The incident dates back to 17 in March 2015 and the statement also specifies the motivation: in summary it is a lack of confidence in the officer's ability to conduct.
The SCW1, integrated by TF124, carries out command and control functions within the TACAMO system, Take Charge And Move Out, and is responsible for maintaining the communications as well as for issuing orders in the event of a nuclear attack by airborne command seats always in flight.
This incident related to the lifting of the commander of a service dedicated to transmissions, could be correlated with an event dating back a few days before and referred to an unusual activity on web traffic out of Texas and directed to the United Kingdom. The messages had been routed through Ukrainian and Russian telecommunications systems with an unusual detour, though network traffic often requires a winding path due to web congestion or difficulties with interconnection. But neither would be sufficient to justify such an unusual path.
Initially the hypothesis of the error was the most accredited, and this could be generated by the Ukrainian telecommunications company Vega, which would have unintentionally redirected web traffic between the United States and the United Kingdom. This phenomenon is known as "route hijacking," and is a common security problem for network technicians, but in this case it involved particularly sensitive and protected sites: the Atomic Weapons Establishment, which manages the United Kingdom's nuclear warheads; the Royal Mail and the US Defense Contractor Lockheed Martin.
The routing tables, called "traceroute", are easily consulted, as they are public, so it was easy to verify exactly when and how the route hijacking occurred.
The Russian Ministry of Defense has opened an investigation into the incident. The assignment was entrusted to the FSB in collaboration with the Kaspersky laboratory, Лаборатория Ксперского, a Moscow-based company specializing in information security products.
The traceroute analysis unequivocally highlighted a nuclear attack plan against Russia that would have been launched by Great Britain. Verge had indeed discovered "A Network Error Routed Traffic For The UK's Nuclear Weapons Agency Through Russian Telecom".
This necessitated securing President Vladimir Putin, alerting Russian nuclear missile forces and deploying strategic bombers in fail safe positions on the Arctic. This alert lasted ten days, during which the whole world wondered why the Russian President had no news, who subsequently ordered the largest military exercise since the end of the Cold War.
The dismissal of the SCW1 commander, made public by the note, would configure web traffic as a US exercise to test the reaction times of Russian nuclear forces. In fact, messages sent from Texas to Britain may have been intentionally redirected to Vega telecom by the NSA. In this data-driven exfiltration, however, a fundamental component was lacking, exactly that of the dismissed officer: the insertion of the PAL.
The "Permissive Action Link" is an electronic device that prevents arming unless the correct code is available. Two codes must be entered simultaneously or within a short time. This is the "two man rule" principle, which makes the arming of any single nuclear weapon impossible. The codes are usually modified according to a regular schedule.
The PALs have been developed in different versions, designated with letters from A to F. After enabling the PAL, it is possible to arm and launch the weapon system. The former SCW1 commander, according to some sources, would have been arrested, but much more realistically transferred to another post pending the formulation of the charges, which should be officially focused on the lack of personal performances. But it is possible that they concern the non-communication of the PAL in messages that authorized the use of nuclear weapons for a limited attack on Russia.
The story gives us a similar case in the 1983, during the NATO Able Archer 83 exercise (v. article) duration 10 days, in which a global escalation was simulated that would lead to nuclear war. The simulation started on November 2 1983, and was controlled by the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe based in Casteau, north of the city of Mons. The training included a new communication encryption code, radio silences, direct participation by member governments of NATO and simulation of the status of DEFCON 1.
It was concerted in such a real way that it was considered by the Russians as a possible attack on the Soviet Union.
If the non-inclusion of the PAL was intentional or occasional, it would still represent the failure of the US chain of command and control.
Giovanni Caprara
Source: Mark D. Faram, "TACAMO wing CO fired amid investigation." Navy Times, 2015 Associated Press, “Navy Strategic Air Wing Commander Fired”. Military.com Mar 18, 2015 Permissive Action Link, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
