MISSION BRIEF
CRISIS · DIV · 96 HRSTaiwan Strait quarantine crisis modeled on PLA Joint Sword / Strait Thunder pressure operations: median-line saturation, coast guard 'law enforcement' inspections, undersea cable cuts, and PRC pre-positioning inside critical infrastructure.
Preserve joint freedom of action and partner access during a declared PRC 'inspection zone' short of open war, while the division staff fights with degraded PNT, satcom, and commercial comms.
No US or partner vessel is boarded; division CP retains assured C2 on at least two independent paths; escalation stays below the armed-attack threshold with a documented decision trail.
- Maintain assured C2 through cable cuts, satcom denial, and GNSS interference.
- Distinguish coast guard/maritime-militia coercion from PLA Navy escalation and report attribution with evidence.
- Sustain forward island sites when commercial shipping and air corridors close.
OPENING INJECTS
5 SEEDED- T+00:10SEAMED · S2PRC announces 'inspection zone' east of the median line
State media declares a 72-hour law-enforcement inspection area covering two commercial approach lanes. AIS shows 14 China Coast Guard hulls and roughly 30 maritime-militia fishing vessels moving into the box, with PLAN combatants standing off 40 nm to the west — the same layered pattern reported during Joint Sword-2024B and Strait Thunder-2025A.
- T+00:38SEAHIGH · S6Two submarine cables to the outer islands go dark
Both fiber cables serving the outer-island garrison drop within 11 minutes of each other. A PRC-flagged general cargo vessel loitered over both landing approaches for six hours at 1.8 knots before the outage. Repair-ship availability in theater is 14+ days. Garrison falls back to a single satcom shot.
- T+01:15SPACEHIGH · S3GNSS interference and spoofed AIS tracks across the AO
Bridge teams report position solutions drifting 200-400 m and AIS receivers painting ghost contacts on courses no hull is flying. Interference is broad-area, not point-source. Timing loops that depend on GPS start to slip, degrading two encrypted networks.
- T+02:05CYBERHIGH · CYBERLiving-off-the-land activity in the port operator's OT network
Host-nation CERT shares indicators matching publicly reported Volt Typhoon tradecraft — no malware, only native admin tooling and stolen credentials — inside the SCADA network of the commercial port the division uses for RSOI. Dwell time estimated at nine months. No destructive action yet.
- T+03:20AIRMED · FIRESBallistic missile closure areas box the ISR orbit
PRC publishes six live-fire closure areas that overlap the only surviving ISR orbit covering the northern approaches. Two of the boxes go active in 40 minutes. Losing the orbit blinds the division to amphibious indicators for at least six hours.