smaller the fish, so the bigger the fish, the smaller the fish." This magical logic is confusing.
He can only be glad that the other party is at least on his side for now:
"So... it has something to do with China?"
"Actually, it is from Annan's side. As for whether the news that came through has anything to do with China...it’s hard to say.”
Henry picked up the cup and took a sip to soak in the water:
"Our intelligence officer there reported that last week, an Annan frigate encountered a mysterious voyage."
< br>“When the GPS system was turned on throughout the entire journey, there was a huge confusion in the satellite positioning data and magnetic compass pointing.”
“There happened to be a group of media personnel on the ship at the time, the reporter and the captain. All the reports tend to be a supernatural phenomenon similar to the Bermuda Triangle.”
At this point, she didn’t even stop herself and let out a chuckle.
The defense minister opposite also couldn't help laughing.
The legendary Bermuda Triangle is right next to Miami. With their status, they know that almost all the legends are just fabricated by the media.
“So, does Hanoi also believe this rhetoric?” Cohen’s tone was somewhat contemptuous.
But Henry shook his head:
"Of course not. This kind of rhetoric is just to deceive ordinary people."
"They tend to think that the GPS system has been interfered with in some way, causing the navigation route to deviate. This is also consistent with the conclusion speculated by our intelligence personnel. Consistent.”
Cohen wanted to refute, but was blocked by the other party before he could speak:
“Because around the same time that the problem occurred in that report, we had a Helena. The nuclear submarine was in the nearby waters and happened to make position corrections at the depth of the periscope, and also discovered some similar anomalies. Of course, they were far less exaggerated than what the Annan people reported."
Cohen, who had been smiling just now, had a frozen expression. On the face:
"How is it possible?"
"The Navy told me before that although the GPS terminals we provided to Annan only have rough capture permissions, they are all equipped with directional antennas, unless the Russians use their satellites Send the same signal... But their satellites should no longer cover the equator..."
The preset frequency band of the GLONASS system is almost exactly the same as that of GPS, so in theory it can be disguised as the latter ability.
But the Russians clearly have no motive to do so at the moment.
Because of the existence of directional antennas, only signals from the upper cone area will be received, so they will not be affected by interference from other angles at all...
"What the Navy said is not wrong, Mr. Minister."
Henry Ang shrugged:
"Actually, there may be many reasons for interference, but based on our past experience, Experience shows that the positioning error caused by pure environmental factors will not be this large."
"So the intelligence department still thinks that someone is doing something wrong?"
The defense minister felt that the other party's statement was inconsistent with the intelligence. The document is somewhat similar, going around and around but not giving a firm conclusion.
Highlight a nonstick pan.
Sure enough, Henrion immediately shook his head:
“This is the speculation of intelligence personnel, and it cannot be regarded as our official conclusion.”
“So, this is also my conclusion. The reason why I came to you today.”
Cohen did not reply and just made a gesture to let her continue.
"I hope you can apply to mobilize a few electronic reconnaissance planes to check the situation nearby."
"Hiss..."
This straightforward request made Cohen immediately take a breath of air. .
According to the regulations on paper, the Minister of Defense is a civilian official who is in charge of administrative affairs. In principle, he does not have the power to command and mobilize the military.
But we all know that the so-called "cannot in principle" actually means can.
So Cohen must have something up his sleeve.
But he also had his own concerns, so he did not immediately give a positive answer:
"Sending a plane over... the risk is a bit too high..."
"Operation Desert Storm is coming soon, the Balkans are not clean, and there will be a Chinese delegation coming to visit next week. At this juncture... it is not suitable to do such a thing..."
Cohen was born in a think tank Although the main purpose of institutions is to make money, the think tanks of the 1970s and 1980s were somewhat genuine.
So he knew that it was best not to make too many enemies at the same time.
However, Henrion disagreed:
"Mr. Minister, you are a little too cautious."
She shook her head with a smile and said:
"At the beginning of the year before last, didn't we already prove that they were just bluffing? In just two years, nothing can change."
"And when you were at the press conference last month, didn't you also say that we could win two wars in two different locations around the world?"
"That was me..."
< br>Cohen almost blurted out that it was to fool outsiders, how could you really believe it?
But then he realized that the other party was deliberately blocking his mouth.
If you think deeper...
Then the real purpose of sending an electronic reconnaissance plane there may not be just to investigate the cause of interference to the GPS signal.
But thinking about it, due to Henrion's relatively special status, it was not easy for him to refuse the opponent directly.
Otherwise, it is difficult to guarantee whether we will be able to obtain useful information in advance in the future.
But if we really want to mobilize a large number of troops at this juncture, that's not the case.
After some struggle, he decided to find a moderate solution:
"We have an Air Force Intelligence Squadron in Misawa with a strength of 2,000 people and equipped with two EP3E Aries. Although we cannot guarantee 24-hour rotation, it should be able to meet your needs."
(End of this chapter) )