Colonel Su interjected, “If I may, General, would you be able to give me a frame of reference to your last statement?”
Yang nodded, not at all angry at the interruption. “Prior to this disruption in the satellites, the Americans occasionally used to get lucky and identify a fuel depot or a battalion moving to an attack point and destroy it, but this was limited. Our destruction of the satellites should have made their ability to preemptively strike even more ineffective. Instead, it’s as if they suddenly know where all our troops are moving at all times. They’ve attacked ammunition storage facilities, critical component production facilities, and all very successfully. Their accuracy has increased exponentially.”
Colonel Su nodded. “This does sound problematic. It sounds like someone is either betraying us, or the Allies have found a way to penetrate our communications system. Have you spoken with the Ministry of State Security?”
“I haven’t. I believe this problem is technical, not human, which is why I’ve asked you here,” Yang replied. He leaned in closer. “If this were a human problem, Su, then this issue would have also been persistent prior to our switching over to the UAV communications system. However, this degree of enemy accuracy only began after we made that switch. Hence, the only logical explanation is that the problem is technical.”
Colonel Su sat back in his chair for a moment. “I think I see what you mean,” he said. “I must admit, I was not aware of a possible problem with the UAVs or our communications system. To be honest, when the globe’s satellite infrastructure was destroyed, I had thought the threat of cyberwarfare would diminish. Now that I see how wrong that assumption was, I’ll need some time to look into this, General Yang.”
“Yes, please do, Colonel, and get back to me as soon as possible.” He paused for a moment. “Has your office had any problems relocating?” Yang asked. Colonel Su’s Unit 61398 had originally been headquartered in the Pudong neighborhood of Shanghai. They’d had to make a hasty withdrawal from the city when it had been invaded.
“No, Sir. We’ve relocated without incident. None of my hackers were killed or injured in the process. Fortunately, we had moved most of our operations to underground bunkers and further inland, away from American cruise missiles. My predecessor had failed to take that threat seriously when the war first started, and a lot of very good hackers were killed by this incompetence.”
Colonel Su shifted in his seat. “General Yang, if you have nothing further, I’ll take my leave and look into this problem. I will contact your office as soon as I have something.”
General Yang nodded.
After Su hurried out of the room, Yang sat pondering for a moment. If his gut was right, President Xi would throw a conniption. He couldn’t bring this forward until he was really sure of the facts and had hopefully come up with some sort of solution to the problem.
Chapter 21
Decisions
A decision needed to be made, but President Foss wasn’t sure if he was about to make the right call. He’d been mulling over whether or not to let the State Department and the DoD’s own psychological operations group broadcast a pirate message to the Chinese people throughout the PRC. President Hung Hui-ju from the Republic of China had been working with Ambassador Bryant, along with Secretary of State Philip Landover and the Army’s psychological operations folks, to create a series of compelling messages to distribute. This would be followed by pleas to the people of China to either demand peace or overthrow the dictatorial regime that was continuing the slaughter of their sons and daughters.
The President wasn’t sure if spreading these messages would be worth giving up the access to the PRC’s internal communication system. It wouldn’t take the government long to identify how the Allies were broadcasting their message, and then they’d move to shut them down — and when they did, the window the Allies held into the inner workings of the PRC and the PLA troop movements would be gone.
Sitting across from him on the couch and chair, was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the SecDef, the Secretary of State, his National Security Advisor, and Katelyn Mackie, his cyberwarfare czar. They sat patiently, awaiting the President’s final decision. Foss sighed and then looked up at the group.
“If we move forward with this initiative…how long will it take the PLA to figure out what we’ve done to their UAVs? When would we lose access to their network?”
Ms. Mackie took a breath in and out. “We estimate it’ll take the PLA maybe a few hours to a day to figure out what has happened to their UAVs. Once they have determined where the problem is, they’ll move to ground the UAV fleet, or at least move all their secured communications off it. However, we also believe that will happen soon anyway as they figure out that we’ve been listening in on them.”
“How do we know this message President Hung and Ambassador Bryant have crafted is even going to be effective?” the President asked next, directing that question to Secretary Landover and Tom McMillan.
Secretary Landover jumped at the question. “It’ll work, Mr. President,” he asserted. “We’ve tested the speeches on the prisoners of war we’re currently holding. In all cases, the average Chinese person who has seen one or all five of these messages has responded positively. In the case of the occupied territories, we’ve seen many of the people ask how President Xi’s government had been able to deceive them for so long. Many of them had no idea how the war had started, or the reality of how the conflict has been going. Many of them said they had been led to believe that it was America and the Allies who had started the war to keep China poor and in its place. As they learned the truth, many of them became angry at having been deceived and misled. In the case of the occupied territories, many of the people have even asked unprompted how they can help or support President Hung’s government.”
Tom McMillan added, “I wasn’t sure this whole idea would work at first, but having seen the results and talked with many Chinese citizens, it does appear that it just may have the intended effect.” McMillan had just returned from a trip to China and South Korea, where he had toured the front lines. During his expedition, Secretary Landover had also arranged for him to talk with several groups of Chinese citizens in Changchun, the capital of Jilin Province.
Foss turned his head to look at his military advisors, seeking their input next. “Thoughts?” he asked.
Jim Castle looked at the others sitting across from him before turning his gaze to the President. “Sir, it’s my recommendation as your Secretary of Defense that we not move in this direction. I know the evidence that this plan may work looks good. However, I’m not confident that it’ll bring about the change we’re hoping for and betting on to end the war. Truthfully, I’ve been skeptical about this idea ever since it was first brought up. I don’t want to give up the intelligence advantage we have — that has produced tangible results on the battlefield — for a strategy that we don’t know for sure will end the war.”
Foss saw the looks of disappointment from Tom McMillan and Secretary Landover at his remark. Castle swept past the reactions and continued, “Mr. President, right now, we are gaining valuable, actionable intelligence on a minute-by-minute basis from this program. Since its inception, we have intercepted or interdicted nearly every enemy air and naval attack on our forces. We have crushed or forced the PLA to cancel or suspend several ground offensives because we were able to take out those unit’s fuel depots, munition stores or bombed them outright before they could attack. Had we not had this program up and running when we invaded the Shanghai region or Guangdong Province, then in all likelihood, our forces would have either sustained many times more killed in action or been defeated outright. I can’t in good conscience recommend a course of action that would end our ability to obtain this level of intelligence at this juncture in the war.”