by James Rosone
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Peterson Air Force Base
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)
While it was 0730 in North Korea, it was roughly 1530 hours the day before at NORAD. The operators of this Cold War era command center were watching nervously as the opening hours of the war in North Korea held a lot of uncertainty. It was unknown if the Koreans would try to launch their ballistic missiles in response to the US and ROK’s pre-emptive attack.
In addition to the ballistic missile threat, many of the planners at NORAD feared a possible cyber-attack by the North Koreans. It was still early in the morning, so it was hard to fully know if such an attack was still in the works or if the CIA, NSA, and military had been successful in neutralizing that possible threat. The war with Russia had seen an unprecedented level of cyber-attacks across nearly every aspect of the NATO nations. As a result, the U.S. was rapidly identifying and then fixing the vulnerabilities as they were being exploited. The North Koreans might have been disappointed to find that America was much more capable of dealing with a cyber-threat than they would have been three or four months earlier.
*******
Master Sergeant Lisa Collins was monitoring her computer screen, which presently was showing very detailed, real-time satellite images of North Korea, when she spotted a series of small flashes indicating missile launches. In a fraction of a second, the complex computer software that was monitoring the images being fed to it by the satellites alerted her and the rest of the operation center that multiple missile launches had been detected.
Once the klaxon alarms and red flashing light began to sound, everyone in the room knew about the launches in the DPRK. Not everyone had been monitoring the Korean Peninsula, many others were monitoring the thousands of satellites in orbit and other potential hotspots like China and Russia, but at that point they all looked at the new missile threats.
The primary monitor on the big wall immediately showed the Korean Peninsula and confirmed that 23 ballistic missiles had just been launched. Seven of the missiles were starting to track towards the American carrier battlegroup, three were headed towards Seoul, and the other thirteen were heading towards major US and South Korean military bases throughout the peninsula. What no one knew was whether these missiles were carrying nuclear warheads or were simply conventional high-explosive missiles.
*******
Admiral Bill Robinson had taken over command of NORAD roughly seven months ago, shortly after the new President was sworn in. He was ecstatic about getting this command, which was going to be his final command before he retired from the military after 34 years of service. He had risen through the ranks of the Navy largely by pioneering the advancements in ballistic missile defense systems. Once he realized the value of a defense system that could be repositioned anywhere in the world, he had gone to bat, vigorously advocating for the Navy to get these resources to the point that he drowned out the other branches. It was only because of him that they had the Arleigh Burke guided missile destroyers and the Ticonderoga guided-missile cruisers as the lead defensive platforms.
When the time came for a new commander to take over NORAD, he had worked every favor and pulled every string he had to try and get this final posting--the last hurrah of his career. He wanted to make one final mark and ensure the country had a well-established, multi-tiered missile defense system fully-operational by the time he retired.
Despite obtaining this critical post, he knew he was also in the twilight years of his career. Privately, he would admit he was looking forward to the retired life and fly fishing. He and his wife had bought a couple of acres near the Perry Park area, north of Colorado Springs, and planned on starting construction of their dream home this coming spring.
Since the start of the war with Russia, he had been baffled by trying to figure out how the situation had escalated into a full-scale war. His mission at NORAD suddenly became a lot more serious. Not since the days of the Cold War had the US seriously faced a nuclear threat, but now the US was at war with a nuclear power that was capable of pulverizing the US if it chose to use those weapons, and it had just gone to war with a second country that had spent the better part of a decade saying it would obliterate the US with nuclear fire. He suddenly found himself wishing his organization had a lot more fighter aircraft and a much more robust missile defense system.
The opening salvo of the war with Russia had not only caught NORAD and the US by surprise, it had temporarily disabled most of the US’s surveillance and communication satellites, along with the majority of the world’s GPS satellites. Between the DDoS attacks on the satellite links and the malware attack against the internal Internet of Things (IoT) devices, the creativeness of the cyber-attacks had caught them off guard. It had taken nearly two weeks to regain control of the satellites and get new ones launched to replace the ones destroyed by the IoT attack.
As the war with Russia continued, it looked more likely that at least that particular conflict would stay conventional, which was good for all involved. As the war with Russia progressed, and China annexed much of Southeast Asia, military activity began to pick up heavily inside North Korea. Admiral Robinson watched in horror as the unavoidable conflict with North Korea unfolded. He began to lose sleep at night trying to prepare for a war that would almost certainly turn nuclear.
*******
It was mid-afternoon, and Admiral Robinson was on a secured video teleconference call with the Pentagon operations center, getting an update on the progress of the war in Korea. Then, just as they were going over the progress of the strategic airstrikes, the klaxons began to blare, alerting them to a potential ballistic missile launch.
Between the blaring and obnoxious noises, the admiral managed to say, “I need to see what’s going on…I’ll get back to you shortly.”
While one of his staff officers was disconnecting the call, an officer from the ops center burst into the room. “Admiral! We have confirmation of ballistic missile launches from North Korea!” he shouted, to the shock and horror of those in the room. The Admiral quickly got up and began to race back to the ops center.
He rushed down the hall with several of the other officers and senior NCOs hot on his heels. “Make a hole!” he yelled as he nearly ran several people over trying to get to the command center.
As soon as he walked into the room, he could immediately see the tracks of 23 ballistic missiles as they began to head towards their intended targets.
“Move us from DEFCON 3 to DEFCON 2 immediately,” Robinson said to the nearest officer. “Alert our missile interceptor bases that we have confirmation of ballistic missile launches.”
Turning to another officer, he ordered, “Send a FLASH message to all US and allied forces in Asia, and let them know about the ballistic missile launches.”
While the messages were being sent, the THAAD missile defense system near Seoul began to engage the enemy missiles. The four Ticonderoga class guided missile cruisers and the guided missile destroyers also joined the fray as they began to engage the incoming missiles as well. So far, everyone was acting according to the well-choregraphed defensive plan that they had rehearsed so many times in training.
Admiral Robinson reached down and grabbed the red hotline phone to the White House. It rang twice before the President picked up.
Gates had been shocked when he saw the red phone ring; no one had ever called his desk on that phone before. He immediately knew that something terrible had happened or was in the process of happening, and he wasn’t completely sure what to say.
“This is the President” he answered tentatively.
Robinson cleared his throat before proceeding. “Mr. President, this is Admiral Robinson from NORAD. I am calling to inform you that we have positive confirmation of twenty-three ballistic missile launches from North Korea towards US and South Korea Forces. We have activated our missile defense systems and are currently engaging the missiles as we speak. What are your orders, Mr. Presiden
t?” he asked, wanting to know if the President wanted to authorize an immediate retaliatory strike.
The President slowly sat back down in his chair as the general relayed the situation. Just then, the Oval Office began to fill with Secret Service agents. “Mr. President, we have to get you out of here NOW!” his head agent said urgently as he approached the president.
Gates held up a hand and pointed at the red phone. They paused for a second, letting him finish talking to NORAD. “Admiral, I’m being told by the Secret Service that we need to evacuate right now. I want you to intercept those missiles. Keep our nuclear capabilities at a high state of readiness, but do not launch a counterstrike yet. We need to see if we are able to neutralize the threat first. I will call you back once I am on Air Force One,” the President directed and then he hung up the phone.
As the receiver made the clank of being returned to its base, the Secret Service agents breathed a sigh of relief. They immediately began to rush him towards Marine One, which was just starting to approach the White House.
*******
NORAD
Peterson Air Force Base
Master Sergeant Collins was reading the trajectories of the missiles when she saw that the two U.S. airbases in Korea were being targeted, as well as several points along the DMZ where the bulk of the ROK and American forces were marshaling. She watched nervously as the THAAD missiles began to accelerate to intercept the incoming missiles, followed quickly by SM-6 and SM-3 interceptors from the naval battlegroups.
While everyone was collectively holding their breath, the klaxons sounded again, indicating another missile launch had been detected. Her computer screen immediately zoomed into a part of Korea they had never looked at before. The small flash occurred near the North Korean/Chinese border. Her computer program immediately identified it as originating from the Paektu mountain range.
She zoomed in further, locating the source of the launch. To her shock and horror, she realized that there were hardened missile silos that they had been completely unaware of until that moment.
“How could we have missed that?” she thought in a panic. “As far as we knew, the North’s ballistic missile program only consisted of mobile missile launchers and several open-air missile platforms. They only tested the Hwasong-14 missile this past summer, and it’s not possible that they readied those missiles for mass production yet to place them in the silos--what in the world is going on?!”
Within seconds, the computer had identified the missiles as Chinese-made Dongfeng 5 ICBM based on the missiles rate of acceleration and subsequent booster phase. As the processor began to estimate the flight path and probable targets, it quickly became clear that the ten ballistic missiles were heading in a trajectory that would take them towards the continental United States.
Admiral Robinson walked into the room, and nearly all eyes turned to him. He looked up at the screen and saw the ten new missile tracks, in addition to the twenty-three that were already halfway to their targets.
“Seal the building immediately!” he yelled to the watch officer. “Bring us to DEFCON 1 immediately! Scramble our alert bombers and make sure the Secret Service knows we have incoming ICBMs!”
Everyone immediately went in to action, their training taking over as they methodically raised America’s defense posture to “nuclear war is imminent,” which ordered the Air Force to scramble all their aircraft and begin to disperse them to their secondary positions to await further orders. The Army would also begin to try and race their military equipment to secondary locations near their bases, in hopes of saving as much military equipment as possible in case their facilities were targeted. The Navy would begin to put their ships to sea as quickly as possible, even without full crews; as long as they had enough people on board to get the engines running and steer the ships out of the ports, they would try to move out to a secondary location to wait for further orders and hopefully save those vessels from a tragic fate.
The Continuity of Government (COG) group, which was a small cadre of emergency operations personnel, would immediately initiate the government’s COG program. This would begin the evacuation of the Cabinet, the Supreme Court Justices, and the Congress to a myriad of hardened nuclear bomb shelters outside of Washington, DC, and then disburse them further throughout the country if need be. This was critical in keeping the US Government alive and functioning should the capital be the target of one of the nuclear missiles.
Helicopters from Joint Base Anacostia-Boiling and Ft. Myer immediately began to get into the air, and headed to a series of designated landing zones at the Capital and Supreme Court buildings, to begin evacuating as much of the government as they could. In minutes, DC and the surrounding area was going to turn into pure chaos as word got out about the incoming nuclear missiles. The military had to act swiftly to get as much of the government to safety before panic set in and the city ground to a halt. A DF-5B would take roughly 34 minutes to hit DC, so time was short to get key personnel out of the city.
One of the operations officers turned to the Admiral. “Sir, the President just boarded Air Force One. They should be airborne shortly. Secret Service also reports they are starting to evacuate the Capital and moving the cabinet members to a secured bunker.”
The Admiral just nodded, almost not sure what more to say. “This isn’t supposed to be happening,” he thought. “This was supposed to be an easy final tour, a last command before retirement.”
“Sir, we are receiving a FLASH message from the Commander of Russian Strategic Rocket Forces. He is calling to let us know that Russia has no intentions of launching any ballistic missiles at the US or Europe, and he claims that Russia was completely unaware of the North Koreans’ intentions. He expressed that his forces will not be moving to a higher state of readiness and again, and wants to assure the US that they are not launching a coordinated attack with the Koreans,” said one of the colonels who had been manning the hotline phones. The ops center had direct hotlines to Russia, China, Israel, Great Britain, and France; these lines were meant to speed communication between each country’s nuclear commands, de-escalating potential conflicts and hopefully ensure no miscommunications occurred.
“Call the Chinese and tell them we demand to know if this launch was from them,” ordered Admiral Robinson. “The launch occurred on the Chinese-Korean border, and we have confirmation that those missiles are DongFeng-5’s.” He spoke with confidence as his training began to take over.
While they were contacting the Chinese, he turned to the group manning the country’s missile defense system and said, “Alert Ft. Greely that we have ten inbound ICBMs to the United States. They are to begin intercepting the missiles immediately! Does anyone know if those missiles are MIRV capable?” he barked at his operations officers.
Master Sergeant Collins immediately spoke up; this was her area of expertise. “Yes Admiral, the DongFeng-5 B version is MIRV capable. It can carry up to six warheads. Some of the warheads may actually be dummies, intended to spoof our defenses to help aid the actual warheads in getting through,” she said confidently.
The Admiral nodded in acknowledgement of the information, and then turned back to look at the large monitor tracking the incoming missiles, deep in thought. They could now see the THAAD and SM-6 missiles starting to intercept the original twenty-three ballistic missiles, blotting some of them out of the sky. The missiles that had been heading towards the US battlegroup had been successfully intercepted, and so had the three missiles heading towards Seoul.
One hundred and fifty miles south of Seoul, two of the three missiles headed towards the American Air Force Base Kunsan were blotted from the sky by THAAD and Patriot missile batteries. Then, the screen whited out-- the third missile detonated its 30-kiloton warhead. In that second, nearly 40,000 US and ROK service members and civilians were killed instantly by the initial blast. Another 60,000 or so would be injured, possibly dying painfully later from the exposure to radiation. North Korea had just detonated the first nuclea
r weapon against another nation since World War II with devastating effect.
Despite the klaxon alarms, the room suddenly seemed silent…but there would be no time to mourn. While people were still digesting the fact that Kunsan Airbase had just been wiped out, another missile detonated over Wonju Airbase, home of the ROK’s Northern Combat Command. That missile killed another 52,000 people and injured nearly 100,000 more. It had also effectively wiped out nearly 40% of the entire South Korean Air Force, along with the majority of their leadership. The screen showed that the remaining missiles were successfully intercepted, though that did little to comfort those who had just died or were gravely injured.
Admiral Robinson spoke loudly to the stunned members of the ops center. “Listen up, everyone. We still have incoming missiles heading to the US. Get your heads in the game. We can grieve the losses later. I need everyone to focus on the tasks at hand,” he said, breaking them out of their initial shock.
Turning to his targeting officer, he demanded, “What nuclear assets do we have ready to respond right now?”
One of the targeters responded, “We have an Ohio class submarine in the area. We also have a B-2 armed with nuclear weapons that can respond immediately.”
The Admiral thought it over for a moment. He was about to call Air Force One and request permission to launch a counterstrike against the North. The incoming missiles still had close to twenty minutes before they would be over the US; another ten minutes and the interceptors would be in range.
His mind also raced back to China. “Was this a Chinese missile strike?” he wondered. “They were Chinese missiles, but they had been fired from inside Korea.”
I am Death, the Destroyer of Men
Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland
Air Force One
President Gates had just taken his seat and clipped his seatbelt on when Marine One began to take off towards Andrews Air Force Base, where Air Force One was located; the chopper was clipping through the air at a faster pace than the President was used to, and he started to feel a bit of motion sickness as they whizzed through the air.