Cyber Warfare and the New World Order

USS Utah

Captain Hughes was feeling irritated; as a military man who had had years of punctuality violently punched into his brain, it really sent a bristling feeling up his spine to be running late for anything. Of course, it wasn’t his fault that his submarine, the USS Utah was the last vessel to make it to Hawaii. The sub had sustained some damage to its targeting system while battling Chinese destroyers off the coast of South Africa, and they had to stop while it was repaired for two days before making their way to San Diego to re-arm. They had made up a lot of time on their long journey from the South Atlantic Ocean to the Californian West Coast, but that didn’t stop Hughes from feeling like he wanted to punch a wall.

“Captain of the Boat (COB), can we make any further increase in speed?” asked Hughes.

“No, Sir. We are maxing out our capacity. Anything more and we will begin to cause damage,” replied the COB.

Captain Hughes popped all his knuckles, and then took a deep breath. He was eager for action. They were still several hundred miles away from the fleet of U.S. cruisers, SUDs, destroyers and frigates that were ready to engage the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) off the coast of Hawaii.

To try and calm himself down, he reviewed the battle plans again. The Japanese ships would attack the PLAN from the northwest of the Hawaiian Islands, and then the Americans would surround the fleet from the southeast. Like a shark catching the scent of blood in the water, he was eager for the hunt.

Patience was not Captain Hughes’ strongpoint. Even though they were still too far away to participate in the action, when the appointed time of attack arrived, he rushed over to the monitoring stations to get the most updated information about the situation on the frontlines.

What he heard was nothing short of chaos. The Japanese fleet began to send a flurry of messages.

“May Day, May Day! There were unknown Chinese submarines in the water! Please assist!” called one JDF Captain over the radio.

“We are taking fire from Chinese aircraft! Significant damage to our ship!” shouted another.

A third voice cried, “Attention! Cruise missiles have just been launched at us! Our hull is beginning to take on water. Performing evasive maneuvers to make it to the coastline.”

Captain Hughes could not imagine a scenario in which the Japanese forces would be so horribly beaten down so quickly. “Was our intel on the Chinese capabilities that far off?” he wondered.

He turned to the screen where they had the visual link established with the SUDs, but just as he directed his eyes that way, several torpedoes streaked towards the submarines. Then the video feeds cut out.

Hughes turned to Petty Officer Jack Davis, who manned a different readout. “Davis, can you tell whether the SUDs made it through the attack?”

Jack furiously typed for a moment as he tried to clarify the data he was looking at. “Sir, two of the SUDs were definitely destroyed. A third was badly damaged, but still holding together as far as I can tell. The fourth SUD seems to have disappeared from the face of the Earth.”

“Well, get to work Petty Officer! I want to find out what happened as soon as possible,” barked Hughes.

“Yes, Sir,” responded Davis. His fingers moved so quickly on the keyboard that it practically created smoke.

Suddenly, they received a radio transmission from the operator of the missing SUD. “Captain Hughes, if you can hear me, our readouts show that we’ve been attacked by three Chinese submarines. Wait…now also detecting several torpedoes that were dropped via helicopter…”

“What just happened, operator?” demanded the Captain.

“Sir, we’ve lost all transmissions from the SUD. It’s been destroyed,” he stammered.

Time stood still for just a moment as that information sunk in; Captain Hughes was lost in a quagmire of thoughts. 1^t Petty Officer Nguyen jolted him out of that nebulous swirl of contemplation. “—Sir, we cannot detect any torpedoes headed towards the location where the Japanese fleet was supposed to be. We are still pretty far away, but our advanced sensors should have been able to pick up something.”

“Let’s send up a surveillance drone immediately,” ordered the Captain. “We need to have as much visual and electronic intelligence of what is going on as possible.”

The Utah rose to a depth of 40 ft. and launched their surveillance drone. This small solar-powered device could stay aloft indefinitely (if needed) and follow the Utah to provide continual surveillance and relay communications to other surface ships. As the drone gained altitude, it activated its long-range radar, capturing a picture of what was going on with the Japanese fleet and US naval ships in the area.

To their surprise, they did not see a swarm of Chinese aircraft or cruise missiles heading towards the Japanese fleet; it looked like the Chinese were only closing in on the small contingent of eight American ships. They could tell that those American ships were desperately trying to fight off the attack, but the numbers were clearly against them. They were going to be sunk. Something was still not adding up…

Suddenly, the communications link they had just established with the American ships was cut off before they could connect with them.

“Captain, we just lost contact with our drone and with the SUDs as well. We were receiving a message from them, but the transmission just cut off,” reported Commander Mitcham. He tried to maintain composure, but some of the color had gone out of his cheeks, making him appear ghostly as he spoke.

Captain Hughes was not one hundred percent sure what it all meant, but he had a bad feeling in his gut, so he ordered the ship to dive. “Chief of the Boat, take us down to depth 500 feet and get us under the thermal plain.”

The Chief of the Boat (COB), barked some orders to the sailors driving the boat. Over the PA system, a voice suddenly barked, “Dive! Dive! Dive!” Everyone braced themselves for the sudden jolt, and then the ship lurched downward.

Captain Hughes pulled his Commanding Officer (XO) over to the side and leaned in closer to his ear so only he could hear him speak. “Mitcham, go down to the Coms room and see what’s going on. We need to figure out what in the world is happening, understood?” directed the Captain.

The XO quickly asked, “You think the Chinese just knocked our communications out?”

“I’m not sure; it could just be a system glitch and those guys back in San Diego didn’t correctly fix it, but I want to make sure we know what’s going on before the rumor mill starts and people start to get nervous,” replied the Captain, running his fingers nervously through his hair.

“Ok, I’ll head over now,” the XO whispered as he headed off on his mission.

Out of nowhere, the Emergency Action Message (EAM) turned on and began to spit out a message. Lieutenant Commander Grady, the intelligence officer was nearby and grabbed the note as soon as it was done printing and walked it over to the Captain. “Captain, this isn’t good,” Commander Grady said as he showed the captain the EAM:

The Captain looked over the EAM, digesting what it all meant. From what they saw with the limited drone data, the Japanese task force had not been attacked and it was the American task force that was being wiped out. None of this made any sense.

Looking at Commander Grady, the Captain said, “This just doesn’t jive. The message says the Japanese were attacked and are retreating to L.A. — but before our drone was taken offline, we couldn’t see any signs that they had been damaged at all. We picked up the same messages from the JDF COMSUBPAC, but the drone’s radar and other sensors couldn’t find any sign of this supposed battle. What are your thoughts?” asked the Captain.

Commander Grady paused briefly before he responded, “Sir, I agree, none of this makes sense. Before the drone feed cut out, we were analyzing what was going on with the Japanese fleet. What we saw was the JDF fleet turning away from Hawaii and heading towards L.A. at what appeared to be flank speed. The JDF continued to emit distress calls saying they were under attack, but we could not detect what confrontation they were talking about. Another strange thing my analyst reported was that he saw several JDF anti-submarine helicopters heading back towards the carriers. Back-tracing their flight tracks, it places them right on top of our SUDs just as they were reporting being under attack by Chinese torpedoes and being destroyed.”

Commander Grady cleared his throat before he continued, “My other analyst was looking at the PLAN fleet, and she saw the ships had changed direction from heading towards the JDF to a track that would take them to San Diego…they were also heading at flank speed. Sir, my guys need a bit more time to make a full case, but I believe we may have just been sucker-punched by the JDF and the PLAN.” His fists clenched tighter as he spoke, an unconscious expression of his anger.

Despite the mounting evidence, Captain Hughes looked surprised by Commander Grady’s implication. He responded in a very calculated manner. “I think you are right… you need more time to analyze the information before making a call like that. We need to be one hundred percent certain before we make that assumption. In the meantime, we will move towards Oceanside at best speed and get on station. I want to have an officer’s meeting in the boardroom in one hour. You have until then to determine what in the blazes just happened, Commander.”

Nodding in agreement, Grady answered, “Yes, Sir. We’ll get this figured out sir. Sorry if I was jumping to a conclusion before I had all the facts.”

Not wanting to discourage his newly promoted Commander, the Captain countered, “No, it’s not your fault. I just want to make sure everyone has all the full details of this cluster mess before we make a decision that could cost us all our careers. Attacking an ally is no small step.”

Almost an hour had gone by, and still no one really knew what had happened until Commander Mitcham called from the Coms room. “Captain Hughes, we’ve been able to regain control of the surveillance drone by using the Ultra-High Frequency (UHF) system. Once we re-established connection, we moved the drone closer in the direction of the JDF fleet to see what was going on. We’ve been able to determine with certainty that the Japanese fleet did not sustain any damage or losses; they are still moving at flank speed towards Los Angeles.”

“Sir,” he continued, “We also saw wreckage and life boats in the vicinity of where the America frigates and destroyers had been when they were attacked. A couple of PLAN ships were nearly to them already, and will probably pick them up, interning the crews as POWs for the remainder of the war.”

The Captain turned to Commander Grady, “After we relay this information to the COMSUBPAC, it’s time to call the meeting of the senior officers to discuss what our next steps are.”

The pow-wow lasted for twenty minutes as they pieced all the information together. Finally, the Captain spoke up, “So, I think we all collectively agree that the JDF must have sunk the SUDs using Chinese torpedoes to make it look like the Chinese were really the attackers. The question remains — was this the action of a rogue JDF Admiral, or did Japan just officially join the war on the side of the Axis?”

“That about sums it up, Sir,” replied the COB. “I’m not sure we will be able to come to a 100 % conclusion on that one. Should we go ahead and use our drone to send our assessment off to the COMSUBPAC?”

“Yes, go ahead. I want you to also request permission to engage the JDF Fleet. We are closer to them than the PLAN fleet.”

“Roger that, Captain.”