Act of War - Brad Thor Page 0,3

in the 1990s. By abandoning the traditional concept of warfare, Colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui completely reinvented China’s view of warfare and of itself.”

“How so?”

“In their doctrine of unrestricted warfare, Liang and Xiangsui rejected the idea that China was required to meet the U.S. on any conventional battlefield. Why fight in a manner in which you know you’ll lose? Instead, the colonels proposed that China only fight battles they knew they could win.

“Merciless, unconventional attacks are at the very heart of their philosophy. In fact, Colonel Liang has been quoted as saying that the first rule of unrestricted warfare is that there are no rules. Anything goes. Bombs in movie theaters, collapsing America’s electrical grid, taking down the Internet, poisoning our food or water supplies, dirty bombs, chemical or biological attacks—nothing is beyond the pale in their new philosophy.

“It also gives China the edge. We’ll never see them coming. There won’t be mass troop mobilizations or anything like that. In fact, unrestricted warfare renders planes, soldiers, and tanks almost totally unnecessary in the traditional sense.”

“But someone still needs to carry out the attacks,” the President’s Chief of Staff interjected.

Esposito nodded. “Correct. While the PLA has millions of hackers who can mask the origin of their cyberattacks, physical attacks on the United States are different. That’s why Liang and Xiangsui advocated funding, equipping, and deploying third parties whenever possible. They singled out Muslim terrorists as an excellent proxy.”

Everyone around the table looked at one another.

“Understand that the key for China is to never be attached to any attack. A third party, that probably wouldn’t even know it was doing China’s bidding, affords China plausible deniability. The world would have a perfect bad guy to blame and China would be able to avoid any international repercussions. For any of our allies to take action, there would have to be rock-solid proof that China was behind the attack on the United States.”

“And even then,” the Vice President added, “some of our allies wouldn’t have the stomach for it. It’d be the start of World War III.”

“That’s what China is counting on,” Esposito replied.

The Director of Homeland Security shook his head. “I still can’t believe China would risk everything to attack us. What for?”

Esposito looked at the President, who nodded for her to respond.

“The Chinese are extremely deliberate and pragmatic,” she said. “They can see the writing before anyone else has even seen the wall. Mr. Director, they’re dying. Their air is polluted. Their water is polluted. They have cut down their timber and have mined all of their minerals. Less than 5 percent of China has arable land left suitable for agriculture. The investments they made in North Africa have been a complete bust. In fact, they’ve taken substantial losses. The mines there didn’t even produce a fraction of what they had projected.

“And during all this, China’s population has continued to expand while its economy has continued to slow. Every day, China experiences riots and mass social unrest that never makes it into international news. There’s not enough work in the cities and the peasants who return to the country are starving to death. In some desperate, lawless areas, reports of occultism and even cannibalism are starting to leak out. As conditions deteriorate, China, like North Korea, has become a hotbed of new, drug-resistant diseases that threaten the entire world. About which they routinely lie to WHO and other international health organizations.

“The Chinese know that it’s not daylight they’re seeing at the end of their tunnel. It’s a train heading right at them.”

“So their answer is to come steal our resources?”

“That’s just it. The Chinese don’t see it as stealing. They see it as surviving. Anything that assures China’s survival is not only acceptable, it’s imperative.”

“Even if it means war?”

Esposito nodded and the President thanked her. He then turned to the Director of National Intelligence. “Against that background, let’s address what the CIA learned in Hong Kong.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” the DNI said as he turned toward the other members of the National Security Council. “As you all have been made aware, a CIA asset with access to high-ranking members within the People’s Liberation Army and China’s Ministry of State Security has learned of a potential attack on the United States, codenamed Snow Dragon.

“While the asset was not able to ascertain the date or methodology, the attack is believed to be imminent. The Chinese have projected a 90 percent fatality rate within one year, which leads us to believe we’re looking at