Cyber Warfare and the New World Order

Delayed Mobilization

General Gardner’s helicopter was approaching Twenty-Nine Palms Marine base and all they could see was chaos on the ground. Several long lines of armored vehicles and tanks could be seen lining up along the main gate, getting ready to move out. Marines were running everywhere, checking equipment, loading water and other supplies they were going to need as they moved quickly to get their force on the road. As Gardner’s helicopter landed, a Marine Colonel walked forward snapping a quick salute, then guided the general towards a waiting vehicle that would take them to see Lieutenant General (LTG) Peeler, the Marine Commander on the West Coast and the Commanding General for the Third Marines.

As the vehicle moved throughout the base towards the command center, General Gardner still did not fully understand what was going on. The intelligence they were getting was spotty at best. One report said that the PLAN had snuck several container ships and roll-on roll-off ships into the Port of LA and Long Beach, while another said the soldiers appeared to be Japanese. A third report he received gave an account that Japanese naval task force that was attacking the PLAN fleet outside of Hawaii was mauled and retreating to LA for coastal protection. A fourth account relayed that PLA airborne troopers were heading to San Diego along with a large contingent of PLAAF fighters. He wasn’t sure what was true and what wasn’t at this point. All these conflicting reports had led to a delayed response time in going to San Diego — they had already sent the order to leave and then called everyone to stay twice.

“Sir!” a voice rang out. “You need to come to the operations center. I’ve just received word from the flight of F41s that went to Hawaii. Major Cruse says that they were ambushed by the Japanese. Four of their six aircraft were shot down!”

General Gardner was troubled; they were still only able to use the UHF radios and microwave systems while the tech guys tried to figure out how to bring their digital communications back online. He rushed over to see if he could gain anything more from a firsthand account.

As General Gardner walked into the operations center, the Marine guards snapped a salute and opened the sealed doors. LTG Peeler looked up and waved for General Gardner to come to him urgently. “Sir, I’m talking with Major Cruse from the F41 flight that was tasked with coming to the Japanese aid. You need to hear this. Major Cruse, General Gardner has just arrived. Can you relay what you saw again,” requested General Peeler.

General Gardner leaned towards the microphone as one of the communications NCOs switched it over to speakerphone, signaling for the general to speak towards it. “Major Cruse, this is General Gardner. I’m the Third Army Commander and the Commanding General in California. I need a frank assessment of what is going on,” Gardner said in his usual gruff tone.

Major Cruse was a bit taken back for a second. He was just talking to a Lieutenant General, and now he was talking directly to “the” General Gardner. Gardner was a living legend in the military — he was on the frontlines of defeating the IR, Chinese and Russians in the Middle East. He shrugged off this star struck moment to respond. “Yes, General. My flight had been coordinating our actions with the JDF task force. They told us that they had sent a squadron of F35s up to attack the PLAN fleet, and the PLAN had also sent aircraft up to meet them, so we thought everything was normal. As we were approaching, another flight of F35s took off from one of the carriers and maneuvered in behind us. Then without warning, they fired on us. Four of my fighters were blown up before they had a chance to respond. Only two of us got away. We would have stayed and attacked them, but we had no AWAC support to guide us to our targets or share their radar screens. If we activated our radars it would give away our positions to both fleets.”

“Major, you did the right thing; your aircraft are too valuable to lose in a futile effort like that. I am sorry your men were ambushed like that. From your firsthand account and some of the other reports we are getting, it would appear the Japanese have betrayed us and joined the Chinese. Any additional information you can provide us, Major?” asked General Gardner in a much softer tone.

Thinking for a minute, he responded, “Yes, Sir. Just prior to the attack and throughout the engagement, my aircraft recorded the events. I can’t transmit it because the digital communications system is still down, but we have the footage of the fleet and what transpired,” Cruse said with some optimism that they may still be able to help.

The intelligence officers (and, in particular, the navy liaison officer with Gardner’s staff) indicated that this would be extremely valuable. “Major Cruse, can your aircraft divert and land here at Twenty-Nine Palms? We need that video immediately!”

“Yes, Sir. We are about twenty minutes away.”

“Major, before we discontinue this call, I want you to fly over Catalina Island, the Port of LA and the rest of the way to Twenty-Nine Palms. Fly low and slow enough so we can get some good images, but do not let your aircraft get targeted or destroyed. Understand?” inquired Gardner. He was hoping to obtain as much visual intelligence as possible.

“Yes, Sir. We’ll be at the base in less than twenty minutes with your images,” Cruse said, signing off.

He angled his aircraft to get a better vantage point for their cameras. The F41s’ cameras had been set up to record engagements for future training purposes and to help with identifying their kills; Major Cruse was very grateful in this moment that they existed. He broadened the camera view; they could see a wide view of the ground below as they flew a little lower and slower over the areas of interest to record what they were seeing. The images could be played back in slow motion or frame-by-frame. Once they were cleaned up, they would provide invaluable intelligence of what was going on.

Back on the ground, LTG Peeler was in the middle of stating the obvious. “General Gardner, if the Japanese have joined the Chinese, then we are in a lot of trouble on the West Coast.”

General Gardner was lost in thought for a moment. “The Japanese let the PLA hackers use their link with our defense communications to launch a cyber-attack on our systems. Then the Japanese docked dozens of freighters, carrying troops, tanks and other armored vehicles. The PLA is landing an airborne force near San Diego, and right now, we have no navy ships to stop any of it.”

Snapping out of this depressing moment, Gardner sprang into action. “General Peeler — first, what is the status of the Marines at Pendleton? Are they on the road to San Diego to meet that PLA airborne force? Second, how soon are your Marines here going to be able to move on LA and engage the Japanese and PLA forces?”

LTG Peeler looked at one of his logistics officers, who quickly brought up the blue force tracker showing the progress of the Pendleton Marines. “They are nearly ready to leave to their base. They will engage the paratroopers shortly, probably after they have landed; it’s taken some time for them to get everyone assembled and get their equipment ready. As to the Marines here, they are rolling out of here in twenty minutes. I already have eight scout platoons on their way to LA and the surrounding area to start gathering information. I’m not sure of enemy air defense capabilities yet, so I’m holding my Razorbacks in reserve to support my Marines when they need them,” Peeler said as other Marines brought in even more information reports from the scouts.

After a couple of quick minutes, LTG Peeler handed the reports over to General Gardner, saying, “The scouts identified a number of air defense vehicles and missile systems around the port area and moving to a couple of other strategic positions. An armored convoy was also spotted heading towards City Hall in the downtown area. We got a short message from the LA Barracks that they were under attack as well before the message cut out. The radio operator said they could hear a lot of shooting in the background. Another report spotted nearly a dozen attack helicopters moving to various positions along the coast and to Catalina Island. One of the scout platoons reported one of the helicopters attacking one of our anti-ship gun batteries.”

“This is not good, Peeler. We need to do what we can to protect those gun positions. If they all go down, it will leave the entire coast open to a seaborne invasion,” Gardner said as he waved a hand across the map of Southern California.

“Does anyone know when we are going to get our communications back again?” blurted out a frustrated colonel nearby to no one in particular.

A young-looking Marine sergeant sitting near a bank of computers overheard the remark and responded, “Colonel, I believe we may have the communications system up shortly. I am in contact with a hacker team at the NSA right now on my computer, and we are working on isolating the malware and rerouting some of the data links and ports. After we finish rerouting one more port, NSA is going to restart the system. It will take about twenty minutes to reboot, and maybe another thirty or so minutes to verify that the malware has been isolated and we should be back up and running.”

The atmosphere in the room suddenly became a bit more optimistic about things. With communications back up and running, they would be able to coordinate the ground and air operations a lot more effectively. The older radio systems were still working, but they were a lot less effective. There was no way to send videos or other large packets of information, and they were more susceptible to jamming. Also, the newer military vehicles and aircraft did not come equipped with them. Still, right now, they were the only thing keeping the DOD up and running while the NSA and US Cyber Command worked to remove the malware that had taken down the digital system.