Shift Delete

by Gary L. Rashba

  Russian cyber operatives hit Estonia’s network infrastructure, taking control of the flow of information and monitoring all Internet and telephone communication lines. Russian military units destroyed communication hubs. The Russians knew exactly where to look—they built Estonia’s military and strategic facilities back in the Soviet days. Russian cyber-attacks hit Estonian military communications particularly hard, disrupting communications of forces that might pose a threat to the invading troops, while leaving some communication lines working in order to monitor and control for intelligence gathering purposes. At first, the Estonian forces did not understand they were under cyber-attack. Sure, there were some anomalies, and things that seemed unusual, but they were dismissed as hiccups of war, with stress on the system, and nervous users shaken by the actual events on the ground. In more drastic cases, frantic radio calls from the front were falling on deaf ears, while deployment orders and situational updates from central command were not hitting their mark. In many areas, situational awareness evaporated. Commanders lost track of their forces: battalion commanders did not know their brigade or company commanders’ location, and had no data on where the Russian forces were deployed or advancing. Estonian military command found it impossible to operate in such a vacuum. Blinded by the Russians cyber fog and fearing they might accidently strike friendly forces, the Estonian army simply ceased functioning. Some commanders used personal cell phones to reach headquarters, which dispatched special units trained to determine whether the difficulties were cyber or operating-related events. Of course, Russian Intel monitored these cell phone calls and could gauge the effectiveness of their efforts. It was the same signature as earlier successful Russian actions in Ukraine and Georgia. The Russians had been early adopters of the new fifth dimension of cyber to the four traditional dimensions of air, sea, land and space warfare.

  Estonians were denied news as Russian forces entered their country, leaving the populace unaware of precise developments, which naturally impacted their morale. For news that did slip through, Russia added to the confusion by posting false articles about a general collapse of Estonian forces, claiming the Estonian government was calling on all men in uniform to surrender.

  Even with a NATO country in the crosshairs, the Russian president gambled—based on Russia’s experience in Georgia and its more recent invasion and annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, the world probably won’t do a thing.

  Effete UN resolutions condemning Russian aggression only made him laugh.

  Invading Estonia served his purposes of resurgence and standing up for Russian-speaking populations while thumbing his nose at the West and striking at the heart of NATO. When one of his aides counseled against instigating trouble with Estonia, the president reportedly responded that no one will go to war over Estonia, and that will call the whole NATO alliance into question and tear it apart. It will serve them right for their provocation of expanding NATO to our very borders. How dare they!.

  “Putin’s got balls,” Parovsky told some colleagues at work over lunch one day. “He doesn’t give a shit about what people think, he just does.” In the process, it restored pride in his people and made him a beloved leader. “And he sticks by his friends. Even ruthless dictators like Bashar Assad in Syria would seem like a liability, but Putin stuck by his ally, in a sense defying the world. Someone who overheard the conversation reported his comments to security. It was an anonymous tip from someone who had seen a security flier about insider threats that mentioned conflicting loyalties towards foreign nations. The complaint wound up on Tim O’Connel’s desk, where the matter was dismissed.

  Glancing at world news on the internet, Parovsky read the headline: “Estonia ‘Overrun’ by Russian troops in full-scale ground invasion.” The article reported that some 10,000 Russian troops backed by hundreds of tanks, armored personnel carriers and other vehicles which had been massed on Estonia’s border by Narva, north of Lake Peipus, had entered Estonia proper and were heading due west towards the capital of Tallinn. The article reported a second Russian thrust south of the lakes, with columns pouring along roads towards the city of Tartu, stopping to raid Estonian military bases along the way. The article told of isolated pockets of Estonian resistance slowing the Russian advance at times, while frantic calls went out to NATO, the European Union and the United States for help. Meanwhile, Russian forces advanced unmolested while Estonian forces withdrew towards defensive lines around their capital.

  The Estonian Prime Minister held a press conference in Tallinn where he publicly invoked Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which states that an armed attack against one or more NATO members shall be considered an attack against them all.

  NATO responded with indecision and lack of resoluteness, stating that the organization is committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes, and agreed to send a delegation of military observers mandated to assist in reducing tensions and fostering peace, stability and security. The delegation was to observe facts on the ground and provide an assessment. Estonia understood this full well: no one was going to commit combat forces in a futile attempt to stop the Russians in their own backyard. The cold, hard truth for Estonia was to go look for its friends now that they were needed.

  Estonia could not believe this was happening. They turned to the world’s preeminent democracy with a plea for help, only to see the United States Department of State similarly waver in its stance. Washington was hard-pressed to formulate an appropriate response that would challenge Russia’s upstart president without triggering a wider conflict with a nuclear armed opponent determined to reassert its preeminence. The White House came out with a feeble statement about Russia threatening its neighbors “out of weakness,” adding that Russia’s actions “reek of bravado.” It was an embarrassing episode that merely highlighted U.S. helplessness against Russia. After contributing small contingents of Estonian troops to NATO missions to serve alongside Americans in Iraq and the British in Afghanistan, this is what they got.

  A Russian foreign ministry spokesman announced that Russia’s actions in Estonia were part of its humanitarian intervention and peace enforcement.

  Impressive! Parovsky thought, shaking his head from side to side in disbelief from his cluttered desk in DCA’s facility. It reminded him of a t-shirt slogan he had once seen: Fighting for Peace is Like Fucking for Virginity.

  Parovsky found a map of Estonia on the internet to familiarize himself with the country, and read an analysis of Russia’s moves. He then sent a secure instant message to Dan Chaseman. It was mid-afternoon in Moscow.

  [EParovsky] ° Hi Dan. I see you’re online [08:17] [DChaseman] ° Can’t pull myself away from the news... [08:17] [DChaseman] 0 As predicted. Russia invaded. Looks like the latest in their bid to reclaim the Soviet empire. [08:17]

  [EParovsky]0 Yeah. I’ve been following it. Your assessment was right on target. Curious to see what will happen. [08:18]

  [DChaseman] 0 Latest here is Russia claiming it has no designs on Estonia; it simply seeks to create an enclave where it will be safe for ethic Russians to live with honor as first class citizens. [08:19]

  When they finished corresponding about the crisis, Parovsky looked at emails in his Inbox. He received a response from his buddy Tim O’Connel in DCA’s Security Department—with its ubiquitous “Ever Vigilant” slogan—responding to his Moscow visit report in Tim’s terse pattern of military communications. Tim was a retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel who had spent thirty years in the corps flying and then maintaining Cobra helicopters, until his last position “flying a desk”, as he referred to his Pentagon job. He had close-cropped white hair—true to his Marine Corps heritage, crow’s feet wrinkles that extended from his eyes and a friendly smile accompanied by dimples. He loved the nation’s capital and looked for a job in the DC area after retiring from the service. Parovsky couldn’t figure out what O’Connel’s background had to do with security, but who was he to question the wisdom of h
is agency’s hiring practices. He liked Tim and they had become friends, despite their ten year age difference. Friends called Tim “Colonel O’Connel” because of the repeating sounds, and Tim basked in still being called by his former rank. Elliot and the colonel went out for the occasional beer in trendy Georgetown after work, O’Connel quipping that he was a typical Irishman—always up for a beer, regardless of time of day. His favorite T-shirt was one that read: It’s Always Happy Hour Somewhere!

  From:Timothy O’Connel/DCA

  Security **Ever Vigilant* *

  To:Elliot Parovsky

  Subject:Moscow Trip Report

  Snowden contact. Need to debrief that one more. It’s generated quite a bit of interest in our agency and beyond...

  KGB? Read your write-up. Wouldn’t characterize that as an approach from the Federal Security Service (FSB) as they are now known.

  Russian girl. Hope things aren’t that pathetic for you that all you’ve got going on is a girl 5000 miles away!

  He’s probably right on #3, he thought, but Parovsky was the type who preferred to err on the side of caution and report the contact rather than risk anything coming back at him.

  There were calls for restraint and threats of economic sanctions if Russia did not immediately withdraw its forces. To demonstrate seriousness, the United States and the European Union made a specific threat of sanctions focused on Russia’s oil industry that would make it difficult for them to raise money on financial markets. This elicited an immediate response from American oil and gas companies deeply engaged in Russia whose operations risked being hurt by sanctions. Their powerful lobbyists immediately began pounding Washington’s pavement pressing the Administration and Congressional leaders not to impose sanctions on Russia’s oil industry. This was more complicated than Parovsky ever realized, with so many moving and conflicting parts.

  Russia quickly responded with its own warning to the EU that if these sanctions were implemented, Russia would prevent Western commercial aircraft from using Russian airspace.

  In eastern Estonia, a busload of foreign military observers was blocked by pro-Russian separatists, showing defiance against the world, and forethought at the same time since it was ethnic Russian Estonians turning away the defense attaches and international observers rather than Russian soldiers. The world seemed helpless in the face of this unbridled Russian aggression. Except for the cyber soldiers; they were easily mobilized and able to act. Estonian cyber activists attacked the Kremlin’s website, the Russian presidential website and Russian news and media. The cyber front is in some ways scarier than the kinetic one. The capabilities, limitations and even quantities of kinetic weapons are known variables, whereas in the cyber world, all is unknown. Fear of the unknown, not knowing where a cyber-foe may strike and what damage they might do, makes it a terrifying domain. The enemy can be poisoning your IT network, or your water supply.

  The Russians responded by monitoring the Internet, and even shutting down Facebook and Twitter temporarily to thwart resistance, calls to carry out anti-Russian activities, or to participate in unsanctioned public events. This step was overcome by descending to the Deep Web, using TOR’s arrangement of proxy servers that route messages back and forth between one another to obscure their source, like a game of hot potato until no one knows where it originated. Often associated with illegal activities like the trafficking of drugs, weapons and illegal pornography, the Deep Web serves this precise purpose: an instrument of free speech that kept the Russians from stifling cyber resistance by offering anonymity. Almost. Normally an IP address acts like a return address on an envelope mailed via old-fashioned snail mail. TOR’s software obscures the return address, masking its origin. Regular websites can also be accessed via TOR for anyone seeking more privacy.

  “What are people saying in Washington?” Chaseman asked his friend Elliot.

  “I can tell you that there are all sorts of opinions out there. A senator appearing on a news program yesterday asked, ‘You want me to go to war with Russia over who?’ Some foreign policy expert noted that the military hasn’t even recalibrated from the last combat operations. Op-Eds are saying that Washington is failing in its mission as the world’s beacon of democracy and freedom. But what do people expect?” Parovsky wondered out loud. “The vast majority of Americans probably can’t locate Estonia on a map. But then again, we went to war in Kuwait way back when...”

  “They had oil! And the invader wasn’t Russia, with ICBMs,” Chaseman clarified. “There’s actually a theory that Russia used the pretense of ethnic tension to invade Estonia, just to raise oil prices.”

  Parovsky paused for a moment to mull that one over. “Really?”

  “It actually makes sense. Conflicts raise oil prices, which have been dropping lately. The Russians have been losing billions and billions of dollars in oil profits. It’s Russia’s most lucrative export, and now Russia can’t balance its budget. Don’t forget that World War II started over oil.”

  “It started because of Pearl Harbor.”

  “The U.S. slapped an oil embargo on Japan as a sanction against Japanese aggression in China,” Chaseman explained.

  “That was their reason for Pearl Harbor?” Parovsky asked, hearing this version for the first time.

  “The Japs worried they would slowly wither on the vine if the U.S. sanctions were left in place. So one has to look at these situations very carefully. A local conflict like the one in Estonia can quickly get very much out of control.”

  “Granted,” Parovsky acknowledged. “But invading Estonia just to raise oil prices? It doesn’t make sense. I can understand the oil prices bit, but they’ll get hit with a new round of economic sanctions that will cost them billions.”

  “Someone’s probably done the math and figured out that higher oil prices outweigh the impact of feeble economic sanctions. I read that the recent fall in oil prices is costing Russia $100 billion per year. International sanctions won’t cost them more than that. So raising the price of oil means a helluva lot more to them than international sanctions.”

  “With such massive losses, they’re being backed into a corner,

  “Sounds like a conspiracy theory, if you ask me,” Parovsky retorted.

  “I agree the Russians are champs at conspiracy theories, but 1 wouldn’t put it past that calculating bastard in the Kremlin to pull such a stunt out of economic desperation.”

  “I still don’t buy it. Risking war with the West just to raise oil prices?!”

  “No one’s rushing to Estonia’s side if it means war with Russia. Russia probably evaluated the risks and decided it was worth the gamble.”

  “You know, it sounded like a fairy tale when you first said it, but now I’m not sure anymore.”

  “Neither am I. No one knows, except perhaps the Kremlin inner circle. But it certainly adds an interesting perspective. They’ve been busy modernizing their defense industry and military across the board while our country has thrown all its money into chasing terrorists through alleyways in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

  “And another point, Chaseman added. “The U.S. also benefits from this.”

  “From what?”

  The U.S. shares the Russians’ interest. The U.S.’ biggest customers for weapons are the Arab oil-producing countries. Remember, the Arabs are all scared of Iran, so they’ve been loading up on weapons. But if the price of oil goes south, the U.S. sells fewer weapons. This is no conspiracy theory shit! The U.S. doesn’t want war either, but it does need to protect its arms sales enterprise.”

  Parovsky’s head was awash from all these variables he had never considered, and was impressed with Chaseman’s seemingly endless knowledge.

  Down the hall from Parovsky’s office at DCA, the Intell department had picked up chat room banter about plans to attack computer networks of U.S. banks and critical infrastructure to retaliate if the U.S. imposed sanctions
on Russia. Parovsky shot off an email with instructions to post this on DCA’s website and to issue a warning to industries that had registered to receive warnings and notifications from them.

  For purposes of indemnification, better known as covering your ass, DCA adopted the State Department’s “No Double Standard” security threat information policy, sharing all cyber threat information that it knows not just with the official U.S. community, but with the public, unless the threat applies solely to the government or official U.S. community. A rather vanilla warning would go out recommending extra vigilance for a possible increase of hostile cyber activity. DCA knew to take these threats seriously. When the U.S. slapped sanctions on Iran, a hacker group in that country known as the Al Qassam Cyber Fighters conducted an eight month campaign of Denial of Service attacks on major U.S. banks that brought down their networks by overwhelming them with artificial web traffic, just one of the uncountable examples. DCA braced itself for a potential increase in hostile cyber activity against its constituents, even though specific threats were directed against the financial sector and infrastructure.

  8. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

  U.S. DCA SIC night shift manager Layla clocked in that night as usual at 11pm, or 23:00 as it appeared in bright red digital numerals on the oversized digital clock featured prominently on a wall in the SIC—the heartbeat of the United States Government’s cyber protection force. Layla was a manager because she was responsible for the SIC, although she did technically manage the two college student interns who also worked overnight just to be able to include DCA on their resumes, nor anyone else’s. The interns generally kept to themselves, engrossed in their schoolwork or talking amongst themselves. Layla included the boys when she did periodic system health and traffic monitoring checks to ensure that all systems were operating smoothly, and sometimes the three would talk to pass the time.