Damn If It Didn't Happen
A short story about nuclear war
“In this scenario…” the Space Force Spec-4, let’s call him Robby, took a bite of his sandwich. Robby isn’t supposed to eat in his cubicle, but he likes to read at lunch, and the DFAC is kind of noisy. At least the food at Buckley SFB is better than Cavalier in North Dakota; miles and miles of nothing. They actually have hot food now, he heard through one of his buddies who rotated there last month.
Mission Delta 4—MD4—has a bunch of Spec-4s like him, which in the real Air Force is a Senior Airman, the highest enlisted rank short of a noncom. In the Army, Spec-4 is ideal, they even call it the Spec-4 mafia, because they know enough about their job to do it “efficiently,” (meaning: as little as possible) and they know enough about the military to “obtain valuable objects” in non-official ways. And when they graduate to Sgt, they become babysitters, which sucks.
Robby was reading a book titled, ironically, we will soon see, “Nuclear War: A Scenario,” by an author named Annie Jacobsen. Robby thinks Annie has this Queen of the Dead vibe, because she’s really super-focused on describing what nuclear bombs do to human beings who happen to be in the vicinity when they explode. Robby finished reading the first ten or so pages, which get into near-pornographic detail on what a one megaton bomb would do to Washington, D.C.
He took another bite of his sandwich, looked down at his watch, a Seiko. Even digital watches are suspect in the grey, concrete, windowless building where Robby works. No phones, no electronics of any kind are allowed. MD4 is the eyes behind some very highly classified space gear, and everything everyone touches is TS/SCI. Robby works in what’s known as a SCIF, a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. If the military can’t put a three or four letter acronym to something, it’s not for lack of trying. But books are just fine, as are cold ham and cheese sandwiches in brown paper bags.
Back to the book. Robby read about how a SBIRS satellite picked up the launch of a North Korean Hwasong-17 ICBM, “seeing” the flame plume from its rocket engine in a fraction of a second, relaying the data to the ground station, which happens to be where Robby works. He read some more.
“Haha, wrong!” Robby said out loud through a mouthful of sandwich. Good God, doesn’t this Annie person know anything at all? Robby is a fairly rare bird—he joined the USSF without rotating over from the Air Force. Most of the people he worked with were USAF before they put on the Star Trek uniform. He went in as 1N0, which is the Air Force Specialty Code for “All Source Intel,” but the Space Force changed to SFSC, and Robby is 5I1A, Imagery Analyst/GEOINT. He’s the guy who looks at satellite data from SBIRS, the Space-Based Infrared System, along with other imagery, the existence of which is classified and cannot be confirmed or denied by anyone living or dead.
Robby wasn’t the only guy looking at SBIRS data—there’s a bunch of spooks at Chantilly, Virginia at NRO, and other places that are so secret their location and personnel are jealously protected. There was the time when Robby’s buddy Jeff drove home to his apartment to find the parking lot full of fire trucks and news vans. They stuck a camera in his face to interview him. All Jeff could think of was to give the camera the middle finger and step out of the way, because he could not be on the news, as in ever. He later apologized to the cameraman and the news anchor, saying he wasn’t allowed to be filmed and had to figure out a quick way to ensure his image stayed off TV. He and Robby laugh about it now, but it was dead serious then.
“Hey, you gonna take the afternoon off?” his boss’s boss, a civilian, GS-14, teased as he walked by. In the spook world, civilians sometimes work alongside military, and there’s even contractors thrown in the mix, from places like Raytheon, Dell, or Booz Allen Hamilton. A GS-14 is about the equivalent of a Lt. Colonel, not someone you mess with. Robby checked his watch and realized he was about 5 minutes past his break, and he needed to get back to work. He didn’t finish his sandwich, packed it away in the small fanny pack he was allowed to bring (it was searched every time), and turned back to his workstation.
Jamal was just beginning his mission prep. Maps, checklists, data calls, and equipment checks. A Chief Master Sgt., Jamal flies the RQ-4 Global Hawk, a jet-powered kick-ass surveillance plane, with a fuselage that reminds him of the alien from the “Alien” movie. There’s no cockpit on the RQ-4, because it’s flown from thousands of miles away, by an enlisted Air Force pilot—the first time since WWII that enlisted men were allowed to pilot anything with wings. Never mind a Black enlisted man.
Jamal wore his ACUs—utility uniform—when he flew. No need for a flight suit, but it was authorized if he wanted to wear it. Some pilots flew in blues, but the 348th Reconnaissance Squadron at Beale AFB was not hung up on uniform of the day stuff. Unless some brass was coming in, then everyone had to be in flight suits. Except when they all swapped name patches to mess with the squadron commander, who had to introduce them to the visiting General. (To explain the cruel humor: either the Major had to act like he never met his squadron, reading their names from their uniforms, or he had to ignore their name patches and hope the General didn’t read them.)
The Global Hawk Block 40 was a dream to fly. It was like a combination of playing the world’s most realistic video game, and a Disney ride. But the mission was very real, and commanded full and complete attention, professionalism, and skill. The Northrop Grumman UAV cost about as much as a new Boeing 737 MAX—around $131 million. You don’t fly it like some DJI Mavic backyard drone, the kind that people lose in forests and slam into mountainsides. When people find out what Jamal does for a living, they assume he’s a “drone pilot.” He schools them.
A Rolls-Royce AE 3007H turbofan with 7,600 pounds of thrust powers the 47.6 foot RQ-4, with a wingspan of 130.9 feet. It weighs about 32,000 pounds, with fuel. It can cruise at over 350 mph, and fly up to 60,000 feet, for over 34 hours, with a range in excess of 12,000 miles. Global Hawk can linger for a whole day over high value targets, watching them with its AN/ZPY-2 Multi-Platform Radar Technology Insertion Program (MP-RTIP) sensor, that offers both Ground Moving Target Indicator and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) modes, to see what’s moving, and what’s hiding.
The Global Hawk has all but replaced the E-8C Joint STARS aircraft. That plane was cobbled together from used 707 airliners bought from South America and the Middle East, rebuilt by Grumman Northrop Systems, with a “canoe” fastened to the bottom of the fuselage. That contained the heart of the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System,” a 24 foot phased array antenna capable of “seeing” 19,305 square miles from 30,000 feet. JSTARS also offered both MTI and SAR modes to ground controllers. It was notably deployed (still not fully accepted by the USAF, and partially crewed by Grumman contractors) in Desert Storm back in 1991. Remember the “highway of death” as U.S. forces decimated the columns of Saddam Hussein’s fleeing army out of Kuwait? That was JSTARS, but it was the E-8A back then. Ask any JSTARS pilot: it’s a pig to fly.
The only home of the E-8C was Robins AFB in Georgia. The Air Force officially retired it from duty on November 4, 2023 as the 116th Air Control Wing (now part of the Georgia Air National Guard) ended its primary mission. The Air Force is buying Bombardier Global 6000 airframes to replace JSTARS, designated the E-11. But really, the RQ-4 does the job just fine, with nobody on board.
As he coded data from the SBIRS satellite system, Robby thought “there’s no way the first indication of a Hwasong-17 would be when it launched.” Obviously, Annie’s got the wrong North Korean missile in mind. When he finished his shift, Robby made a mental note to get on Reddit, where he liked to lurk in places like r/WarCollege and r/nuclearweapons. He had to be careful never to post or comment there, because in his job, it could lead to, uhh, prison. He once got a briefing during one of the boring training meetings Robby was required to sit through while remaining awake, about Jack Teixeira. Teixeira was an Airman First Class, A1C, in the Air National Guard stationed at Otis ANG Base in Cape Cod. Good duty, in the summer, Robby remembered thinking.
Teixeira was stupid. He posted all over Discord, and fell in with a bunch of online freaks who challenged his posts on all kinds of subjects, but mostly Ukraine, where this 22 year old dude claimed to be an expert. That’s only two years younger than Robby, who just turned 24. Teixeira “won” the argument by posting actual intelligence he stole from his job. Then he kept doing it. His job was in IT, AFSC 1B451, dealing with the computers in the 102d Intelligence Wing. Robby could have gone into that field: 1B in the Air Force has no equivalent in the Space Force.
SF has to do literally everything different, for reasons nobody knows. But the closest thing would be 5C0X, Cyber Ops - Network Ops. Anyway, Navy and Marine Corps has the best cyber people, according to everyone who knows these things, so it’s better to stick with GEOINT if you’re doing the space gig.
When Robby got home, he’d check out what other people were saying about “Nuclear War” and its scenario.
Hold that thought. A message appeared in the secure network: a set of coordinates “of interest.” Time to get to work.
Jamal named his Global Hawk “Jawbreaker Juice,” after the Youtuber his kids watch, because the channel is run by an African Black kid who comments on literally everything and makes Jamal laugh. Most of the other pilots in the 9th Reconnaissance Wing called their birds names like “Panoptes” or “Sentinel” or “The Watcher” referring to the all-seeing radar. Jamal mostly shortened the nickname to “Jawbreaker,” but official call-signs were mission specific, and of course, not publicly shared.
“Jawbreaker” took off a long way from the SCIF at Beale where his squadron was based. In fact, Jamal wasn’t the take-off or landing pilot. That fell to the crew where the RQ-4 began its mission. Typically, missions, like the one Jamal was flying, began closer to the target, for obvious reasons: more loiter time and less risk. This mission was a routine ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) over North Korea, which was always a primary target of interest, since there was so little human intelligence and public data out of that closed nation. Many of these flights took off from Osan Air Base near Seoul, but Jamal flew out of Andersen AFB in Guam.
The Launch and Recovery Element took care of getting the UAV into the air and safely landing it. Most of the take-offs and landings happened at night, so as not to allow curious onlookers (or spies) to know how many missions or which birds are flying. After “Jawbreaker” was in the air and headed for its target, the LRE handed control over to Jamal, who was part of the MCE—Mission Control Element—flying the mission itself.
Jamal didn’t really get to see the data his mission sent back, because he was focused on doing his best to collect it, while keeping his aircraft safe and undetected, or at least away from his target’s air defense assets. Losing a Global Hawk is a big deal. Of the few that have been lost, four were due to mechanical failure. One was confirmed shot down by Iran in 2019, by a Khordad-3 SAM. The Russians have threatened to use EW to attack RQ-4 missions over Ukraine, and China has always saber-rattled over flights near Taiwan, but North Korea is a definite shoot-down zone if the pilot is not careful.
Worse than flying too close to enemy radars and SAMs is getting blinded by EW. “Zombie mode” is what happens when a “Lost Link” event occurs. The RQ-4 flies itself on a programmed course to safety (hopefully). At 60,000 feet, only the most advanced AD systems can reach the Global Hawk, but if an enemy missile locks on, there’s always the ability to “Zeroize” meaning to wipe the entire system, and abandon the drone to its fate. Initiating a “Red Kill” zeroize option is the worst possible outcome for an MCE pilot. It means you failed.
Flying at 60,000 feet, Jamal had the AN/ZPY-2 in SAR mode, looking at a specific target near Tongchang-ri and North Korea’s Sohae Launch Facility. Earth movers have been building a new dirt road in the hills, under the dense forest surrounding the underground bunkers at Sohae, where North Korea does a lot of its ICBM testing. A new road, with compacted soil, means another road where Transporter-Erector-Launchers (TELs) can be moved, and missiles fired without using fixed launch sites.
His ISR team told him to make another pass over the suspected road, because they saw something in real time. His side aperture radar, operating at maximum signal, images what looked like a massive set of doors open in the earth, and near that, a long vehicle that looked like a TEL. On the TEL, something was vertical, a 85-foot long, 9.5-foot diameter object: probably a Hwasong-17 missile, an ICBM. Then, “ALERT: Lost Link.” The signal went dark.
Robby saw two things at once. His SBIRS data indicated possible fueling of a liquid-fueled large rocket at coordinates which mapped to a base in North Korea. This is considered a high level alert, which would also be transmitted to NRO HQ at Chantilly, Virginia, NGA in Springfield Virginia, and Cheyenne Mountain, home to NORAD. The SBIRS is known to be able to detect a rocket launch and the type of rocket based on the plume from the engine, but it’s also sensitive enough to detect the heat signature associated with the fueling of a large liquid-fueled rocket.
Also on his display was an alert from an RC135-W Rivet Joint flight over the Yellow Sea that detected a powerful, directed signal from an EW site in eastern China, near the North Korean border. This “pencil beam” signal would be enough to disrupt satellite communications and backup transmitters on any aircraft in its path. With a range of 250 miles, effective up to 65 miles, it can easily reach the 60,000-foot level where many of the U.S.’s ISR drones fly. Robby didn’t know the alert was for the same event that blinded Jamal’s RQ-4 Global Hawk, as it was observing a Hwasong-17 missile erected on its TEL outside the Sohae Launch Facility. But Robby did know that his SBIRS data pointed at that location.
“ALERT: Possible launch preparation for Hwasong-17 at Tongchang-ri.” The displays at U.S. intelligence sites, and its nuclear alert systems around the world blared. A full-bird Colonel at the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon read the alert. The Colonel was on duty manning the Washington-Moscow Direct Communication Link, also known as the “Hotline.” That link is monitored and manned 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, usually by a senior Air Force officer, but it can rotate between any of the services.
Consulting his protocol book, the Colonel logged the alert, and sent the prescribed message over the link, indicating to his Russian counterparts in Moscow that the United States has observed potential nuclear activity in a hostile country, and may react appropriately in our defense, which may involve flights, launches, or actions of a provocative nature close to, or even overflying, Russian airspace or exclusion zones. These communications and codes have been worked out over the years since the “Hotline” went in service following the Cuban Missile Crisis. They are built-in to our defense protocols, even when relations between the governments of the U.S. and the Russian Federation are stone cold.
The Russians are always suspicious of our intentions, and in fact when we inform them of a launch or exercise, they become more suspicious. In 1983, NATO, led by the U.S., conducted its annual command-post exercise simulating a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. The Soviets knew of these exercises, because western forces tell them we are having an exercise. Still, the Russians believed that an exercise could always be a cover (and in fact it was their doctrine to believe that) for an actual attack. “Able Archer,” that year, added features that included long periods of radio silence, and encrypted (simulated) messages between NATO units, along with realistic orders to set high alert status on fictitious forces, along with fake missiles and dummy warheads brought out of hangars.
Making this worse was the political backdrop of President Reagan declaring the Soviet Union as an “evil empire” and declaring the U.S. intention to pursue “Star Wars” space-based anti-ICBM technology. The KGB picked up NATO’s “Able Archer” activities and interpreted it as a possible prelude to an actual nuclear strike. It was only the level-headed action of Leonard Perroots, a U.S. Air Force intelligence officer, who interpreted Soviet responses as an actual heightening of nuclear readiness, and chose not to follow our script for reciprocal alert status, that headed off a crisis few even knew was happening.
But the message sent on the “Hotline” by the Colonel at the NMCC was not part of an exercise. It was not under the backdrop of provocative political statements. In fact, the U.S., despite supporting Ukraine in its defensive war against Russia, was now beginning to engage in negotiations to help bring that war to an end. The Russians are always suspicious of anything received that is supposed to inform them of potentially alarming military movements. But the Russians happened to have a Tupolev Tu-214R flying over the Sea of Japan. Normally, that’s handled by the older Ilyushin II-20M “Coot” aircraft, which would never have picked up the encrypted satellite transmission from the U.S. RC-135W SIGINT flight. The new Tu-214R’s advanced electronics was able to detect the alert of a Chinese EW attack, though it could not decrypt the contents of the message. It also detected the “reboot” sync attempts made by the linkless RQ-4 UAV flying near the North Korean coast.
The Colonel in the Pentagon’s NMCC had a counterpart in Moscow at the National Defense Management Center (NDMC), also a Colonel. In the same room, the senior supervising officer, working for the General Staff of the Russian military, was also present. He was a Major General, who had access to most of the real-time data streaming into the war room. The Russian Colonel received the message via the “Hotline” link and logged it as the Major General happened to walk up to his workstation. The Major General had in his hand a special action report from the Tu-214R flying over the Sea of Japan. He put the two together and had what people in that position call an “oh shit” moment. The North Koreans were preparing some kind of operation that they didn’t want the Americans to see—they really didn’t want the U.S. to see it, and the Americans believe it’s a nuclear strike.
The Russian Major General walked to his superior’s office down the hall, grabbed the Lieutenant General by the arm, and they both walked directly to the office of the Chief of the General Staff, who worked directly for the President of the Russian Federation. They had to know, to stop a world-ending war.
The RQ-4 Global Hawk, operating in autonomous mode, turned south, heading to the nearest base able to recover it, which happened to be Misawa Air Base in Japan. While it turned, it began a process of “rebooting” its communication hardware and software, trying to re-establish a link to its MCE at Beale AFB in California. The Global Hawk’s central computer was aware of the jamming signal coming at it, “painting” it from powerful radars and rendering it deaf. But it was not blind, and its own radar was able to obtain images from its last target. The computer also had a built-in counter, and if it could not re-establish communication in a set period of time, and could not alert the emergency LRE crew at Misawa, it would initiate a “Red Kill” operation and zeroize its entire memory and software. The zeroize operation has no recovery, and permanently destroys the memory and ability of the RQ-4 to fly itself or process new commands. The UAV would fall into the sea and activate its distress signal for recovery by U.S. forces.
For Jamal, at Beale AFB, it would be mission failure.
“Is it a Hwasong-18?” The GS-14 who supervised Robby’s section at MD4, was intently looking over Robby’s shoulder, at the live feed from the SBIRS satellite. “No. It’s definitely a Hwasong-17, because—see this data?—it’s the oxidizer, RFNA. Only nitric acid has that signature.” Robby was absolutely certain. He’d run this simulation before in training.
“The Hwasong-18 is solid-fueled, and we would not see any indication of hypergolic fuel loading like we do here.” Robby knew his boss’s boss knew all this. But he had to explain it anyway, to show his high confidence in the data streaming into his workstation.
“Good work, Specialist,” the GS-14 said. “How long have you been tracking this? Do you have any idea how long until the missile is fully fueled?”
“About a half-hour now. I don’t know how long it was being fueled before I acquired it,” Robby said. “I do know that a Chinese EW site zombied some of our ISR assets over the Korean peninsula about 15 minutes ago.”
“The Chinese, huh.” The GS-14 seemed concerned. “Keep me informed if anything changes. We don’t need a launch today. You understand that, Specialist?”
“Loud and clear, sir,” Robby replied.
The GS-14 went into the VTF, the “black vault” inside the SCIF where MD4 does its business, which is directly connected to the JWICS System, and therefore to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center beneath the White House, the National Command Bunkers at Strategic Command at Offutt AFB, and NORAD. There he joined his Space Force senior commanders, who were communicating with the NMCC about what Robby monitored on his workstation.
“It’s definitely a Hwasong-17, and I think it’s within a half hour of being fully fueled. That means it’s within an hour of launch,” the GS-14 said.
“Confirmed?” the high-ranking DOD person on the other end of the secure VTC link asked. “Yes sir. Confirmed.”
In the black vault at Buckley SFB, they all listened to the crosstalk on the secure circuit. “What’s on the ground at Osan?”
“We have eight F-35As on the ground at Cheongju Air Base, ROKA birds. We can arm them with JDAMs.”
“Do it. Scramble them. In the air, dash ready.”
“Sir, the GW VFA-147 has six Lightning IIs launch ready in the next 15 minutes.”
“What are they loaded with?”
“Two on alert fitted out for DEAD, with JSOW.”
“Launch them, package it to clear the S-300 corridor and make a path for the ROKA strike. Put’em all in the air.”
“Oh, and get the Chinese ambassador. Summon his ass to the White House. Now.” That was the voice of POTUS himself.
The operation was called “Scarlet Hatchet.” It was a joint mission between ROKA F-35A and U.S. Navy F-35C aircraft, against an impending ICBM launch from a mobile launcher outside the Sohae Launch Facility in northeast North Korea.
The United States and the Republic of Korea have a joint, integrated military command structure. This extends down to the lowest enlisted ranks of the U.S. Army, with “KATUSAs”—Korean Augmentees to the U.S. Army—serving in Army units, wearing Korean rank, but supervising and fighting alongside U.S. troops. The United States has operational control of all U.S. and ROK forces in this structure, to carry out missions against the North, with the Korean civilian leadership exercising a de facto right of veto for anything that might cause the general cease-fire with the North Koreans to break down.
In the case of Scarlet Hatchet, the ROK general command agreed with the conclusion that North Korea should not be able to launch a Hwasong-17 ICBM while using Chinese EW facilities to blind American ISW assets, which is a highly provocative act, never before carried out. The North Koreans need to be taught a lesson, they said, that this kind of aggression was not to be tolerated, and the Chinese need to learn that as well.
As the hypergolic fuels were finishing their final load and pressure checks, and the final preparations for pre-launch checklists were being completed around the TEL, North Korean technicians and troops wearing chemical protective gear (as the fuels are highly toxic) never saw or heard the two ROKA F-35As approach. They did see and hear the explosions four kilometers away as the S-75 and KN-06 batteries exploded in a fireball, taken out by U.S. Navy AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapons launched by F-35C jets from the U.S.S. George Washington.
The Raytheon-produced glide-bombs were launched from 50 miles off the coast of North Korea, from a height of 30,000 feet, and exploded their 1,000-pound warheads on top of the SAM batteries. The air defense radars searching the sky never “saw” the F-35Cs, or the JSOW glide-bombs. The AD batteries never launched their missiles.
Seconds later, the ROKA F-35As dropped their 2,000-pound JDAMs on top of the TEL and its vertical Hwasong-17 ICBM. The resulting explosion of the bombs and hypergolic fuels resulted in a spectacular fireball, a plume of angry red, purple, and black clouds soaring high into the air.
The crew of the WC-135 Constant Phoenix aircraft, scrambled out of Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, barely made it to altitude to begin collecting atmospheric samples to determine if the explosion over Tongchang-ri had any nuclear materials spewing into the air from the destroyed missile. Its findings were among the most classified secrets on the planet that the United States possesses.
The President of the United States showed the report from the WC-135 to the Chinese ambassador, standing in the ante-room outside the Oval Office, where the secretaries, staff, stewards, and Secret Service hovered. The ambassador was not invited in to the president’s personal office. The president would not allow the ambassador to take the report. Its contents were known to less than a dozen people in the world, and two of them were the operators on the aircraft who gathered the samples.
Days later, the President of the People’s Republic of China called the President of the United States, to explain that the people responsible for for the “blinding” incident over the Yellow Sea were being blackmailed by North Korean agents who infiltrated China with the purpose of using the EW site for the hermit kingdom’s purposes. The PLA EW site had planned an exercise for the day when the incident occurred, but the exercise was really cover for the North Korean operation. The PRC president assured the U.S. president that the perpetrators had been punished—Chinese parlance for executed—and the North Korean agents were being pursued.
The RQ-4 “Jawbreaker” had only five seconds remaining in its “Red Kill” timer when communications were re-established with the satellite system that connected it to Beale AFB. Jamal had lost signal with his aircraft for a total of 22 minutes—an eternity. He was able to download the SAR imagery and pass it along to his ISW operators. That information was transmitted to the mission planners, as Scarlet Hatchet aircraft were already launched and inbound. The SAR imagery was greatly helpful to the ROKA F-35A aircraft on their final approach to target, and it also reduced the number of jets that had to fly through the North Korean air defenses from six to two due to its accuracy.
Jamal never knew about Scarlet Hatchet. He was not cleared to know about it, or what happened to the intelligence he gathered from his UAV. But his commanders recommended him for the Air and Space Commendation Medal, accompanied by a “V” device, and his entire unit, along with the crews in Guam, for the Gallant Unit Citation, for their efforts associated with a top secret mission of great national importance. Jamal was never allowed to reveal the contents of the citation, as it was classified TS/SCI. But the ribbon fit well on his dress uniform, and his commander’s attaboy looked good on his next fitness report.
Robby watched his SBIRS feed bloom like a video game when the SAM sites surrounding his target zone exploded, then watched it bloom again when the Hwasong-17 was destroyed in a ball of fire.
The GS-14 walked by shortly after and noticed Robby’s book, “Nuclear War: A Scenario” by Annie Jacobsen sitting in his cubicle. “You realize, that book’s trash, right? It might as well be written by Jane Fonda, for all the fear-mongering and anti-American sentiments in it.”
“Oh, you’ve read it?”
“Yeah. Some of it’s correct. I mean, if our enemies were able to get one over on us.”
“I just started it.”
“Well, you’re in it. You’ll figure it out.” The GS-14 laughed as he walked away.
Robby finished his shift, took his book, left the SCIF, got his cell phone and car keys, and headed home. When he got home, he read some more of that book. Lucky it wasn’t a Hwasong-18, Robby thought. Then it occurred to him.
Damn, if the section leader wasn’t right. He was in the story. Except there’s no way the North Koreans could ever launch a Hwasong-17 without us seeing it. And by what Robby saw with his own eyes, they were going to think really hard before they ever tried again.
As he read further, he noticed a thousand other errors in the book, but what wasn’t wrong is what a nuclear war would do to America, and to the planet. Then he felt better about himself and his job, because that’s one thing Robby, for his part, is never going to let happen.
None of this really happened…or did it? Thousands of Americans are ready to stand their watch and do their jobs to keep our nation safe. Our bulkhead against nuclear war is not, as Annie Jacobsen wrote, based purely on MAD and a fragile doctrine of deterrence. It is based on many legs: Ronald Reagan’s “trust but verify,” the eyes in the sky, and mostly, the brains and attention of those who sit in windowless cubicles, staring at their displays, watching for signs of the “mad king” or anything that can threaten our people, our nation, and our planet’s survival.
No, Annie. America would not find out about a Hwasong-17 launch because some satellite saw the plume. We’d know before the rockets ever fired, because of people like “Robby” in the story.
No, Annie. The U.S. would not respond to a boost-phase inbound single ICBM headed for Washington, D.C. with only four ground interceptors. The best guess for that response is at least 8, or more. We would shoot the missile down. Even better, we would not let it launch at all.
No, Annie. A North Korean ICBM would not pinpoint hit the Pentagon. It’s Circular Error Probable at 50% is somewhere between 3-8 kilometers. That missile is just as likely to put its warhead halfway to Chesapeake Bay as to obliterate our capital city. And no, Annie. The North Koreans can’t put a 1 megaton thermonuclear warhead on a Hwasong-17 missile body, or a Hwasong-18 solid fuel version for that matter. Because they don’t have the technology to shrink the warhead so it is small enough and light enough to carry on those delivery systems.
Yes, Annie. Nuclear war is horrible. Too horrible to comprehend, though you have spent many pages trying to pound it into your readers’ heads. The only way your “scenario” can happen is if American fell asleep at the switch. If people like Robby, Jamal, and everyone from the teams launching our ISR missions, to the president, forgot to care.
We have not forgotten to care. Not today. Not tomorrow.
Thanks for reading!