Page 32 of Tom Clancy Line of Sight
Sevrov continued with more slides displaying facts, figures, and quotes, all of which were presented in the voluminous notebooks sitting in front of each delegate. His job today was to summarize the presentation into easily digestible bites, not to regurgitate the reams of data in their hands.
“NCW/NCO relies on a vast array of sensors, everything from tiny RFID chips tracking shipping crates of MREs all the way up to orbiting satellite platforms.
“The essential theory of NCW/NCO is that massive inputs of data from all of these innumerable sensors, combined with faster rates of communications at all levels, increases the decision-making abilities and combat effectiveness of all units and commands, from the lowly soldier in the field to the general directing the war.
“The means of accomplishing this is referred to in the NATO literature as C4ISR—Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance.
“In other words, the Americans and Europeans believe that they have enhanced, extended, and improved the speed and effectiveness of their combat capabilities by relying on the latest communications technologies.”
Sevrov flipped to more images as he continued. “GPS, cellphones, shortwave radio, radar, computers, satellites, laser-guided munitions... ships, planes, tanks, UAVs, soldiers, sailors, airmen... everybody linked, everybody connected, everybody seeing what everybody else sees. Building on the platform of NCW, their ultimate goal is to create a vast collective network of perfect informational awareness, command, and control.”
One of the civilian Serbian politicians spoke up. “But General, is such a capacity even possible? It sounds like more American ‘fake news.’”
Sevrov shrugged. “It’s not only possible, it’s inevitable. Perhaps you have heard of IoT—the Internet of Things? American corporations are proposing to connect every toaster, lightbulb, television screen, A/C unit, and food blender in their homes to an integrated network, so that everything is connected and monitored. You know, ‘Alexa, buy a box of cereal’ or ‘Siri, turn the thermostat down.’ That sort of thing.
“In the same way, the American war planners are proposing an IoBT—an Internet of Battlefield Things, where everything is both a sensor and a processor, from the rifle scope to the aircraft carrier. The Pentagon imagines that in the future there will be one giant central nervous system of combat operations, coordinating efforts between units, and across services—Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. They have even envisioned squadrons of swarming drones—air, land, and sea—all connected to one another, engaging enemies as one AI mind, fighting as fast as quantum computers can think.”
Sevrov let that idea wash over the audience. And then he winked. “Sounds pretty scary, doesn’t it?”
Nervous chuckles bubbled up around the room.
“There’s no doubt that NATO and the United States rely heavily on advanced technologies to achieve their war-fighting aims, and they have had some spectacular successes.”
Sevrov pulled up another video. “We’ve all seen the videos of laser-guided drone munitions destroying nests of Islamic fighters. The West believes that technology is the key to everything, including warfare.”
Sevrov paused for effect.
“But I will remind everyone in this room that every war the Americans have lost—Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, and, yes, Afghanistan—has been lost totechnologically inferioropponents.”
Sevrov watched heads around the room nodding in surprised agreement as that revelation hit home.
He flashed two more images: a B-2 stealth bomber in the sky and another of a smiling, toothless, and bearded Taliban fighter holding his battered AK-47.
“Seventeen years after invading Afghanistan with their billion-dollar bombers and lasers and drones, who is still in charge of the Afghan countryside? The illiterate peasant with his two-hundred-dollar rifle.”
More heads nodded in agreement. Sevrov continued.
“I’m not saying that NATO and America aren’t powerful military forces. They certainly are.” For a moment, the humiliating image of NATO forces smashing the Russian invasion of Lithuania flashed in his brain. He pushed it aside.
“But even they will tell you they are powerful only because of their technological advantages, and they are only becoming more reliant on their technology.
“But what would happen to their vaunted military power if suddenly their radars and radios, satellites and lasers, strikefighters and helicopters, cruise missiles and missile cruisers, GPS and drones, were suddenly snatched out of their hands with the flip of a switch?”
The general pulled up a new slide, titled “Russian Strategic Doctrine: Radio-Electronic Combat.”
“We have taken an entirely different approach from NATO. Whereas NATO sees the electromagnetic spectrum as ameansof improving combat capabilitiesinthe battle space, we view the electromagnetic spectrumasthe battle space, and, perhaps, the most important one.”
Sevrov then tapped a few keys on his computer keyboard, pulling up a live video feed of a handheld camera focused on a four-axled cab-over truck with stabilizer bars extended perpendicular from the open bed. EW troops scrambled over and around the green all-terrain vehicle, monitoring the vertical extension of a huge telescoping mast reaching straight up for the sky. The handheld camera swung over to three more identical trucks in a semicircle several hundred feet away. Their masts were already extended to more than one hundred feet.
“What you are witnessing here is the deployment of our Murmansk-BN electronic warfare system just north of your air base. Murmansk-BN is just one of several new systems we’ve brought into service in the last year. It has an operational range of three thousand kilometers, and is capable of locating enemy radio signals such as the American High Frequency Global Communications (HFGC) system and targeting the source. It is also capable of monitoring radio signals and even jamming them over that incredible distance.”
Sevrov tapped another key and pulled up a picture of an American Civil War Confederate cavalry unit on the attack. “Some claim it was the southern Americans who first engagedin EW by deploying telegraphers with their advanced cavalry units who would ‘spoof’ federal troops with false orders, sending them to the wrong locations or reporting enemy positions that didn’t exist.” Sevrov smiled broadly. “Of course, our own troops have done much the same thing in recent operations, sending phony text messages and voice mails, confusing and frightening enemy combatants in our latest version of PsyOps.”
Suddenly, cell phones vibrated and buzzed all across the room. As delegates checked their emergency text messages, a wave of laughter bubbled up. A few concerned faces frowned as well. Sevrov’s team had crashed through the security architecture of their phones and sent them all a spoof text cracking an obscene joke at President Ryan’s expense.
A few chuckles of admiration murmured among the Serbian officers.
An oil painting depicting a battleship engagement during the 1904–1905 Russo–Japanese War appeared on the screen. Sevrov continued.
