GOLAN: This is the Future of War (Future War)

by FX Holden

  “Iran, of course. Russia. The usual suspects. But the good thing about a Swarmdiver attack is we can engage from miles out and keep our distance. It will look like they snagged a fishing net. Pretty much totally deniable.”

  “And the latest on Syria?”

  “Syria has more than 2,000 tanks and 10,000 troops parked up along the ceasefire line. Looks like a full court press, just as Dupré described.” McDonald grimaced.

  Henderson motioned to Lewis. “Get her on a line, will you, Carmine?”

  Lewis got up and went to the door to find an aide.

  “Helluva situation, Harry,” Henderson said, wiping his face. “How did we get here? Iranian nukes?”

  “Horse has bolted, Oliver. Did you know the USA started the Iranian nuclear energy program?”

  “No, get out.”

  “Yep. Back in the 1950s, under the Shah. We called it ‘Atoms for Peace’. It was a great idea, trying to take the bogeyman out of the idea of nuclear energy and show the world that it could also be used for peace, not just war.”

  “Genius.”

  “Yeah, until 1979 when the good guys became the bad guys and we were the ones who gave them the means to refine weapons-grade uranium. Now you and I are the ones left holding the barn door.”

  Lewis returned as a telephone on the Resolute desk rang. She walked over to pick up the call, putting it on speaker and turning the screen to face Henderson before sitting down again.

  “Tonya Dupré for you, Mr. President,” the operator said.

  The young woman came onscreen, a look of curiosity on her face. “Hello, Mr. President…”

  “Tonya, walk me through this All Domain Attack scenario. Say Iran isn’t looking for nuclear war and Syria and Iran want to force Israel to sit down and deal instead. How’s it unfold?”

  “Certainly, sir,” the young woman replied. “Well, their first move would be a cyber attack on Israeli utilities – power, water, electricity, cellular phone networks. At the same time, they’d go after the Israeli economy – banks, big businesses, factories, logistic and distribution centers. Israel has been preparing for this sort of thing for a long time, so most of their systems are hardened against cyber attack, but either Iran or Russia must think they have a solid attack vector, from what we’ve been hearing. That’s the cyber domain. If Russia is fully behind them, they will also act in the space domain in the first wave. Israel currently has ten Amos civilian and military communications and Eros reconnaissance satellites in orbit. Russia has multiple options for blinding, jamming or even destroying the Israeli satellite network. If the cyber and space attacks succeed, they can bring the Israeli economy to a halt for at least a few days, costing them billions, and cripple their military communications network.”

  “And that’s just the first wave?!” Henderson asked, aghast.

  “Yes, sir. I’d expect Iran or Syria at that point to deny any responsibility, but at the same time open up some sort of negotiations, probably territorial or trade. They might try to pile on pressure through some proxies, provoke civil unrest…”

  “And if Israel tells them to take a hike?”

  “Then they move to the land, sea and air domain. More traditional warfare: the cyber and space domain attack continues, but you will see Syrian and Iranian ground forces move into the Golan Heights, with Russian aircraft and naval forces providing air cover. In a traditional war against Syria, even with Russian anti-air support, Israel would quickly have the upper hand due to defensive advantage and massive air superiority. But remember, because this is a Russian-sponsored All Domain Attack, their recon satellites are down, their comms are compromised – if not completely knocked out – radar is compromised by electronic warfare and cyber attack, electricity is out, their civilian population is panicking, there’s uprisings in Palestine, Hezbollah making trouble from Lebanon, the roads are jammed…”

  “Okay, okay, I get the picture. So why the nuclear posturing? Why have they shown their hand and let us see they’re moving nukes close to Israel’s border?”

  “Because they know an All Domain Attack will send the Israeli politicians to their fallout shelters – they see Syrian tanks rolling into the Golan and they’re feeling like the end of the world is nigh. Israeli ballistic missile systems are isolated from cyber attack to protect them, so they would probably still be operational and Israel’s leadership may be tempted to use them. Iran and Syria want us and Israel to know, or to think, that any nuclear attack will just provoke an equal and opposite reaction from Iran. I agree with Secretary Shrier – it’s all intended to bring Israel to the negotiating table, in a position of vulnerability. As to why that, and why now, the CIA and State department would know better than me.”

  “Guess.”

  There was silence. Come on, girl. He’s asking because he wants your view, Carmine urged her silently. Don’t pike on me.

  Tonya cleared her throat. “Sir, every data point we have tells us Iran is at the point of economic collapse. They probably guaranteed North Korea a lifetime supply of free oil to buy those nukes. This is their last roll of the dice. They need an arms agreement with Israel, they need détente, if not mutual recognition, and they need sanctions lifted, or the regime is finished…”

  Henderson picked up on her tone of voice. “Finish that thought, Director.”

  “Mr. President. I was just thinking, a failed State in possession of nuclear weapons, that’s a lose-lose for everyone.”

  “Alright. Thanks, Tonya. No, cancel that. Thanks isn’t the word I’m looking for, but you know what I mean. Have a good day.”

  “I know, Mr. President. Good day to you, sir.”

  President Henderson sat looking at the telepresence screen. “Is that really how we negotiate today? We bring a nation to its knees, threaten it with nuclear destruction and then hope it wants to meet with us in Geneva over canapés and mineral water?”

  “It is when the nations involved are suddenly nuclear powers like Israel and Iran and superpowers like the US and Russia are pulling the strings,” Carmine said.

  “God. Damn.” Henderson ran a hand through his thin hair. “I promised to reply to the Israeli PM in the morning.”

  “We don’t have a defense treaty with Israel,” Lewis reminded him. “This would be the first All Domain Attack we’ve seen in modern times. We can let it play through, learn from it, decide what to do about it when the dust settles. Keep our focus on China.”

  “And if that dust is radioactive?” McDonald asked.

  “There’s that risk,” she admitted.

  Henderson was up and pacing behind his desk now. “Look. If we take the Iranian nukes off the board, we level the playing field, right?” he said. “How do we do that?”

  McDonald leaned forward on the couch. “Like I said. USS Canberra takes out that Iranian sub in the Red Sea. Deniably. Meanwhile, we announce a blockade of Iranian ships in the Mediterranean to prevent them approaching Israeli waters. We park our Aegis destroyers and persuade the Brits to put their nuclear attack submarine between the Russian fleet and the Israeli coast. We let the Russian ships through, but anything Iranian gets stopped and turned around. Russia talks tough, but they don’t have the hardware to back their bluff. I doubt either Russia or Iran will risk trying to force the issue.”

  “If they do?” Carmine asked.

  “Well, then, Iran might decide it could launch a nuclear cruise missile at Israel from outside the blockade, but our destroyer screen has a pretty good chance of knocking it down.”

  “That only takes care of the threat from the sea,” Lewis pointed out. “The rest of those warheads are probably mounted on ground-based mobile ballistic or medium-range cruise missiles inside Syria.”

  “Can’t Israel take care of them?” Henderson asked. “Jesus, it’s their back yard.”

  “I’m betting Israel will need all the help it can get if we reach the point where we’re discussing attacking Syrian or Iranian missile launchers inside Syria,” Lewis said. “And we�
�ll need a plausible rationale for even having US aircraft on readiness for operations inside Syria. We haven’t conducted operations inside Syria since 2021.”

  The room was suddenly quiet. McDonald clicked his fingers. “The UN troops inside the Golan DMZ,” he said. “Given the current situation, we could set up a no-fly zone – like we did over Kosovo in Albania or the Korean DMZ in 2028 – to protect the UN troops in the Golan Heights. But it would help if we had even a handful of US blue helmets on the ground as part of the UNDOF observer corps. That would give us the narrative we need to put the assets in place without it looking like we are directly assisting Israel in its standoff against Syria.”

  “A platoon, no more. Not one pair of boots more, is that clear?” Henderson said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And another thing. That border area is going to be bristling with anti-air missile systems and Russian fighters. I’m not risking US pilots getting shot down, captured and paraded on Syrian TV,” Henderson said.

  “You won’t have to,” McDonald told him. “The Marines have unmanned combat aircraft in the theatre. General Garrett has already ordered them attached to the USAF 432nd Air Wing on Cyprus.”

  “Drones I can live with. Not manned aircraft, understood?”

  “Message received.”

  “Harry, tell the Admiral he’s got his DEFCON 2 and ask Navy to deal with that Iranian sub in the Red Sea as discreetly as they can. Anything short of sinking it. Set the wheels in motion for that blockade. Will four destroyers and a sub do it? Can’t we get some assets up from Guam?”

  “Move too much firepower into the Mediterranean when you announce that blockade and it will look like you are planning to take on the whole Russian Black Sea fleet,” Lewis warned. “You increase the chances of something unforeseen happening, and Wall Street will get even more jittery.”

  “We can leave the war fighting to Admiral Clarke and the Joint Chiefs, Oliver. They just need to know the broad strokes,” McDonald assured him.

  Henderson had stopped pacing. “Alright. Carmine, I want proof those damn nukes are on those damn Iranian ships.”

  “We’re on it, Mr. President.”

  “What time is ExComm tomorrow morning?” Henderson asked.

  “Eleven hundred,” Lewis replied.

  “I’ll get Karl Allen to bring it forward. I’ll call the Israeli PM, let him know about the blockade and the no-fly zone. Then I need to call the House and Senate minority and majority leaders…” He had bent over his desk and was writing an aide-mémoire. “Then ExComm to iron out any wrinkles, and we go with an address to the nation at … what?” He had seen that both McDonald and Lewis were smiling at him.

  “It took near on a year to get you to recognize the Syrian situation was serious and commit a single anti-air battalion to the defense of that NATO base at Incirlik. But in the last week you’ve taken us to DEFCON 3, now DEFCON 2, authorized a naval blockade and a no-fly zone,” Lewis told him. “That’s all.”

  Henderson colored and turned back to his notepad. “Yeah, well, you hear enough 21-gun salutes, it tends to focus the mind. You realize that if you’d taken a few more risks a whole lot earlier, you might have saved a whole lot of lives later.”

  All Domain Attack: Diversion

  Al Azraq Air Base, Jordan, May 17

  “OK, so, we had a momentary loss of control situation,” Bunny O’Hare had told Shelly Kovacs.

  “A ‘loss of control situation’?” Kovacs had repeated. “You nearly let one of my precious F-47s fly itself into the ground.”

  They were standing on the tarmac outside the DARPA hangar at the northeast corner of Al Azraq Air Base, inspecting the damage to the wing of one of Kovacs’ precious drones. A wingtip had clipped a powerline as Bunny had stress-tested the low-level formation-keeping routines on a flight of six of the machines.

  “The problem isn’t me, it’s you,” O’Hare told her equably. She looked up at the baking sun. Al Azraq was not a big multinational base like Incirlik in Turkey, but it had better facilities than the RAF base at Akrotiri. The first thing Bunny had done when she landed was go to the base’s USO grill and order a ridiculously huge burger, sweet potato fries and a bottomless cola. After forty days of mystery meat and boiled vegetables in detention, she had been starving. But as soon as that was done, she’d started familiarizing herself with her new babies. Kovacs already had a team of pilots who had been taking them through their paces, and O’Hare immediately alienated them by ignoring just about everything they’d told her about how to fly the F-47B Fantom.

  Most were former pilots of the Navy’s Triton or Air Force Sentinel unarmed recon aircraft, used to sending their birds on long missions at high altitude where the most dangerous part of any mission was the takeoff and landing. They’d been doing a lot of testing of the Fantom’s sensor suite – essentially the same as the one Bunny was familiar with from the F-35 – and testing systems in Red Flag exercises with Royal Jordanian Air Force F-16s. Those had gone reasonably well, so they had moved onto Red Flag exercises against US Air Force F-22 Raptors based at Al Azraq to find out how easy the Fantom was for the F-22 to detect, and how good the Fantom was at picking up the nearly 25-year-old US stealth fighters.

  The answer as far as Bunny could see was that the Fantom was too easy for the Raptors to detect, and not very good at hunting them. If the F-47 was going to be a threat against piloted stealth aircraft, it would need to be flown very, very differently.

  “What do you mean, the problem is me?” Kovacs asked.

  “Tell me why your Fantoms keep getting killed by those F-22 pilots.”

  “The algorithms are still crude, they…”

  “They’re not crude, but you’re not giving them a chance,” Bunny interrupted. “You still have a human pilot at the stick of those Fantoms … he’s sitting on the ground instead of in a cockpit in the sky, but you’ve still got him calling all the shots with the AI there as a backup. You need to set the AI free.”

  “We will never get permission to send those Fantoms out in full autonomous mode. Semi-autonomous maybe.”

  “I can live with that. I’ve got the hang of these birds now…”

  Kovacs raised her eyebrows and nodded toward the shattered wingtip of the Fantom.

  “Pretty much,” Bunny continued, ignoring the look. “Let me fly this next two-on-two Red Flag. I’ll fly lead, and let me put my wingman in semi-autonomous mode, flying defense unless I tell it otherwise. If I don’t have to worry about my back, I can be more focused on finding and killing those F-22s.”

  Kovacs thought about it. “We can try that.”

  “And another thing. Your pilots are flying the Fantom like it’s any other stealth fighter, staying fifty miles from where they think the target is and sending missiles at it.”

  Kovacs frowned. “That’s stealth doctrine. Stay invisible, strike from afar.”

  “Yeah, but the Fantom isn’t as capable as an F-35 or F-22. A Raptor or Panther can pick it up at anywhere from forty to sixty miles out. Even a Russian Felon will see them at thirty miles. Your data shows you aren’t getting a ping off those F-22s at anything over twenty miles, so your pilots have spent most of their time firing blind or circling around waiting to be killed.”

  “That’s why I’ve been looking for someone with more combat experience.”

  “Combat experience isn’t going to help unless we change tactics. We need to be using the Fantom the way Ivan uses his Okhotniks. Down low and personal, pounding air defenses, or right up in the faces of those Raptor pilots, dodging missiles and blasting so much radiation at them that even a 5th-gen fighter with the radar cross-section of a ball bearing can’t hide.”

  “Alright. You can get behind the stick this afternoon,” Kovacs said. “With a wingman in semi-autonomous defensive mode.”

  “With pilot override.”

  “With … alright. You can take control of it in flight but if you release it, it will go defensive again.”

  “I can
live with that,” Bunny grinned. “Wouldn’t want it getting ideas of its own now, would we?”

  There was a damn good reason Shelly Kovacs didn’t like the idea of giving any remotely piloted system too much autonomy, but it wasn’t one she shared with many people.

  MIT Senior Ball, 2025.

  Or the fact she never got there. Shelly was ahead of the curve on a lot of things. She’d asked Erik Jensen to be her date, after getting tired of waiting for him to ask her even though she’d known for weeks he was planning to. And she organized their ride, because ever since a certain motor company had launched its totally autonomous self-driving SUV, she’d wanted to ride in one. So she’d rented the latest model from a hire company, which was another bonus of self-driving cars because any adult, any age, could rent one. And it was much cheaper than hiring a limo with a driver.

  It had been as awesome as she’d hoped it would be. She’d told Erik she would collect him, and the car had driven itself to Erik’s place and picked him up, then piloted itself over to her place. He was seated in the back, freaking out over the fact there was no one in the driver seat. Shelly tried to be cool about it herself, making out she thought it was no big deal, but inside she was totally geeking out. She punched in the address of the hotel where the ball was being held and sat back to enjoy the ride. She’d already decided, even back then, she was going to specialize in robotics AI, and that conviction only got stronger for every mile the driverless car drove them.

  She’d bought a bottle of champagne and some strawberries and the two of them were swigging it down, getting bubbles up their noses and laughing as they pulled onto the Massachusetts Turnpike, heading toward the MIT campus for the pre-ball photo session at Killian Court. Which was when the deer jumped the guard rail on the side of Interstate 90, dodged three lanes of traffic, then freaked out as it landed right in front of Shelly’s hire car and planted itself stock still in the middle of their lane.

  With cars to their left and cars to their right, and no chance of braking before it hit the deer, the AI on the SUV had to make a decision. It was a decision that had already been made by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 2022 actually, when it approved the safety protocols for self-piloted vehicles. And in a nutshell, it said that in a situation where the AI pilot was forced to choose between an action that would endanger a human and an action that would endanger an animal, it should avoid endangering the human.