Chapter 638 Electronic Reconnaissance

Later in the 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, at the end of the 90s, 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 when he was almost alone when he first took office, he has basically completed the replacement of important people around him, and is able to handle various tasks in the department with ease without having to do everything personally. The pressure has naturally been reduced. Go down.

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..."

"I will discuss the specific details of Operation Desert Fox with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the President's National Security Advisor this afternoon..."

"There will also be a press conference on the recent situation in the Bay Area in the evening..."

The first and third tasks will have his secretary prepare all the details for him, and he only needs to read the memo. Only the second task 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.

Looks like today is another relatively easy day.

He poured himself a glass of sparkling water, then sat back behind his desk and prepared to deal with 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. Minister, Ms. Henrion is outside."

"Invite her in."

Therese Henrion, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

She takes no position between the donkey and the elephant. Of course, it can also be said that her position is flexible and she is always on the winning side.

In today's general context, it is natural to be inclined to help Cohen.

"Good morning, Mr. Minister."

Henrion held a stack of documents in his hands and sat directly on the chair opposite Cohen after entering the door.

"Good morning, ma'am."

While saying hello, the latter poured another glass of sparkling water and placed it in front of Henrion. At the same time, he saw the document in the other person's hand:

"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 could see a lot of useful information earlier than the White House and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and make effective responses in advance.

"Unfortunately, it's very calm in the bay direction."

Henrion 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 were written in such lengthy and unfocused ways.

Only later did I realize that this was Henrion’s core competitiveness that allowed him to have both sides for a long time——

It is impossible for political officers to have time to read the content word for word. Even if they read it, they would deliberately add complicated professional terms, so that outsiders can only have a partial understanding of it at best.

So the conclusions therein depend a lot on how she reports it.

Cohen once tried to find some key points on his own, but even after 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, the less meat, 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...is it related to China?"

"Actually, the news came from Annan. As for whether it 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 officers there reported that an Annan frigate encountered a mysterious incident last week."

"When the ship's 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 members on board the ship at the time, and reports from both reporters and the captain tended to be a paranormal phenomenon similar to the Bermuda Triangle."

At this point, she didn't even hold back 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?"

There was a hint of contempt in Cohen's tone.

But Henrion shook his head:

"Of course not. This kind of rhetoric is just to deceive ordinary people."

"They tend to have some kind of interference with the GPS system, which caused the navigation route to deviate. This is also consistent with the conclusion speculated by our intelligence personnel."

Cohen wanted to refute, but was blocked by the other party before he could speak:

"Because at about the same time when the problem appeared in that report, we had a Helena nuclear submarine in the nearby waters. It happened to make position corrections at the periscope depth and found 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 his face:

"how is this possible?"

"The Navy told me before that although the GPS terminals we provided to Annan only have rough acquisition rights, they are all equipped with directional antennas. Unless the Russians use their satellites to send the same signal... But their satellites should It can no longer cover the vicinity of the equator..."

The preset frequency band of the GLONASS system is almost exactly the same as that of GPS, so in theory it has the ability to disguise itself as the latter.

But the Russians clearly have no current motive to do so.

And because of the existence of directional antennas, only signals from the cone-shaped area above 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."

Henrion shrugged:

"In fact, there may be many reasons for interference, but based on our past experience, positioning errors caused by pure environmental factors will not be as large as this."

"So the intelligence services still think someone is up to something?"

The Defense Minister felt that the other party's statement was somewhat similar to those intelligence documents, going around and around, but not giving a definite conclusion.

Highlight a nonstick pan.

Sure enough, Henrion immediately shook his head:

"This is speculation by intelligence personnel and cannot be regarded as our official conclusion."

"So, that's why I came to see you today."

Cohen didn't reply, but gestured for her to continue.

"I hope you can apply to mobilize a few electronic reconnaissance planes to check out the situation nearby."

"hiss……"

This straightforward request made Cohen gasp immediately.

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 "can't in principle" actually means it 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, and the Balkans are not clean either. 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 his main purpose was 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 was quite dissatisfied:

"Mr. Minister, you are a little too cautious."

She smiled and shook her head and said:

"Didn't we prove that they were just bluffing at the beginning of the year before last? In just two years, nothing can change."

"And during the development conference last month, didn't you also say that we could win two wars in two different locations around the world?"

"I was..."

Cohen almost blurted out that it was just 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 deeply...

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 other party directly.

Otherwise, there is no guarantee that useful information will be obtained 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 3 people and equipped with two EP24E Aries. Although we cannot guarantee -hour rotation, it should be able to meet your needs."