What North Korean intelligence listens to

Officially, the U.S. may be backing down from its well-planned series of information operations designed to show North Korea that it is serious about deterrence and power, lest there be misperceptions that could magnify misunderstandings. This is not a silly telegraphed retreat: The U.S. had no idea, or would not believe, how truly scared Soviet leaders were of a U.S. first strike in 1983, and went ahead with a war games exercise that nearly precipitated World War III.

That said, I doubt that the military deception/special technical operations part of this campaign is over. A group of radio monitoring enthusiasts dutifully log all of the broadcasts on the Air Force's High Frequency Global Communications System. The HFGCS, stood up in 1992, is a reliable, redundant worldwide communications network that allows deployed aircraft to talk with fixed and flying command and control centers. There are 13 base stations across the world, ensuring virtual global coverage with plenty of overlap. The frequencies are published openly; the broadcasts are analog (although a digital transition is coming) and in the clear because secure telephones and secure HF radio networks don't work well together yet. The HFGCS is one of several Department of Defense communication systems that broadcast Force Direction Messages (FDMs), which consist of priority coded orders, and emergency action messages, or EAMs, which generally consisted of groups of letters and numbers, coded instructions to special units, deployed strategic (nuclear) fighters, and authentication messages between command posts (like the National Airborne Operations Center) and the TACAMO planes that communicate with submarines. Often, these units will use the HFGCS to request information, ingest e-mail and tactical data, contact other units on different communication systems, and to practice for the day that the end of the world comes.

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Marc Ambinder

Marc Ambinder is TheWeek.com's editor-at-large. He is the author, with D.B. Grady, of The Command and Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry. Marc is also a contributing editor for The Atlantic and GQ. Formerly, he served as White House correspondent for National Journal, chief political consultant for CBS News, and politics editor at The Atlantic. Marc is a 2001 graduate of Harvard. He is married to Michael Park, a corporate strategy consultant, and lives in Los Angeles.