Another of the military officers in the front row said, “Natesh, look… military strategy isn’t like in the business world. We aren’t talking about apps on your smartphone. We’re talking about complex, interwoven technologies like the navigation systems in an F-18 and the GPS smart bombs it carries. We have technologies like the secure data link that connects all of our armed forces so that they can combine each other’s sensor data and look at one enhanced battle picture. There isn’t one silver bullet that could take out all of these technological advantages and eliminate the nuclear threat. I appreciate that we’re all here trying to prevent a war. China’s nothing to scoff at, certainly. But we’ve been talking about different ways to do it all day and I just don’t see how this threat can go beyond just that… a threat.”
There were nods of agreement in the audience as others backed up the idea of American superiority. Brooke said, “There’s just no way for China to overcome the technology advantage and nuclear response of the United States.”
Lena hadn’t said a word all day. She stood tall in the back of the room. The light from the windows contrasted against her silhouette. But now her voice was firm.
“Actually, there is…”
CHAPTER 4
Tricks, traps, ambushes and other efforts resulting in the surprise of one party by another have been commonplace in Chinese warfare from as far back as we have records.
The class sat in stunned silence, waiting for Lena to finish.
“What do you mean?” asked Bill.
Lena said, “The Chinese have a way to wipe out America’s satellites. It’s a new and very powerful cyberweapon, developed in America. We don’t know how or when they got it, but our latest intelligence confirms that they are in possession and testing it out.”
The blood drained from David’s face as he realized why he had been chosen to come to this island. “They have ARES?” he asked, knowing the answer.
“Yes,” replied Lena.
Brooke asked, “What’s ARES?”
David said, “It’s a cyberweapon, like she said. The place I work… we keep an eye out for different types of information technology that might be useful to our intelligence agencies. About a year ago, some students at MIT created a type of worm that could bypass all known security in several key communications channels. It was designed to work on data farms and the vast majority of military and communications satellites. When coupled with other programs that the Defense Department already had, the applications became devastatingly potent. It could potentially take satellites offline, hijack their signals, or even crash them into the earth’s atmosphere. In data-server farms, which much of the cloud-based world is now reliant upon, the theory is that it could cut power long enough for the servers to overheat and become seriously damaged. The MIT students used a lot of the same code that the NSA’s STUXNET used to sabotage Iranian nuclear centrifuges a few years ago. But this worm was several orders of magnitude more advanced than that. What these kids came up with was unreal.”
“And the Chinese have this?” said Henry.
Lena nodded. “We believe so.”
“Awesome. Glad my taxes are being put to good use.” Henry looked up at the ceiling, thinking. “So, let’s say there are between fifteen hundred and two thousand active satellites right now. Most are communications satellites. About a third are military satellites. Those numbers include foreign ones. There are another two to three thousand inactive satellites just floating in orbit. I would think that the most efficient means of F-ing us over would be to program all of the active ones to crash.”
The classroom was quiet.
Bill said, “Can they really do that?”
Brooke said, “Well, it wouldn’t be easy. There are a lot of protections. But ultimately it comes down to two things — do you have the hacking capability and the hardware capability? Russia and China would likely be the only nations that could do something like that. And they’d only be able to do it for a short period of time as far as I know. I’m probably not supposed to admit this, but China actually took control of two of our satellites back in 2008—a Landsat 7 and a Terra AM-1. They had control for twelve minutes. People got fired. But it’s hard to do. It takes an incredible amount of energy to power the dish on the ground. Probably around five to ten million watts.”
Someone asked, “How much is that?”
Henry said, “About the output for a really big TV antenna, or a small African nation. It’s a lot of power, and that’s just for one satellite. But we aren’t talking brute force here. This ARES, if I understand correctly, wouldn’t just help them grab a satellite with a high-powered dish on the ground. Am I right?”
David nodded. “Yes. You are. It’s a game-changer because the worm gets past the security systems and takes it over with a cyberattack. You no longer need brute strength to hack into a satellite. They effectively steal our username and password and then replace it so we can’t regain control. And they aren’t just limited to one satellite at a time. They can scattershot multiple vehicles. If they developed the hardware that the US Air Force and NSA have, they could theoretically take over all of our satellites in under twelve hours.”
Henry said, “Sweet. So just to be clear, total worst scenario imaginable. That’s all you need to say. Total worst scenario imaginable. Awesome.”
“There goes the US military’s communications and navigation advantage.”
“Christ…” said the military officer in the front row. “But wouldn’t people find out? I mean, who monitors this stuff?”
Brooke said, “Of course we’d find out. There are lots of agencies that monitor it. NORAD. The NSA. Langley. The National Reconnaissance Office in Chantilly, Virginia. The point is, we wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.”
Natesh said, “But China would probably wait until the right time to do this. What do you military guys call it? When you make sure you hit the enemy with everything you have at the same time?”
Major Combs said, “Simultaneous time on top.”
David began to feel dizzy as he saw where all of this was leading.
Natesh asked, “What would the damage be? What would it look like if China took out all of our satellites?”
Henry said, “It would put a strain on us at first, but the underwater and land-based fiber optic cables handle the vast majority of our data transfers. You might notice it on some international phone calls. Obviously satellite TV and satellite phones would be down. Eventually, though, it would get worse…”
“What about the loss of GPS? What would that do?” Natesh asked.
Bill said, “That would hurt a lot. There is just such a dependence on GPS today. Between that and the loss of weather satellites over the oceans, I wouldn’t be surprised to see global air traffic grind to a halt on day one. Ships and aircraft would have to navigate the old-fashioned way, and that means slower and burning more fuel. Say goodbye to drones, too. The US Air Force minted more drone pilots this year than regular pilots. If they were to take out satellites, we wouldn’t be able to use drones nearly as well. Probably not at all over long-range.”
Brooke said, “I think that would have a much bigger impact on the military’s ability to fight war than most people realize. Almost all of our weapons and weapons-delivery platforms rely on GPS navigation to precisely track and hit their targets. If you took out the entire global satellite network, that would be a huge technological equalizer.”
Henry said, “I get the military thing. But there is a bigger picture impact here. All those GPS satellites help us synchronize our global clocks. Timing between everything from traffic lights to water treatment to railroad schedules would start getting clogged up. Web searches would be affected and the Internet could drastically slow down. Think about the financial markets. All of those hypertraders moving shares in the blink of an eye? Now people around the world aren’t on the same clock anymore. The information isn’t getting spread around evenly. In this day and age, that’s a huge deal. Now, how many of you are on your mobile phones all day long? If they hit the data farms, those phones are going to be much less useful. If the Chinese can really do this, that weapon is designed to start the apocalypse. If someone crashed all of our satellites and cloud storage, there would be a complete network collapse. There would be a huge stock market crash, followed by a huge food shortage, followed by rampant riots in the street and a total breakdown in society. I swear to God, I am not exaggerating here. How many of you have kids? What would you do for the last loaf of bread if your kid was starving and you didn’t think there was another bread truck coming? Take this weapon seriously. And consider stocking up on bread, water, and Seinfeld DVDs.”