...But We Lived Through the Flames
The World of Double Victory before the Departure (Part TWO)
This is Part TWO of an explainer series elaborating on the world of DOUBLE VICTORY before the Composite Testing Force is sent back in time to 1942; read Part ONE here.
The United States Presidential Election of 2032
Black Horse Candidate: The Boringest Man Alive
The 2032 Presidential Election would be defined by one decision above all others: Vice President Tim Walz's choice not to seek the presidency, a choice made certain by Gwen Walz’s cancer diagnosis in 2031. It would be the first, true, dual-open race since 2016. In all, there would be nine major candidates for the Democratic nomination and nineteen major candidates for the Republican nomination.
After a closely run primary, Gavin Newsom wins a narrow plurality of primary voters and a narrow majority of bound delegates, just 2453 out of a needed 2419 delegates to clinch the majority. The field is rather narrow as most candidates wait out for 2036, assuming 2032 is a lost cause; the other major competitors are Secretary of Commerce Pete Buttigieg, Pennsylvania Senator Josh Shapiro, Texas Senator Ron Nirenberg, and New York Governor Tish James. Newsom himself is fresh out of his five-year term as Secretary-General of the United Nations, which ended on December 31, 2031. He was replaced in that role by former Serbian President Ana Brnabić (serving one term from 2027 to 2032); Newsom did not seek a second term so that he could run for President (and because the Russians and Chinese promised to veto him, despite his otherwise frustratingly well-liked tenure). Newsom had also remained closely associated with The Campaign For Democracy, a merger of his personal PACs, Tom Steyer’s NextGen America, and other progressive PACs. This infrastructure would give him access to a vast pool of staffers and buy much goodwill with party elites. His campaign is boosted over the top by a timely withdrawal and endorsement by Josh Shapiro—just ahead of Super Tuesday, narrowly defeating Tish James for the nomination. Unsurprisingly, Shapiro is chosen as Newsom’s running mate.
The Republican Primary would be messy but not quite as dramatic as 2028. After a bruising primary season, no candidate would win a majority of pledged delegates. It would be a true brokered convention. Unlike 2028, where Establishment Republicans were out-maneuvered and out-organized by Movement Conservatism activists, the Party Decides. In a stunning upset, moderate Senator Todd Young who entered the convention with just 11% of delegates and 7% of the primary vote, is crowned as the Republican’s 45th presidential nominee. He chooses Alabama Senator Katie Britt as his running mate.
In a final twist, before either campaign really kick off, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson announces that he will seek the nomination of both No Labels and the Forward Party. He wins both contests without much hassle and amasses a staggering war chest from Wall Street big donors and crank small donors alike. Johnson even goes on to win the Libertarian Party nomination at a no-holds-bar convention, which schisms the party. He appears well positioned to be a contender, capitalizing on the fatigue after twelve years of Democrats in the White House—threatening their new bases in the suburbs—and a bitterly divided Republican Party—threatening them with non-ideological low-social trust voters and cranks. He chooses former New York City Mayor, and current Albanian Ambassador the United States, Eric Adams as his running mate.
Newsom’s choice to pivot to the right on economics after winning the nomination. He openly rejects Bidenism-Harrism during his keynote to a extremely tepid Convention and calls for a “Brand New Day in America.” His campaign is deeply worried about his moderate bonafides and believes it is necessary to “singe the party” to remain competitive. This mostly results in demotivating swaths of the Democratic base, the campaign’s hyperfocus on the battlegrounds is their only selling point. The campaign is disaster with deep-run feuds between Newsom’s and Shapiro’s staff. The candidates themselves actually despise each other. By the end of the campaign, they refuse to speak to each other. Above all else, the Democratic Party is just tired after twelve years of governing—nine of those years in a trifecta—and it shows. Young sells himself as a moderate candidate who is going to bring dynamism and competence to Washington after a decade of Democratic governance. Young is notable for his “Girl Dad” campaign stops to present a harmless suburbanite veneer, while allowing Britt to be his base pleasing attack dog. However, she does not prove particularly adept in this role, herself no true fireater.
The Republican Party wins the presidential popular vote for the first time in almost thirty years; even then, it is only a plurality. The Republican Party wins the election with 47.6% of the vote, the Democratic Party with just 44.8%—the worst performance since 1992, and Johnson winning 7.2% of the vote. The Rock—while failing to hold the height of his polling (28% in July)—manages to do something that no third-party candidate has done since 1968—win a state. He, in fact, wins three and a third of another: the Marianas, Hawaii, Texas (with 34% of the vote), and Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District. He does not exceed 40% of the vote in any of them. His bid swings Michigan, Maine, and Virginia out of Newsom’s column and swings Utah and North Carolina away from Young’s column—not one of these states’ margins exceeds 30,000 votes. Despite losing the popular vote by nearly 3%, Newsom would come just three states and 44,943 votes away from the White House (Virginia, Texas, Michigan)
House Republicans pick up 32 seats—on its face quite the feat—however, Democrats pick up an additional 77 seats for a 280R-260D majority, cutting Republican control down to just ten seats. Senate Republicans, facing renewed Democratic recruitment, only net three seats out of the victory. They win four and lose one for a narrow 54D-52R Democratic majority. Former Governor Chris Sununu wins the open seat in New Hampshire; two-term Governor Jenniffer González-Colón defeats incumbent Jesús Manuel Ortiz in Puerto Rico; Champ Camacho defeats incumbent Josh Tenorio in the Marianas; In an upset, Governor Thomas Kean Jr. defeats the beleaguered incumbent Tammy Murphy (appointed to the seat in 2025 after Cory Booker’s confirmation as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and narrowly surviving two three-way primaries in 2026 and 2032). In a shock reversal, Governor Brandon Presley becomes the first Democrat to win a Mississippi US Senate election since 1982.
In the lame-duck session, Independent Senator Josh Romney of Utah crosses the floor in an expected move despite attempts by newly minted Democratic Leader Jon Ossoff to keep him in the Democratic Caucus. This gives the Republican Party the trifecta, depending on Vice President Britt’s tie-breaker. Shortly after the inauguration of the 123rd Congress, Democrat Jared Golden of Maine crosses the floor without any prior warning, giving the Republicans a true trifecta—the first since 2017.
The Young Administration attempts to become the first Post-Post Trump Presidency. This… does not happen, or not as they want. Their dreams for a New Republican Majority would be dashed upon the rocks of history. However, this would lead to several policy moves that were decidedly odd on their face. Chief amongst these was the unionization of the United States Armed Forces initiated by Secretary of Defense Liz Cheney; the adoption of the “Dutch Model,” a limited bargaining unit, was a massive swing intended to define the GOP as a pro-worker party and boost flagging recruitment numbers (the latter is the reason why Cheney did not reject the plan). It would actually prove to be quite popular, despite expectations. It would not drastically transform the military, but it would improve the quality of life of the average Soldier, Sailor, Aero, and Marine.
The Administration is fundamentally held back by it staff—they quickly realize that their talent pool has become mostly disaffected anti-social groypers who can’t go five minutes without posting an obscure slur. In a reversal, the “Adults in the Room” are the President and his Cabinet Officers, surrounded by a sea of reactionary staff who are constantly fucking up.
Emblematic of this problem is the shambolic attempt to confirm a successor to Chief Justice John Roberts. Roberts announces on January 22, 2033, his intention to resign following the end of the Court’s current term in June. At a Rose Garden Ceremony alongside the Chief, Young ambushes his party with a pair of shock announcements. One—he nominates White House Counsel John Yoo for the opening, and Two—calls for Congress to pass a new Judiciary Act to expand the Supreme Court to 13 seats to match the number of circuit courts (and create a Republican-appointed majority). The White House had not told anyone of these plans before announcing them, hoping to “shock and awe” their opponents. Instead, it ignites a firestorm in Congress. Roberts is visibly seen reacting negatively while standing alongside the President. Roberts had expected his suggestion for a replacement to have been chosen, not Yoo, who had been the point man for the selection committee.
Yoo faces a brutal Senate hearing that is interrupted by protestors four separate times. At one point, Yoo spills an entire glass of water into his lap. Senators Golden and Romney announce their objection to the president’s proposed New Judiciary Act during the hearing. It is very clear that there are not enough votes to confirm Yoo but both he and the White House press ahead. Therefore, John Yoo becomes the first Supreme Court nominee since Robert Bork to be rejected by a Senate vote—failing 70-36, losing eighteen Republican Senators. Conservatives in the Senate and House are up in arms over the failure. Young makes another fateful choice; he nominates Judge Aileen Cannon, who had been impeached by the House but not convicted by the Senate in 2026 after she issued a ruling that briefly overturned Trump’s federal convictions (was overruled the next day). Cannon gets into a shouting match with Senator Wes Moore during her confirmation hearing and throws her nameplate at the Senator, striking an aide behind him. Her nomination is voted down twice. The Judiciary Committee votes against advancing her nomination. But, Senate Majority Leader Lankford intervenes and moves Cannon directly to the floor, where it is then immediately sent back to the Judiciary Committee on an 85-21 vote. President Young is forced to revoke the nominations after Cannon refuses to recognize the Senate’s votes or remove herself from consideration. The White House moves onto its third nominee with June fast approaching—former Wisconsin Governor (elected in 2030 by 11 votes) and current OMB Director Paul Ryan.
The Administrated expected this third nomination to be closely run but doable. It likely would have been if not for conservatives turning on Ryan to punish Young for revoking Cannon’s nomination. The third nomination is defeated 62-44 despite Ryan being confirmed 54-52 just months earlier. The White House nominates incumbent Virginia Senator Eric Cantor (Cantor also elected in the 2030 Red Wave as his return to politics) for the seat. Cantor is defeated 56-50 following an otherwise bloodless nomination. The White House sees roughly half of their short-list withdraw from consideration—assuming the process has been cursed; struggling to find a name willing to leap into the fray, the WH settles on former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (who earned a J.D. from Southwestern Law School in 2029 in a confusing bid to reinvent himself as a reality TV star that ended prematurely after his wife ran over all three LiMu Emus).
He is formally nominated on paper but before he can be announced, nine Republican senators declare they will not vote to confirm him. A hearing is never scheduled and McCarthy removes himself from consideration before the President’s nomination is actually transmitted to the desk of the Senate. The legal status of the nomination remains contentious. The White House then nominates their fallback option—one that is sure to pass the Senate—Attorney General Paul Clement. He is defeated in a 57-49 vote, yet another stinging rebuke of the Young Administration. The stress from the confirmation battles finally gets to the ailing causes Chief Justice Roberts. He suffers a massive heart attack while walking down the steps of the Supreme Court building. He is rushed to the Walter Reed Medical Center in the back seat of a 2007 Honda Fit and pronounced dead on arrival.
Young—now apoplectic for being responsible for the most embarrassing Supreme Court nomination in American history—spends the next 36 hours lobbying in person on Capitol Hill. He struggles to find a nominee to replace Roberts, with a Kavanaugh nomination being shot down before it could even be offered and Niel Gorsuch turning down the President. President Young finally turns to Amy Coney Barret, who accepts the nod despite concerns that Senate conservatives will sink her bid to punish “the latter-day she-Souter.” She is confirmed 55-51, passing with six Democratic votes. A beleaguered and exhausted Young Administration nominates Vice President Britt to fill ACB’s seat on the court. The Vice President is confirmed after a 57-56 vote—with the Vice President herself casting the decisive vote for her own nomination. Britt is, in turn, replaced by Secretary of State Nikki Haley, who is confirmed by a 301-239 vote in the House and a 60-46 vote in the Senate with mixed opposition from conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats.
Fifth Persian Gulf War of 2034
The Nuclear War / The Awakening / Second Gulf Coast-Iranian War / Seventy-Eight Day War
Between 2026 and 2034, the relative positions and relations of the major powers in the Middle East shifted quite radically. Israel under the State Committee for Security and the State of Emergency has become increasingly isolated from the Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Pacific international order and has increasingly flirted with the Russians and Chinese. Israeli information and high technology firms are subtly critical in the slow rebirth of the post-Putin Russian economy in the wake of the Ukrainian War; Israel-PRC joint ventures also become common place. However, the “Shabak GKChP” walks a fine line to avoid being completely ostracized. Notably they reject a very generous offer from Beijing for the F-35I TDP out of fear that it might bring down the vaunted Kill Switch from Washington or end up in Iranian hands. The State Committee attempts to play a long game, waiting for the return of a GOP Administration to restore the “Red-White/Blue Alliance” to defeat Iran. Tel Aviv is finds the Young Administration wanting. GOP Hawkism against the Iranian remains very much in vogue, but there is much hard feeling about Tel Aviv’s agreements with Moscow and Beijing—which provides cover the GOP staffer class and primary voter antisemitism.
The Gulf States successfully dodged the blow-back of the Green Energy revolution lessening dependence on hydrocarbons for energy production by developing their secondary & tertiary petrochemical derivative industries, with a particular focus on advanced polymers, aluminum alloys/covetics, and fertilizers. They have also become modest segment of the global arms industry, competing with the Chinese, Turks, and South Koreans for rapidly expanding African markets. They remain flush with cash, which they have invested not only into vanity projects, but also their military, military industry, and a vast influence enterprise. As their traditional vector of influence in Washington (funding the Strategic Center for Bribery Studies) was cut off the knees with aggressive FARA enforcement, the Gulf States instead take to social media. They exploit their imported SV-sourced DIB’s connections to the nouveau “manfluencer” segment of the internet to build a menagerie of western expats exempt from influence laws to produce content for them. NEOM is dubbed “a New Budapest for the thinking right” by the most annoying pundits on the internet and becomes home to Anduril’s sprawling headquarters and industrial complex. The new firm Orthanc even builds a giant obsidian obsidian tower at their headquarters near the Mukaab. They build their image as nations with a high technology masculine futurist leisure class. This all undergirded by a continual expansion of the kafala system for domestic and unskilled labor, while using western expats and Gulfer nations for skilled and managerial labor. Part of this renewed Kafala system has the Gulf States import dissidents from Russian Federation and the PRC. They make it an unspoken, but widely known, service that they will disappear problems for a modest nominal upfront rate. It is treated as a win-win: foreign states disappear problems without having to get their hands dirty or having to run an expensive and political toxic detention system while the Gulf States keep a steady stream of disposable labor for use in homes, service sector, light or dangerous industries, and construction—plus a source of ‘black-ledger’ hard currency. These Export Gulags are distinct from the ‘traditional’ kafala system, which itself has grown to include entire closed industrial cities for South Asian and East African migrants. However the line between the Export Gulags and Kafala Cities often blurs. Part of the revised Saudi security structure, particularly after the Al-Yamamah Putsch is to develop an intricate autonomous and armed security apparatus—this was supposed to include bipedal security drones but the program would never deploy outside a handful of Mechanical Turk style man-in-the-loop models at the Al-Yamamah Palace and Anduril HQ’s in NEOM.
Iran remains in flux and deeply divided. The extremely fragile post-2026 status quo is understood by all of the players in Iranian politics to merely an internal truce, and the blood—particularly the failed putschs—remain fresh in everyone’s mind. There is an increasingly bright line between Iranian Civilian Government (ICG) and the Artesh against the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Despite the general atrophy of the Iranian proxy network as a result of the Comprehensive Security Framework, the ICG and IRGC support separate and often virulently opposed political parties (and their associated paramilitary wings) in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. A critical fact is that the ICG remains in overall control of the nation’s extremely small (approximately a dozen deliverable warheads out of approximately 60 total) nuclear arsenal, something that is zealously guarded by the Artesh and vehemently envied by the IRGC. The arsenal remains viable through an intricate shell game of road-mobile TELs and a gargantuan field of 287 hardened silos in the Hezar Masjed Mountains (of which only about half are occupied by missiles at all). In 2032, the Principalist finally regain control of the Presidency with the election of Ali Larijani, after the faction was soundly defeated in 2028. However, the new presidency faces a slowing economy and lagging oil sales, as the Iranians simply did not have the resources to reorient their economy to the same degree as the Gulf States.
In November 2033, with the new Republican President in office, the Israelis once again mount an invasion of Lebanon. However, the radical domestic shifts of the last decade, along with some significant Turkish-arms sales, see the Lebanese Armed Force actually be able to put up a fight against the Israelis. The Seventh Lebanon War rapidly flares into a regional standoff with the Turks, Syrians, and Egyptians backing the Lebanese and threatening intervention. After an Israeli F-35I is downed downing a Lebanese KAI KF Kaan operating from a base in Syria, the White House decides to throw its weight around to pull the plug; this is because they had counted on both the strength of IDF-AF and bases in Syria for their grand strategy to denuclearize Iran. The shock rebuke delivers an unintended knock-out blow to the Israeli bond market, despite a rushed attempt by the U.S. Treasury to salvage the disaster. Simmering resentment over slow economic growth and general political oppression explodes into street protests from Haifa to Hebron. Israeli and Palestinian dissident networks had over the intervening decade partially integrated or at least operated with some level of coordination. The situation spirals out of control as the imperial boomerang breaks and the protests flashover into what will be called the Olive Revolution. The Shabak GKChP is disbanded by President Eyal Zamir as large portions of the IDF defect to the protests. A New Provisional Committee—drafted from the remaining members of the Long Knesset and the anti-Shabak “Organizing Front”—announces new elections will be held in Israel and Occupied Territories. The enduring—and utterly bewildering—image of the Olive Revolution is a shaved-head Miri Regev and an elderly Marwan Barghouti, both recently released from detention, announcing the end of the State Committee from atop a seized Namer APC to an ebullient crowd outside the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station on 15 December 2033.
A few weeks later, Egyptian President el-Sisi is killed while on a celebratory fishing trip on Mark Zuckerberg’s 387’ super yacht by a limpet mine off the coast of County Sligo (the Egyptian President had recently become an Éireboo after buying the entirety of Ireland in Metaverse 3.0 in a failed scheme to export Egyptian Army-manufactured appliances to Europe). It remains unclear if he was killed by a rump Mossad wet work element in retaliation for Lebanon, disaffected Egyptian Navy frogmen, the French DGSE, or his own security detail. With el-Sisi dead, simmering unrest likewise erupts. Tahrir Square is once again filled with the people of Cairo.
Popular unrest does not stay contained to Egypt, Israel, and Palestine; protests erupt in Tunisia, Libya, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, calling for political and economic reform. A new springtime of the peoples reverberates east into Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Council. The first major protests begin on May Day in Iran, Kuwait, and Bahrain. The protests in Iran quickly met with violence as the Basij and IRGC start a crackdown on orders from the new President. Without orders from Gilot, Mossad’s network in Iran shatters; some elements fails deadly, others wash their hands and walk away. These totally uncoordinated and sporadic attacks against high value targets further heighten the chaos and put the ICG and IRGC at each other’s throats.
U.S. military build up in the CENTCOM AOR started quite literally when Secretary Cheney issued her first SDOB as the Young Administration mulled how exactly to take down Iran. There would then be two major surges into the AOR: one ahead of the Israeli attack on Lebanon and then again after the start of the Olive Revolution. The White House decided against intervening to preserve the Shabak State. However, they take steps to protect American troops and munition stockpiles in Israel, and take the drastic step of authorizing a covert, deniable NOX “exempt operations force” to take ‘steps’ to prevent the seizure or use of the Israeli nuclear arsenal. Details of this XOF employment remain scarce.
As embers of revolution flicker into roaring flames, the U.S. has built up the largest concentration of force in the region since 1991, exceeding both 2003 and 2026. Some 550 combat aircraft have been deployed, with main concentrations at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, Tiyas and Shayrat Air Bases in Syria, the H-3 (al-Hakim) Complex in Iraq, and RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus; secondary air concentrations include Prince Hassan Air Bases in Jordan, Incrilik Air Base in Turkey, and Al Assad and Balad Air Bases in Iraq. The status of U.S. forces in Israel and the Gulf States is decidedly complicated. Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, Al Dhrafa Air Base in the UAE, and Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait post-2026 were reduced to skeleton complements as the U.S. developed new bases further away from Iran in Iraq and Syria. Ovda, Nevatim, and Ramon Air Bases in the Negev did support major U.S. concentrations but were mostly evacuated during the Olive Revolution, with most aircraft going to Cyprus, Turkey, or Syria. The 82nd Airborne Division was rushed to Souda Bay on Crete during the Olive Revolution while the 173rd Airborne Brigade was put on alert in Italy. The U.S. had also deployed elements to Iraq as a ‘training exercise’ which would not so-subtly ramp up to include all of the II Marine Expeditionary Force; a further two of the new recently renamed Marine Amphibious Units on a pair of Amphibious Ready Groups (the CVV-spec Guadalcanal (LPV-17) and Fallujah (LPH-9) groups) were sent to the Indian Ocean, joined later by most of the 101st Airborne not-so-subtly aboard the Coral Sea (CVN-74, ex-Stennis) and Kitty Hawk (LPV-20). To provide air and missile defense two reinforced ADA Brigades (32nd and 108th) with a total strength of ten battalions (Patriot, THAAD, and IFPC) would be spread throughout the region, along with other organic SHORAD and IFPC units. The Navy would have two Surface Action Groups in the Gulf itself (the Lyndon B. Johnson-Copeland SAG and the Long Beach-Evans SAG). A remarkable peak of five carrier groups would in the CENTCOM AOR in May (the Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Coral Sea-Kitty Hawk groups in the Indian Ocean and the Gerald R. Ford and George H.W. Bush groups in the Mediterranean). Beyond the usual escorts of Arleigh Burke-class DDGs, Evans-class DLGs, and “Flight II” Constellation-class FFGs, the Navy would postion three of its nine San Antonio-hull large missile defense cruisers (CBMs) in the region (Sequoia in the Indian Ocean; Badlands and Zion National Park in the Mediterranean). This build up is designated DESERT SENTINEL.
On 7 May 2034, President Todd Young makes the decision to go to strike Iran after a small clash between IRGC and Artesh personnel outside of Pickaxe Mountain as the crackdown grows ever more intense. The WH lays out its war objectives: prevent the IRGC from seizing control of Iran’s nuclear weapons and stop the protest massacres (with an implicit goal of overthrowing the Islamic Republic). Operation URGENT SAMARITAN is inaugurated on May 9 with a massive air campaign to shatter the Iranian’s rebuilt IADS (PEAK BLADE) and a conventional counterforce operation against the Hezar Masjed missile field (ICE BREAKER). The combat starts with two YF-26A Voodoo II destroying Iran’s three airborne KJ-500 AEW aircraft (the other two are destroyed on the ground). With the opening wave of missiles still in the air, a NOX-JSOC mission hits the heart of the Iranian nuclear program. A Joint Special Operations Package launches a helicopter assault directly onto the Isfahan nuclear facility (PALE HORSE). 160th SOAR MV-75Bs and MH-47Gs burst out of a foggy night just seconds after the first ALCM strikes make impact. A detachment from the “Boomer Buster” UDT-13 (trained to storm adversary (Chinese and Russian) SSBN-bases to breach, clear, and destroy their “boomers” at anchor) breach directly down through the bunker roof while secondary forces breach the main entrances. The force is gone as the sun rises—with no KIA but numerous WIA and two quad-tiltrotors exfiltration transports destroyed in situ after mechanical failures—with 42 physics packages and 13 additional unused plutonium pits in their possession.
The URGENT SAMARITAN opens Pandora’s Box. Instead of breaking the back of the “hemispheric state,” it stops the brewing ICG-IRGC conflict from escalating—at least temporarily. The Islamic Republic unleashes Hell, immediately widening the war by hitting civilian and hydrocarbon infrastructure across the Gulf. The Gulf Cooperation Council feeling extremely exposed and fearing the integrity of their states join combat operations over the objects of Oman, which stays out of the conflict. Deconfliction between the GCC-U.S. is less than stellar after a near-decade cooling in relations. A USAF F-15X downs a pair of Kuwaiti F/A-18E over Iraq after they are misclassified as IRIAF J-10s. Things grow worse as on May 12 the Royal Saudi Navy misdentifies the Dubai-based 300,000-ton MSC Line mega-cruise ship Universe Magnifica as the huge converted-ULCC floating base IRIS Baluchistan. The frigate Saud fires four anti-ship missiles from over the horizon, striking and leaving Magnifica stricken. The U.S. Navy scrambles to save the ship and is left confused as had been sunk for 36 hours at the time of the engagement Baluchistan. The attack kills several hundred civilians. The U.S. misidentifies an Armenian Monastery in western Iran as a missile city and hits the site with five cruise missiles. The opening Iranians strikes hit the Dubai Mall five times. The Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq primarily focus on striking Saudi and Kuwaiti targets instead of U.S. bases. In response, the Gulf Cooperation Council passes a resolution authorizing an invasion of Iraq if the attacks do not stop and Iraq does not intervene to stop them; the GCC immediately starts preparing forces to “demobilize” the paramilitaries themselves.
On 14 May 2034, the U.S. enacts their grand plan to prevent a closure of the Strait of Hormuz—the largest airborne operation since WWII. The repeatedly signals toward an invasion of Khuzestan, or seizure Kharg Island and its oil terminal, with II MEF. The 82nd Airborne Division appears to be reinforcing this by feint toward western Iran, but instead they divert and take the long way round the Arabian Peninsula. Two brigades (505th and 325th Airborne) jump into Bandar Abbas and immediately secure the airport in a textbook forcible entry. They are soon reinforced by the 82nd’s final brigade (504th Airborne) and the 173rd Airborne Brigade straight from Italy. More reinforces arrive in the form of CV-75A Navajos of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) flying off flat-tops in the Indian Ocean. The 15th and 31st MAUs seize the smaller Strait islands of Larak, Abu Musa, Greater Tunb, and Lesser Tunb. The mostly IRGC Ground Forces in the Strait and around the city put up stiff resistance but are overwhelmed and destroyed in short order by an overwhelming display of air power. The Iranians begin preparing for potential invasion of Iraq in response and intensify their campaign against the Gulfer hydrocarbon industry and starts thinking of other lateral escalation tactics. The IRGC hits the Burj Khalifa, which collapses, and Jeda Tower, which only suffers minor damage. The GCC responds by striking three of the tallest buildings in Tehran with aircraft and leveling the Iranian Parliament Building with ballistic missiles.
Then on 17 May 2034, King Mohammed imposes an immediate and total information blackout across the country without any warning. The U.S. Ambassador in Riyadh is briefly booted from a video conference with Washington. Within a few hours, social media posts start to showing Saudi internal security forces firing on protests at Al Murabba Square in Riyadh. One video in particular, apparently shows the first shot: a squadron of Saudi Arabian National Guard UGVs open fire on peaceful protestors with a single bark warning. The SANG drone network, designed by Anduril, is fully autonomous—the largest no-man-in-the-loop system in the world. It fails deadly across the country, simultaneously. The White Army joins its killbots in putting down the protest, which turn violent in response. Within forty-eight hours, every Gulf state has declared martial law. The Gulf Cooperation Council forms a new unified military command to defeat Iran and put down “the terrorist revolt of Iranian proxies and collaborators seeking the destruction of our shared faith and people.” But the lash no longer cows the victims of “a new and humane” kafala system. The lash only begets further resistance and further uprisings. At least two dozen armed groups, formed by the risen slaves, take to the streets to fight for their freedom and kill their masters. 17 May will become known as the Awakening—the largest slave revolt in human history.
“So when does it start to feel like we’re winning?”
— Apocryphal statement by junior White House aide just minutes before the Royal Saudi Strategic Missile Forces incidentally induces a “minor” Kessler event, c. 2034
On June 1, the Saudis retaliate against the seizure of The Rig amusement park by IRGC frogmen and a major attack on their key Abqaiq Refinery by firing six RSSMF Dong Neng-3D anti-ballistic missiles at Iranian satellites. The resulting debris field devastates global orbital infrastructure, causing almost half a trillion in economic damage in hours. This also cripples the Saudi’s highly automated internal security network, which enables the Awakening to flash over once more. Rebels seize control of the New Murabba district at the edge of Riyadh and its massive cuboid skyscraper. As burning heavens tumble toward the earth, the Gulf States are fighting pitched battles in their streets while still engaging in an air war over Iran and preparing for a land war in Iraq. The briefly reunified Iranian state starts to fray as the PMF breaks down into their respective ICG and IRGC factions. The Iraqi National Government, with Syrian and U.S. quarterbacking, take this opportunity to disarm the nation’s lingering paramilitaries. This however does not stop the planned GCC intervention, who now fear Iraq or Syria aiding—or intervening on behalf of—the Awakening.
The Young Administration is caught totally flat footed by the rapidly deteriorating situation and particularly the damage to U.S. orbital infrastructure. Washington is extremely frustrated that URGENT SAMARITAN is otherwise well in hand. The Iranian attempts to mine the straits are being successfully interdicted (for the most part), aided by the fact that the ICG slowing or stopping the IRGC from mining. The U.S. Navy’s EARNEST WILL III escort and de-mining operation has maintained a moderate level of traffic through the strait (~45 to 60 total transits), topping out at the start of June. However, the ability to transit means little if there is nothing to export out of the Gulf refineries. There are very awkward conversations between the White House and Congress taking the temperature on how to handle the Awakening. The Administration had taken steps to protect Americans and other foreign nationals by evacuating them to U.S. air bases and diplomatic facilities. The plan was to extract them by military and chartered flights—until the sats fell and regional deconfliction more or less stopped. The Pentagon was taking steps to proceed but stopped after an Qatar C-17 was shot down by a Emirati SİPER missile battery and an Emirates A380 was downed by a Saudi Patriot battery converted to fire Aster 50s. The Young White House takes this moment of disaster to quietly kill their flailing Social Security privatization/expansion bill.
The scrambled communication situation also allows the Iranians to, with shocking speed, concentrate the bulk of their remaining high-end air defense along with the corps-sized, PLA trained and equipped, 92nd Heavy Combined Arms Group of Forces. They cross the border on June 8. The Gulf Defensive Expeditionary Corps crosses the Kuwaiti border the next day. The Iraqi 14th Division is smashed between the GDEC and the Artesh invasion forces, but it and the valiant 3rd Special Operations Brigade buy time for the U.S. 2nd Marine Division and three Iraqi Divisions (8th Light, 9th Armored, and 10th Mechanized) to reach the province. The Americans are shocked when Gulf State forces actually open fire on the Marines. II MEF’s CG (and the entire Administration) were eager to smash the Iranians, expected to be able to merely body-block the Gulfers from proceeding further and GCC-Iraqi conflict by their presence. CENTCOM gives the orders to engage both forces. The confused three-way bar fight of an action is dubbed the Battle of Burning Palms, as the fighting takes place in the shade of the Basra Governorate’s much restored date palm forests.
The White House was hoping to avoid fighting the Gulf States as the situation got out of control. Those hope were dashed by Iraq invoking its 2028 Mutual Defense Treaty with the United States and further imagery of atrocities against rebels in the Gulf States. This second category would include fighting with such bloodshed in NEOM that the waters of the Oxagon port district were turned red and visible from orbit, and mass executions at Ski Dubai. Still the President hesitated to expand the war, despite DOD’s insistence that it was now a military necessity and likely the only course of action that would permit the U.S. to extract its isolated garrisons and pockets of foreign civilians from the Gulf States.
“Mister President, we’re going to have to shoot our way in if we want to get our people out regardless. We might as well do the job properly. No half-assing this. Not anymore.”
— Secretary of Defense Liz Cheney to President Todd Young at June 11 NSC Principals Committe Meeting “Regarding the Scope of U.S. Operations in CENTCOM AOR,” c. 2034.
Quite literally as a Principals Committee meeting was taking place discussing the Administration’s options going forward the utterly bizarre happens that further derails White House hopes to wrap up the conflict without escalating
On June 11, former President George W. Bush delivers a speech at his Presidential Library in Dallas calling for the Young Administration to honor the Mutual Defense Treaty with Iraq that is interrupted by a drive-by shooting targeting the attending dignitaries (the Iraqi Ambassador and elder statesmen including Bandar Bush). The gunmen, in very expensive tactical gear, then circle around and launch a full scale assault. The former president and his protective detail are driven back into library, the Secret Service make their last stand in the replica Oval Office behind an upturned replica of the Resolute Desk. President Bush, instead of using this distraction to escape, avails himself of Saddam Hussein’s Glock 18C from its display case and procures several magazines from a downed security guard. As every available law enforcement asset in Dallas descends on the SMU Campus, the assault very briefly becomes a hostage situation. That is, until the former president ambushes his would-be assassins in a narrow hallway as they are marching their hostages toward the auditorium. Bush kills four of the surviving eleven gunmen in the brief gun battle. Those gunmen left decide to nope out and rabbit. They are killed when a entire Styker Dragoon slams straight through the wall of the presidential library followed by two ODA of Green Berets and an entire company of cav troopers. A composite company team of the Active and Guard-Reserve soldiers who had been held over the weekend doing an urban FTX at the disused North Park Center mall and had intervened without orders, driving the wrong way down U.S. Route 75. The sixteen gunmen are identified as ex-Navy SEALs who had all failed to qualify for placement in the post-Coronado UDTs or MARSOG Dets, they had instead picked up work for the UAE Presidential Guard or affiliated Emirati-American PMCs. Its not immediately clear what they had been attempting to achieve. But It would be later deduced/revealed that they had been contracted by the General Intelligence Presidency to assassinate Bandar Bush, who King Mohammed had come to believe was responsible for Al-Yamamah Putsch; Bandar bin Sultan al-Saud had actually emigrated to the U.S. to avoid being purged by MbS’s paranoia, and had stayed close with the former president to forestall attempts at rendition him. The operation had allegedly been greenlit without the King’s approval, but a fancam edit (set to Stranger by Hilary Duff) that showed the King meeting with the gunmen would throw that into question.
“What the fuck do you MEAN that they were PROBABLY Emirati?”
— President Todd C. Young on being told that the Bush Library Shooters had ties to the United Arab Emirates Armed Forces, c. 2034
Needless to say the attempted murder of a Republican former president did not go over particularly favorably in Washington—particularly with the vast array of now-geriatric Bush 43 Alums serving as principals in the Administration itself. With U.S. Forces already engaged in combat with Gulfer ground troops, historic atrocities being committed in the open, and a now-invoked obligation to intervene—President Young makes the call to expand the war. On June 13, he authorizes DESERT TYPHOON, a direct attack on the Gulf Cooperation Council’s IAMDS to cover the exfiltration of foreign nationals stranded in the Gulf and a No Fly Zone over the peninsula.
On June 21, a seventy-eight B-21As are allegedly sent deliver a knock-out blow against Iran, but instead they annihilate the GCC’s very sophisticated combined IAMDS. The U.S. dismantles 95% of the Gulf States air defenses in a single blow—because it was U.S. contractors who had designed it (and helped by the NSA turning the software architecture off). Five carrier air wings run close air patrol for scores of air lifters and requisitioned airliners, while USAF tactical aviation continues the hard work of suppressing Iranian missile and mine forces. USS Long Beach (CSGN-42) proves her worth by sinking exactly half of the GCC’s naval forces as a warning. The two MAUs and the 101st Airborne Division’s 501st Airborne Brigade (Air Assault) and 327th Combat Aviation Brigade are tasked with extracting stranded foreign nationals. The U.S. rapidly consolidates down their bases to Al Udeid, Prince Sultan, Al Minhad, and Al Dhrafa Air Bases as the first evacuation flights out of the region begin. The evacuation effort is met with waves of people desperate to fleet the violence. The President makes the decision that they will get extracted too, if possible. The U.S. sets up processing centers at Camp Victory (Baghdad International), FOB Emancipation (Al Minhad), and FOB Liberation (Bandar Abbas International). The Guadalcanal ARG would break into the Perisan Gulf to support these operations. This also is when USNS Harriet Tubman (T-AO-213), near empty, would dedicate itself to the freedom of tens of thousands of people. She would serve as an improvised sea-going FARP where helicopters/tiltrotors could drop off passengers before refuel and heading back out.
“Well, the Old Lady sure didn’t lie.”
— Captain Jonathan Pinard’s (Commanding Officer, LYNDON B. JOHNSON (CG-1002)) laconic summary of LONG BEACH’s debut, referencing Captain Scott’s first public Congressional hearing as Director of the Office of Critical Procurement where she described the LONG BEACH program as “eight-hundred-and-fifty-three feet of fuck off and fuck you.”
As the Awakening continued to grow and the GCC struggled to maintain control. The U.S. would begin to launch raids deeper further afield to recover those who could not reach the evacuation points. These were fraught operations as militant groups were formed and dissolved constantly, one raid could be a milk run and the next a desperate fight. During this interlude, the Tubman would be sole U.S. vessel to be lost after she was struck by several mines while heading towards Iraq to refuel. Many more U.S. vessels would suffer damage throughout the conflict. The CENTCOM sinks every remaining GCC naval assets in response. The GCC has been forced into a bind, as they fear escalating against the United States will be their final undoing. They attempt to seek aid from China and Russia—more weapons and diplomatic support. A coke-fueled call for military invention by the PLA from Alex Karp, serving as Minister of Defense for Saudi Arabia after the death of King Mohammed’s younger brother, is politely rejected out of hand.
On the evening of the 25th of July, 2034, Awakened fighters close in on a once-secret Royal Saudi Strategic Missile Force bunker in Riyadh, the final redoubt of the man who will be the Last King of Saudi Arabia.
Mohammed bin Salman is consumed by fear and rage at the collapse of his country and more than two decades of his work. He has been physically isolated for days. A cornucopia of amphetamines and opioids races through his veins, having subsisted mostly on a cocktail of narcotics for days. Moscow and Beijing have done nothing to save him from the U.S. intervention; they have neither the want nor the ability to stop the U.S. The Saudi state is on the brink of collapse. The King’s hope for deliverance by an autonomous robot army built by Anduril is shattered when the Awakened capture Anduril Headquarters in NEOM and the USAF levels Anduril’s factory complex in Oxagon with stealth bombers using JDAMs (this would be the final use of the B-2 in combat). The Gulf Defensive Expeditionary Corps has been totally destroyed, leaving the Saudi Army without its best heavy forces. The governments of both Kuwait and Bahrain have fallen. Qatar and the UAE are near collapse.
An Anduril-militia banzai charge against the perimeter of Prince Sultan Air Base is the final straw for the Young Administration. The Saudis’ rapidly thinning sources in Washington warn of an imminent escalation to the air campaign. The Russians and Chinese have already signaled they will not block a UN mandate. Then Awakened fighters storm the barricades surrounding the Ministry of Defense Complex above the bunker. Mohammed bin Salman makes his decision.
The 26th of July 2034 will be the deadliest day in human history.
At 12:56 AM, the King orders a nuclear strike plan into action, an altered version of the Saudi Integrated Operational Plan, known as Operation MALHAMA AL-KUBRA.
The plan is an act of national suicide—targeting rebel population centers followed by strikes against U.S. forces in the region and strikes against Iranian political targets. It calls for the use of the entire Saudi ready-use nuclear arsenal, roughly 150 weapons. The RSAF, having been chained to the tarmac, is given orders to die fighting in the air. With no hope of escape or rescue, MbS chooses fire. He burns a scar across the face of history and is apocryphally quoted saying, “I shall give them their freedom, but only in death. Kill them all.”
American ELINT detects the distinct signature of a SIOP transmission, and after a short delay, President Young is consulting with STRATCOM, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary Cheney about a nuclear counterforce strike to pre-empt the potential nuclear launch order. However, the U.S. intelligence is still uncertain about the actual contents of the transmission, only that it was very likely to be a nuclear order of some kind. The President asks for a conventional option. However, STRATCOM’s standing Major Attack Options are exclusively nuclear—and most include striking Iran and Saudi Arabia simultaneously. The President orders a conventional counter-force against the Gulf States be put into action, immediately.
Thirty minutes later, an RSAF J-20D drops the first nuclear weapon since 1945 on the Mukaab. The 1.2-megaton weapon is a modified version of the American B83 nuclear bomb, whose design had been stolen from the U.S. The RSAF begins a campaign of nuclear strikes against the strongholds of the Awakened with a mix of strategic and non-strategic nuclear weapons delivered by air. The majority of the Saudis’ fixed-wing nuclear force is airborne by the time the first bomb is dropped, joined by every single jet able to fly with a pilot brave enough to go down violently (which is not all).
TREBUCHET, the U.S. counter-force mission, begins nineteen minutes later with a salvo of ninety-seven LGM-200 Long Range Hypersonic Weapons from Army Dark Eagle launchers in Syria, half a dozen surface ships, and two attack submarines. After detecting the U.S. counter-launch, the key turn order is automatically given for the entire Saudi missile inventory—nuclear and conventional—as per the modified SIOP.
Hundreds of ballistic missiles scream into the early morning hours and are met by an unprecedented volume of interceptor fire. The U.S. had eschewed counterforce strikes from the start of DESERT TYPHOON to avoid provoking the worst case scenario that they were now facing. The U.S. Army and Navy launch more anti-missile interceptors in the next three hours than in their preceding history combined.
Long Beach alone will fire one-hundred-and-one SM-2, twenty-four SM-3, ninety-three SM-6. Only stopping for one minute and seven seconds after a 25-kiloton tactical nuclear weapon burst two nautical miles off her port bow. The three Yellowstone-class missile defense cruiser will expend every missile from each of their 176 large diameter VLS cells (this included over five hundred quad-packed SM-3 ABMs). Sequoia, Zion National Park, and Badlands are the reason why MALHAMA AL-KUBRA does not end the Levant. Those nuclear weapons that evade interception are primarily scorched earth strikes against Gulf cities. However, some missiles, with particularly shallow trajectories or those aimed at targets whose defensive batteries were overwhelmed, bypass the 75B USD night of fireworks.
Hundreds of American aircraft scream into Saudi airspace. A massive air battle rages over the entire peninsula as desperate U.S. pilots attempt to kill strike fighters, air-launched cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles in their boost phase. The F-15 will lose its unblemished air-to-air victory record that night as death screams across the sands. America launches the largest missile barrage in human history (only to be surpassed by the first 24 hours of Second Sino). TLAM, PrSM, and OpFire missiles are launched by score after score. The primary targets of TREBUCHET are the Strategic Missiles Force’s six hardened missile fields and two battalions of mobile launchers. At this point President Young rules out any nuclear counterforce option.
Forty-three Saudi nuclear weapons—a mix of ~200 kilotons strategic and <50 non-strategic devices—detonate within six hours. The U.S. and Iran intercept a further eighty-six delivery vehicles—both missiles and jets—interspersed amongst hundreds of conventional ballistic missiles and every functional GCC aircraft remaining.
Seven weapons hit U.S. controlled targets: Camp Victory II, the H-3 Air Complex, and FOB Weathers in Iraq; FOB Emancipation near Dubai; Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar; Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi; and the Long Beach SAG in the Gulf. Six weapons detonate over Iran including the House of Leadership in the center of Tehran and the Natanz Nuclear Facility. The remaining thirty weapons hit Saudi and Gulf cities. Iran responds with a two-for-one retaliatory strike against the Saudis. The Artesh had lost all but two of the pre-war ready-use weapons, but had assembled ten more during the fighting from materials scrounged from secondary nuclear sites. The U.S. intercepts ten of the incoming twelve. One strikes the Al-Watah missile base, and the other hits NEOM air bursting over the Anduril-Milita’s last redoubt in Oxagon.
In all, Saudi Arabia and Iran exchange slightly more than seven megatons of hellfire.
the United States and the People’s Republic of China announce a joint intervention just forty-seven minutes after the first detonation. However, it is truly little more than an announcement. The Chinese have relatively scant assets in the region, a carrier group in the eastern Indian Ocean and their forces in Djibouti. The memorandum is the product of circumstance. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and US Secretary of State Steve Mnuchin happen to be meeting at an unannounced Ninth Anchorage Summit to discuss options to move the war to a peaceful conclusion when the first weapon detonates.
23.7 million people die in the six-hour exchange, with a further estimated seven and a half million deaths from radiation and deprivation over the next year and a hundred thousand combatant deaths before the exchange.
A week later, it is over.
The United States brings all its might to bear against the belligerents, assisted by a smattering of PLA assets. For a brief moment Gerald R. Ford operates alongside the Type 004 CVN Beijing. PLAAF air lifters are brought forward to assist in the now international air lift and humanitarian response, and also ferry PLA-SOF into the Gulf to extract Chinese nationals. This marriage of horrified convenience is enough to force the Gulf Cooperation Council to proclaim a general surrender, though by the end of combat operations the GCC Secretariat is about all that is left of their collective states. The U.S. and PLA quietly make to help the Iranian Civil Government break the back of the IRGC. The region is devastated. The world stands speechless.
The war had only lasted seventy-eight days.
The Comprehensive Nuclear Arms Reduction Treaty of 2034
& 2034 United States Midterms
When The Hand Passes Midnight
The Ninth Anchorage Summit ends with a framework for comprehensive nuclear arms control and reduction. A global summit assembles in Geneva to develop a plan to respond to the ecological and agricultural costs of the nuclear exchange and to provide more support to the newly-established UN Transitional Authority for the Arabian Peninsula (UNTAAP). After a last-minute meeting between the ‘eldest’ nuclear powers, the Comprehensive Nuclear Arms Reduction Treaty is introduced and endorsed by the United States of America, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, France, and the People’s Republic of China. Israel, Pakistan, India, and North Korea join after varying means of persuasion and coercion.
The treaty slashes the global nuclear stockpile by 60%, creates hotlines between the nuclear powers, forms the International Threat Management and Reduction Agency, and establishes hard qualitative and quantitative caps on the nuclear arsenals of the treaty powers—which will include every nuclear state. The treaty comes into force on January 1st, 2036, at a ceremony in Hiroshima.
The war’s external economic aftershocks cause a sharp and sudden recession globally, with the worst impact in East Asia—where several countries run out of LNG and gas products. China and the U.S. once again dump millions of barrels from their reserves to help stave off a total global economic collapse. For the PRC, Gulf oil is replaced with Russian oil in short order (in thanks to three new pipelines), continuing the thaw between the slowly recovering Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China.
The Comprehensive Nuclear Arms Reduction Treat and the decision not to strike the Gulf States and Iran with a nuclear counterforce strike ignites a new civil war in the Republican Party. President Young was already gearing up for an uphill climb to keep his party’s nomination and is thrown into the fight of his life. The Administration attempts a daring gamble—they push for a revised Social Security privatization bill and a massive fiscal stimulus package simultaneously.
The Republican-controlled House votes down the stimulus bill—despite Democratic support—though a second, smaller bill will be passed. The Social Security bill is killed in a dramatic 2:00 AM session by Senators Golden and González-Colón.
The Republican Party faces electoral perdition, losing nine seats in the Senate (FL, IA, IN, LA, KY, OH, SC, SD, UT) for a 61D-45R majority and 111 seats in the House for a 373D-167R majority on a shocking 16.4-point Democratic popular vote victory (and the seat-largest swing in American history). House Minority Whip Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez does not make a run for New York’s open Senate seat, instead remaining in the House of Representatives where she is elected Majority Leader.
The United States Presidential Election of 2036
The Democracy’s Not Dead, and It’s Not Gonna Die!
President Todd Young barely fends off a primary challenge by South Carolina Senator Nancy Mace. The 2036 Republican National Convention in Phoenix is hot and bitter. There are no fences to be mended, just scores to be settled. Young even offers Mace a place on the ticket. The infamously amoral and ambitious Senator tells the President to go fuck himself—a comment that is picked up on hot mics and recorded on video, something that Mace was likely to have arranged.
The 2036 Democratic Primaries start with a crowded field, but it winnows to House Majority Leader Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Governor Beto O’Rouke, Senator Jon Ossoff, and Senator Abigail Spanberger. AOC, ahead of Ultra Tuesday in May, secures the endorsements from Ossoff and O’Rourke and wins a decisive majority of pledged delegates. She selects Senator Raphael Warnock as her running mate. The Democratic National Convention in Atlanta is a chest-thumping display of a rejuvenated party ready to claim back the White House—a stark contrast to an extremely dismal RNC.
AOC wins by eight and three-quarters points. 52.0% to 44.5%, Young wins more votes in 2036 than in 2032 while being blown out of the water. The Rock’s second bid for the White House falters after his donors abandon him; winning only 3.3% of the vote and no states. It is the worst defeat of a sitting President since Jimmy Carter and exceeds Barack Obama’s margin in his 2008 victory. Democrats do lose ten House seats for a 364D-176R majority (trading about a dozen seats with Republicans), but they gain 15 Senate seats for a 77D-29R supermajority (winning FL, MR, MI, MS, MO, MT, NE, NV, OH, PA, PR, UT, VA, WI, WY).
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez becomes the second sitting member of the House to be elected President—after James Garfield in 1880. Despite remaining a “mere Rep.,” her national brand is unparalleled—boosted to atmospheric heights after leading the fight against President Young’s “Republican Old Bad Deal” gambit in 2034 alongside House Minority Leader Joe Neguse.
A Just Society starts at home.
— The first sentence of the 2036 Democratic Party platform.
Her campaign is predicated on improving the material conditions of American workers and families—redoubling investment in education, expanding KamalaCare, improving the American Health System, building more public housing, and passing a sectoral unionization bill. When foreign policy was broached, she would maintain the two-step of criticizing the “Global Authoritarian Reactionary Bastards,” popular slang for the loose coalition of revisionist authoritarian powers, while emphasizing the need to avoid future conflict. Notably, the Democratic Party platform and her campaign website did include a very specific mention of countering the malign influence of Chinese debt-imperialism in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. Regardless, the focus of the campaign was fundamentally a comprehensive domestic program.
However, this was not how AOC was understood in Beijing or by their (remarkably incompetent) industry of “White Houseologists” (Chi-Com Kremlinology is reserved for the CCP’s new generation of neoliberal, brain-dead nepo-princelings). President Xi Jinping—now 83 years old—is nearly blind, having lost most of his vision despite the best medical care available. Xi is personally convinced, as is his innermost circle, that the new president is a fervent Trotskyite hawk intent on destroying China and the Chinese Nation. The Politburo believe the references to eliminating the burden of Chinese state debt in their neo-colonies is the first step in a conspiracy to bring back the Century of Humiliation before the Revolution’s centennial in 2049.
These assumptions include semi-official acceptance of conspiracy theories such as: AOC has secretly pardoned (as a member of the House) the imprisoned Sacklers and is using them to create a vast secret stockpile of oxycodone to be unleashed after a new opium war (a conspiracy heard by one of Xi’s nephews—a WH-ologist—on a podcast hosted by an OAN anchor’s Maoist white nationalist cat-girl ex-wife).
Needless to say, the times have not, in fact, turned AOC into a bizzaro Dick Cheney. On a personal level, and by the planks of the Democratic Platform and her primary positions, her views on foreign and defense policy generally reflect the median of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party: support for America’s bi- and multi-lateral commitments—support for NATO, OSATO, and Taiwanese sovereignty—with an emphasis on diplomatic effort, and a skepticism toward the use of force. In a macro-sense, her foreign policy represents a return to New Dealer skepticism of foreign empires and colonialist nations and is profoundly shaped by witnessing the rise and fall of three separate presidencies on the altar of foreign and defense policy.
She intends to be a domestic policy president. Events will not permit that.
Second Sino-American War of 2037
The Great Pacific War or World War III
In March 2037, just a few weeks after Ocasio-Cortez’s inauguration and just days after the successful block confirmation of her remaining sub-cabinet level appointees, the march toward catastrophe begins. The newly elected President of the Republic of China, Enoch Wu (who narrowly lost his 2020 legislative race but decisively won the 2023 Taipei by-election), embarks on a bold forward step for the nation—an official state visit to Japan. Most of his cabinet join him—including Vice President Huang Jie and Vice Premier Lai Pin-yu— as the trip includes a full intergovernmental summit at the Kantei. Premier Chen Chi-mai and Minister of National Defense Wang Ting-yu remain in Taipei as designated survivors.
The state visit and accompanying inter-governmental conference on economic and security affairs are a smashing success. However, toward the end of the conference, Premier Chen suffers a fatal heart attack in his sleep. The ceremonies are wrapped a few days earlier than expected, ahead of the start of the annual military exercises on either side of the First Island Chain. On one side is the PLA’s JOINT SWORD 2037A (trial run for the invasion of Taiwan); on the other is OSATO’s REFORT 37 (Readiness of Forces around Taiwan) counter-invasion exercise, running under the name “TIGER SHIELD.”
The cabinet flies back to Taipei aboard the country’s official transport—a Boeing 777—still designated Air Force 3701. Southwest of Okinawa, the aircraft rapidly descends before disappearing off the radar altogether. American and Japanese military assets are scrambled, but find nothing. The loss of Air Force 3701 on 18 March 2037, sparks a crisis unlike anything since July 1914.
Amateur aircraft trackers immediately clock the descent of 3701, and speculation immediately blooms into rumors that a surface-to-air missile from the PLA-occupied Senkaku or Sakishima Islands shot down the flight. The OSATO states are reasonably confident that the PLA didn’t shoot down the plane since they did not detect a missile launch or even launcher movement. The senior leadership of the People’s Republic is also fairly certain that no one had ordered a shoot-down, at least, and if it had been an overzealous officer, they also would have learned about it by then. The Politburo fears—due to a mix of their WH-ologists’ shoddy analysis and mass outrage stirred up by ultra-nationalist Weibo bloggers—that social media posts claiming a PLA-ordered shoot-down are part of a sophisticated American information operation to justify a first strike, confirming their belief that AOC is more hawkish than Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld combined (something that is recorded on official minutes).
In Taipei, a moment of national tragedy and national terror becomes a political and constitutional crisis. There is a “cliffhanger” in the Constitution of the Republic of China—it does not stipulate who becomes Acting President if the offices of the President, Vice President, Premier, and Vice Premier all become vacant. The Minister of National Defense—Wang Ting-yu—declares himself Acting President as the most senior surviving member of the Executive Yuan. At the same time (the addresses are simul-cast worldwide), the President of the Legislative Yuan, Lin Chia-lung, declares that he is the Acting President. The two are bitter rivals after Lin (as Premier under President Lai) screwed Wang out of an appointment to Minister of National Defense. Neither have a majority in the Legislative Yuan to confirm their claim.
The constitutional erupts—and then drags on—as the opposing forces continue their massive exercise.
The PLA increase their readiness across the board, and the Pacific Alliance responds in kind, augmenting the final activities of REFORT. Additional vessels are assigned to Exercise LIBERTY BANDIT, a fleet movement in the Philippine Sea east of Okinawa. The change in schedules, beyond pushing aircraft and hull past expected maintenance availabilities, makes REFORT’s traditional capstone Security Conference grow in size and turn into a total shitshow. The Tokyo Security Conference is one-part after-action review, one-part meet-n-greet for OSATO partners, and one-part miniature Munich Security Conference. It is the ultimate Nerd Prom for trading notes after a laborious REFORT schedule. It is shortly after receiving the revised speaker list for TSC 8 that the Commander of the Indo-Pacific Command—a well-liked and highly regarded Corpo partisan—makes a fateful mistake that is horribly misread by the Politburo.
Admiral Jordan Westbrook-Carlton recommends EX LIBERTY BANDIT (built around the carriers USS Ronald Reagan and JS Kaga) steer a course to the west and assist with the ongoing search for Air Force 3701. The departure is poorly signaled and comes as a shock to Beijing. It is their worst fear, confirmation of an American-Japanese first strike against the Sakishima Islands. This convinces the Politburo that the loss of Air Force 3701 was a false flag—and that the elevated military readiness across OSATO is preparations for a first strike, despite the fact that OSATO only increased readiness in response to the PLA.
The Central Military Commission eagerly breaks the seals on its long-awaited plans for reunification with Taiwan. However, they are keenly aware that their every move will be scrutinized and could be used to justify what it believes is the OSATO first strike. The Osaka Alliance starts to get increasingly distressed as the bleating of a looming “Unprovoked Western Imperialist Attack” by Beijing reaches a fevered pitch. Traditionally, this kind of reverse saber rattling—wolf rattling—is used seen as a way to cover periods of internal deliberation in senior PRC leadership—the Swan Lake of the 2030s. However, more reliable channels start to convey messages asking for a path to ‘honorable de-escalation,’ making it clear to DC and Osaka that the PRC believes a Blue first strike is being considered.
The CMC transmits its ‘go’ order: an alert to all forces that a OSATO strike is likely imminent to prepare for defensive operations.
OSATO’s massed intelligence power is certain that something is amiss but cannot parse the apparent invasion hysteria that has infected the PRC. Even post-war, it is unclear if the war hysteria resulted from a genuine reaction in the Politburo or an intentional information operation. This is the source of the conception of the CMC’s plan as a “drunken boxing first strike.” Under the impression that war was imminent, the CMC authorizes a bevy of information operations to destablize OSATO and to present an opportunity for the PLA to be justified in landing the first blow; this later element is not well documented and it is not clear if the CMC was looking for an outright false flag or merely poking the bear to justify shooting it.
OSATO is plainly aware that the Taiwan Presidential Crisis is the perfect opportunity for a ‘resolution to externally supported rebel province’ (military reunification), but the PRC’s behavior is so disjointed—so deranged—that it seems unlikely that this is the balloon is actually going up consciously. OSATO intelligence assesses the primary war risk is an inability to convince Beijing that a strike isn’t coming—that the crisis is a communication problem. The Chief of Mission of the Guóānbù in Prague, a long-time intermediary between Langley and Beijing, begs his CIA opposite—in person—on his knees to do everything to prevent the AOC Administration from attacking like the Young Administration had done to Iran. The psychosis spreads from the waist down, with mid-level managers countermanding each other—orders for wartime call-ups and de-mobilization criss-cross desks across every Ministry and ping in every WeChat group.
Regardless, Osaka directs an increase in military readiness and vigilance. But days pass, and it appears to be yet another nothing-burger. The psychosis starts to fade. OSATO readies to stand down after SIGINT begins to pick through the chaff and finds evidence that this was an attempt by the CMC to gauge public reaction—a live trial run. This assessment comes as the PLAAF prepares its air operations component for JOINT SWORD 2037A after the completion of its multi corps-sized amphibious exercise.
The U.S. Secretary of State, Chris Murphy, is a late arrival to the crisis, flying to Japan after a fateful midnight meeting in Beijing. Here is there to reassure America’s allies, to try to calm the situation if possible—and above all else—to make sure that OSATO does not shoot first. The former Connecticut Senator will have the third shortest tenure of any Secretary of State.
The Tokyo Security Conference is hosted at the Okura Tokyo, the famed luxury hotel in Minato, and begins on the last day of REFORT. The alliance’s forward forces are at the red line—soldiers awake for days and maintenance delayed despite continued use. The alliance has been at Combined Readiness Condition Two for twenty-four straight days—eleven days longer than the Cuba Missile Crisis and thirteen days longer than the Sakishima Missile Crisis.
As the day winds down, there is an evening talk with the Japanese Prime Minister, the Secretary-General of OSATO, the U.S. Secretary of State, the Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and the Vietnamese Minister of Foreign Affairs. One floor above, there is an administrative meeting with the Commander of INDOPACOM, the ADF Chief of Defense Forces, the JSDF Chief of Staff of the Joint Staff, the PAVN Chief of the General Staff, the AFP Chief of Staff, and the Japanese Minister of Defense.
This last talk on mutual security is interrupted when a man in the third row stands up at 8:47 PM local time and shouts something in Japanese.
“YOU HAVE SLAIN THE LAMBS OF OUR LORD GOD! I CONDEMN YOU!”
Before anyone can react, the man detonates 50 pounds of a polymerized composite Octaazacubane-Caesium explosive, killing everyone in the room and most people on the floor. The Okura Tokyo, refitted with a carbon-neutral hydrogen fuel cell system, combusts almost instantly. All three of the hotel’s towers will collapse over the next three hours in spectacular fashion. The Legacy Tower topples over onto the nearby U.S. Embassy and the Okura’s Heritage Wing. The hotel blazes like a torch in the night, a crimson beacon of coming war.
The bombing, flames, and tower collapse also kills the U.S. Ambassador to Japan, the Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, the Chief of the Republican Australian Navy, the Chief of the Air and Space Staff of Japan, the Chief of the Maritime Staff of Japan, the Commander of U.S. Forces Japan, the Commander of the U.S. Fifth Air Force, the Commander of the U.S. Army Pacific, and George, Prince of Wales (serving as flag aide to the First Sea Lord).
However, the Okura operation had not been approved by the MSS—it had been free-lanced, while the approved operation fizzled. That operation was stopped by a joint task force of U.S. and Japanese security personnel who intercepted the Hello Kitty wrap Suzuki Every VBIED before it could bomb the PRC embassy, along with two protests and a flashmob. The two protests were (1) anti-U.S. demonstrators protesting the imminent OSATO first strike and (2) Japanese ultra-nationalists protesting the alleged kidnapping of a Japanese woman by the PRC Ambassador (which was entirely fictious). The flashmob was “2000s American e-Girl” themed and set to Sk8er Boi by Avril Lavigne. All three demonstrations are dispersed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police with little care for niceties and with a lot of high-pressure water, truncheons, and flashbangs. Both the Okura and Chinese Embassy bombers are identified as a members of the “Proactive Self-Defense Wing of the Legitimate Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.”
Radical Moonies fired the first shot of a global war.
The Moonies, increasingly marginalized from mainstream Japanese politics after the Assassination of Shinzo Abe in 2022, found support through a sock-puppet Chinese ex-pat billionaire (a cutout for the Guóānbù). This connection is used to build a jilted, radical, and pliable sect convinced that the Japanese Emperor ordered the killing of Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han to prevent the Rapture. This effect was then enhanced by target manipulation of targeted member’s individual social media feeds and introducing MSS handlers into their social lives. The 20th Bureau—special direct action—operatives assigned to the mission had provided the sect members with money, transport, phones, and detonators. The critical change to the operation that no one had deigned to inform Beijing about, is that the MSS Operatives also provided the Moonies with access to the TSC—hotel staff badges and a keycard to an unsecured service entrance. The expectation was “An of explosive attack of some kind against state diplomatic facilities in Japan.” Beijing was therefore entirely caught off guard by what they saw unravel on television and social media.
Even the Special Purposes Bureau operatives did not understand what was happening as the Okura came crashing down on their surveillance van. They expected a “light” pipe bombing of the PLA attaché to OSATO—who was actually killed in the blast. The Japanese Public Security Intelligence Agency will later assess that the detonation signal came from the Guóānbù team’s vehicle. Two survivors would be immediately detained after being pulled from their obvious intelligence vehicle, but deny they had detonated the bomb. However, the apprehension of the ‘redhanded’ operatives would not be widely broadcast until several days later, reflecting of the raw damage inflicted on the Japanese state.
The inferno kills and wounds nearly 1,500. In one fell swoop, it decapitates OSATO, INDOPACOM, JSDF, and the incumbent Japanese government. The bulk of the alliance’s senior staff are killed or wounded, however, most of the operational-level command delegations had yet to arrive to the conference. Having turned around from driving back home, the Deputy Senior Officer of the OSATO Military Command Structure (the uninspired name was a product of squabbles within the alliance) arrives back at the Osaka Headquarters Complex. It takes the legendary Sakakibara “Tiger” Takahashi fifteen seconds to make up his mind. HIEROPHANT. Condition One. However, that order is far too late and cannot be idly operationalized. Most units had already jumped head first into their overdue maintenance cycles, and many more had dispersed their personnel for desperately needed R&R.
Sailors aboard USS Ronald Reagan watch the TV footage of the Okura coming down as the battle group’s commander—Rear Admiral Liam Broadhurst—immediately orders general quarters and for the group to accelerate to flank and get out of the Zone of Total Death. At the same time, the task force readies for POSEIDON FURY, the neutralization of the Sakishima Islands. PLA jamming efforts explode in intensity. Before formal orders are transmitted from the U.S. National Command Authority but after recieving orders from OSATO MCOMS, Reagan’s orbiting pair of E-2E Super Hawkeye cry out over the net, their own radar warning receivers hav lit up. A moment later a hypersonic HQ-37 Guitar surface-to-air missiles pluck the two Hawkeyes out of the sky. The first shots of the war is a very pointy and very expensive rock delivered at Mach 6.
It is 10:12 PM.
The battle group escorts respond by cranking their radars and EW. They get an eyeful of the PLAAF air exercise, having turned directions and now bearing down on them. Moments later, the task force detects twenty-three CJ-200 Satyr sea-skimming high-hypersonic anti-ship cruise missiles (out of an original salvo of thirty-two). The screamers accelerate toward Mach 15 just after they are detected. Their guidance computers time their sprints to avoid disintegrating before they reach their targets.
Nine missiles hit—two on Reagan, four on Kaga, one on the destroyer Atago, and two on the frigate Flinders. Kaga disappears under a mushroom cloud. Atago splits in half. Flinders disintegrates. Reagan maintains 27 knots. She continues to scramble her air wing, even with the forward catapults out. Of the twenty-six warships participating in LIBERTY BANDIT (12 USN, 10 JDSF, 3 RAN, 1 RCN), only four ships—RANS Hobart (DDG-39), USS Philippine Sea (CGN-75), USS Radford (DDG-169), JS Musashi (DDB-185)—will make it back to Yokohama, all with severe battle damage.
Additional Satyrs hit Okinawa. Several missiles, designed for hitting carriers, miss Kadena Air Base and land in Okinawa City. A typhoon of fire, silicon wafers, and steel follows the sucker punch. Eight bomber brigades hit the carrier task force: four H-6K, two H-20A, and two H-21B (equivalent to the Tu-22M).
The Liberty Bandits—as they will be immortalized—fight their ships to the bitter end. They lash out like wounded, cornered hellcats. The skies are streaked by missiles of all kinds. Allied electrothermal chemical guns blast into the dark. The PLA garrison on the occupied Ryukus is left a smoking ruin amongst rubble as long-range fires from Okinawa and a joint force of American and Japanese Green Berets assault like a host of avenging wraiths.
The PLA would claim the scalp of Ronald Reagan at the cost of two brigades of H-6Ks, one brigade of H-21Bs, and half a brigade of H-20As; Reagan would be technically be scuttled after her CHENG—the ranking surviving officer—determined that the crew could not contain the fires raging aboard. USS Zumwalt (CG-1000) and her surface action group, reinforced by the JS Akagi (DDV-200) and USS Lawrence Chambers (LPV-19) carrier strike groups, launch a counter-attack against the PLAN assets at sea, sinking the Type 059B nuclear strike cruiser Kowloon along with a dozen other large surface combatants of various makes.
All the while, ballistic missiles rain on Taiwan, Okinawa, and the rest of the Japanese Home Islands; because of communications failures within the PLA, the first planned orbital offensive is launched in a haphazard fashion over the next five hours. However, the sky will rain fire soon enough.
The Japanese Self-Defense Forces, still paralyzed, are unable to disperse their forces fast enough. Many OSATO air assets in Japan, in maintenance availability after the end of REFORT, are destroyed on the ground.
The People’s Army of Vietnam is incredibly hard hit as PLA spoiling attacks shatter the thought to be the impregnable defenses of the Giáp Line. The PAVN garrisons have been awake, in most cases, for days. Key forward positions had been literally incapacitated by lack of sleep, as the Vietnamese government was convinced that the war was actually imminent, despite waffling intelligence from Osaka. The certainty of the Politburo and the need for maximum readiness would create a fatal brittleness and invite a disaster that had not been seen since the Fall of France.
Crash my detail. Get me to Marine One. Get Secretary Kim, Crow, and the Chiefs on the line. *incomprehensible response* Don’t give me that bullshit, Pedro. I think I know where the nearest heliport is. You just need to get me there.
— President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s response to the news of the Tokyo Security Conference Bombing, mentioning Secretary of Defense Andy Kim and National Security Advisor Jason Crow, c. 2037.
The President’s formal order to commence combat operations comes over the phone as she is sped down Broadway. The Presidential State Car—the “Hyper Beast”—will reach 81 miles per hour as the NYPD shuts down the streets. The city will listen to the song of a steel bull charging down its canyons of glass and metal like a funerary dirge. The President is met at the Downtown Manhattan Heliport by three Green Top VV-30 Thunderbird supersonic VTOLs from HMX-1. The trio proceed reach Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will be the first sitting President to break the sound barrier as “Kiss Me I’m Irish” hits Mach 1 over Staten Island. After the stop off at McGuire AB, it is decided to fly back to Washington instead of getting aboard an airborne command post. The flight will take off again after less than an hour on the ground and sprint to DC, nap-of-the-earth, with their laser active defense systems queued and hot, escorted by a two full flights F-26A Voodoo II NGAD-A air superiority fighters scrambled from Langley Aerospace Force Base. The White House will issue a statement that “The Armed Forces of the United States have been ordered to commence combat operations under the President’s inherent Article II self-defense authorities as Commander-in-Chief of the United States and the terms of Article V of the Osaka Treaty.” Trading is supended at the New York Stock Exchange. A Civil Defense Alert is issued to every cell phone on the West Coast—six minutes ahead of the first IRBM shot toward Seattle and eleven minutes after the first impact on Oahu.
The President had come to New York City for a summit on her sectoral unionization bill, and she will leave it a war president. It is 10 April 2037: the 81st day of the Ocasio-Cortez Administration. Her speech requesting a declaration of war will be delivered a little after 2 PM.
The Light of Liberty stands under siege. It shall not be snuffed out. *applause* I promise you this, so long as I have breath in my lungs and blood in my heart. — ¡NO PASARÁN! — THEY SHALL NOT PASS! *applause* We will fight. We will prevail. We will see this evil defeated as we have done time and time again. *applause* This Day of Infamy shall beckon forth a Reckoning of Justice that shall never call retreat.
— President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s address to a Joint Session of Congress Requesting a Declaration of War against the People’s Republic of China, the “¡No Pasarán! Speech,” c. 2037.
Taiwan’s government does not exist, even at this moment. Okinawa, Taiwan, and the rest of the Japanese Home Islands are drowned in a song of steel. Interceptors scream into the night to hold back the tide. The National Military Command Center linked to the Ground Moving Target Indicator array—space-based ground-air-sea surveillance—watch in painted horror as the deluge begins. Analysts immediately notice a volley of unusually large but comparatively “low hypersonic” missiles—what they assume are missiles—launched from one of the three major campuses of the China Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics; the location had been the site of a flurry of activity in the preceding week as existing hypersonic test sleds were modified. However, it is not considered a pressing concern, especially as the first pitched orbital battle begins.
But there is another salvo from the campuses. And another. And another. As the PLA fires switch from targets on the Japanese Islands to the Marianas and the Philippines, there is a massive salvo from the campus that finally forces the attention of the DOD. What these objects are finally dawns on an Aerospace Force Staff Sergeant in Hickam AB’s Air Operation Center just after the local THAAD swats an HGV out of the sky at the last second. The weapons are not actually weapons—they are Xingkong 7 (Star Sky 7) ‘cargo gliders.’
They are the vanguard of Cùn Jìn. The One Inch Punch.
Externally, the XK-7 appears to be similar to CAAA’s Xingkong 4 notional hypersonic jetliner, NASA’s X-30 National Aerospace Plane, or the Destinus hypersonic airliner, but actually is much more rudimentary. It is a powered cargo glider, accelerated and launched via rocket sled and sustained by a scramjet engine (capitalizing on CAAA’s massive investment in hypersonics). Its core mission is simple—deliver cargo to PLA forces in-extremis with its novel and aggressive—and purely propulsive—deceleration system. The program would enter full production after the Minister of Science and Technology read a report that it (but mostly other investments) could allow China to catch up to the might of US military logistics (some 15M USD in kickbacks were just icing on the cake) despite technical and economic concerns.
At first, it appeared as if DIA had massively underestimated the number of XKs in Chinese inventory—and their purpose. It appeared at the moment that there was a vast stockpile of XK-7s to be used as high-throw weight GLCMs for busting runways. This would turn out to be mistaken, as the DIA had gotten the XK-7 fleet numbers correct, with a confidence interval of 575 to 725. The PLARF had simply expended more than 90% of its inventory in a single evening (591 total vehicles).
These rockets do not carry explosives, landmines, nukes, or any warhead—though that does not stop them from exploding. Riding on this tide of howling metal are 19,000 PLA Special Operations Forces soldiers of Unit 31697—a group army-level formation so new that it was only assigned a military unit cover designator. Also known as the “Dare to Die Corps,” it was formed from the 76th, 77th, 78th, 80th, and 84th Special Operation Brigades, plus a group army headquarters and a battalion from the Jiaolong Commando Unit. The units, save for the Sea Dragon commandos, were sourced from the Western and Northern Theater Commands. Under the original plan for JOINT SWORD, these units were to be part of the Eastern Theater Command’s reserves (to be used as fire brigades) or to punch up the less capable formations in the invasion’s third echelon. They are some of the most battle-hardened units in the PLA, having been used in the Special Central Asia Friendship Intervention(s), the Ugandan Debt Crisis, the Mozambique Civil War, the Tanzanian Punitive Expedition, and the Fifth Persian Gulf War. Not to mention, as one of the two “stone fists” of the PLA’s punitive quick reaction force, many of their officer cadres had seen combat in First Sino.
Practically none of these soldiers had ever seen an XK-7 before a week and a half ago. They, the ones that don’t die on launch or during flight, will reach a speed of Mach 7, riding them while liquid breathing a substance intended to keep the soldiers from dying from the G-force strain. The brigades would be stripped of most of their fires and trains, reduced to light mortars and loitering munitions. They would each retain their organic attached elements equipped with the legendary GY-3 “Guan Yu” powered armor exo-rig. Though by the American definition, GY-3 is not “powered armor,” it is an “individual armored exo-skeleton.”
The concerns of the PLA shìbīng are not assuaged by reassurances that the XK-7 had been tested for human occupants—especially after they are informed that it had failed to qualify for human occupants. Most of the records of the XK-7’s program would be destroyed by Operation UPPERCUT in 2039. However, it’s understood that the glider failed human testing by a decimal point—though which decimal place is still a point of contention in CASC.
This entire saga—one of the most pivotal moments in contemporary history—would be ignited by an offhand comment by Premier Li Qiang as he ruminated on the Minister for Science and Technology's yammering about the XK-7. The Central Military Commission—their political staff in particular—had deliberated much on how to spoil OSATO’s plans and capitalize on their moment of opportunity, with considerable focus on Guam. The island had become something of a White Whale. Proposals ranged from a combined sea-air attack on Guam using civilian airliners, midget subs, and merchantmen sailing under false colors, to the use of anthrax-tipped DF-26s. However, these proposals would be batted away—while the discussion of how to “silence” Guam continued. Once the idea of a cargo glider attack was spoken aloud, planning would begin.
However, it would proceed on two vastly different tracks. PLA officers in the Eastern Theater Command would operate on the assumption that the units flagged for the operation by the CMC were just a pool to draw together a select raiding force to delay US forces from surging across the Philippines Seas; accordingly, they would draw up several different landing sites and tactical objectives for the CMC to choose one or two from. The CMC staff would then piece together all of the disparate raid options and form a plan to capture the Marianas.
As the war began—with OSATO paralyzed—the CMC would side with their direct staff and approve a maximalist plan in the hours before the false-flag operations occurred. The PLA had walked backward into a gamble starker than Sedan in 1940. If they failed, their daring thrust would be flash-broiled into human SPAM and spread across an American state like a particularly fucked-up flash-mob rendition of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.
They would have victory, or they would have human hail.
Forty-two rockets are intercepted or fail during flight. Eighty-nine others are lost in the descent, mulch their occupants on impact, or have their incapacitated/wounded occupants put down by service personnel or by residents of the State of the Marianas after splashing down. Of the 219 other weapons targeted at the Marianas, 123 are intercepted. The active defenses on the islands are oversaturated by the well-timed barrage, with the XK-7s arriving alongside waves of heavyweight GLCMs, the entire PLARF catalog of HGVs, and enough IRBMs to reach the moon.
“You know my buddies used to always say we’d kill E.T. with hammers if we ever met ‘em. Guess we gotta do that. ‘Cept E.T. was a Chi-Com half-bird who splashed down in one of those fuckin’ flamin’ hoagies smack-dab on Runway Six Left. So we pushed the can into a DF-26 crater—God knows we had enough of those—with the dozer, and then Chucky Chi-Com stumbled up the side in a full can-opener… well… we learned sledgehammer beats power armor if the operator’s got a TBI, no cap.”
— Technical Sergeant Henry Villanueva, USAF, 60 Minutes interview, c. 2041
The US had assumed, rationally, that XK-7 would be used as a critical resupply asset for elite formations in extremis, not as a one-way 3,000 km trip for 36 Best Value™ helljumpers. In fact, PLARF Command did not consider movement via XK-7 a viable option until pressed by the Central Military Commission.
In the north half of Guam, most of the PLA-SOF who survive their arrival on top of and around Andersen AFB are killed by aircrew armed with hammers and wrenches and the soldiers of the Army’s 100th Infantry Battalion. The 100th, part of the 442nd Infantry Brigade based out of Hawaii, had been delayed in returning to their barracks and had been sitting on the tarmac when the war began. The PLA-SOF who land on Camp Blaz are (briefly) more successful. They breach the base’s HQ building before being repulsed and annihilated by a scratch QRF led by Marine Special Operations Reconnaissance Company 835 of Detachment Three, Marine Special Operations Group One (the Marine Corps’ special mission unit).
The Chinese missile barrage is partially successful—with American defenses on and around Andersen sparing the key aerospace force base from neutralization, but it is temporarily knocked out to protect from the raiders. However, Naval Base Guam is not so lucky; Chinese long-range fires knock out nearly every remaining ship in the harbor—including the legendary submarines USS Hyman G. Rickover (SSN-795) and USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23). Missile strikes against targets like the islands’ POMCUS sites, Military Sealift Command prepositioning ships, and civilian road junctions confuse American command as they happen, but become major impediments to responding rapidly as successive waves of XK-7s fall to earth.
The Dare to Die Corps' main landing is at LeoPalace Golf Resort, where the group army headquarters and two brigades make landfall unmolested. A third brigade makes landfall on top of Naval Hospital Guam. These forces quickly secure their key objectives, including the state government campus. The governor narrowly avoids being captured by hiding in a dumpster behind an Outback Steakhouse.
The hospital staff and patients make a desperate stand but are quickly overwhelmed, but give enough time for the wounded—and the state government—to flee to the Nimitz Hill Civil Defense Annex Complex. As PLA staging from LeoPalace attack Naval Base Guam, the 1st Battalion of the 294th Marianas Infantry Regiment (Army Guard-Reserve) attempts to retake the Naval Hospital Complex and the Governor’s Mansion, hoping to fight their way to the Naval Base. The fighting is ferocious. The Marianas Congress Building is recaptured; the Governor’s Mansion is destroyed, and the Chinese flag that had been raised over it is left burning, but it and the Hospital remain in PLA hands. 1-294th is left badly mauled, with over 40% casualties. With no support, the lightly armed Marines and Sailors in the Naval Base are overwhelmed. Apra Harbor falls to the Chinese.
The PLA forces briefly regroup before launching an attack northward, brushing aside the remnants of 1-294th with some difficulty. However, the delay after seizing Naval Base Guam and the time bought by the 1-294th allows 3-294th and 2/3 Marines (one of two battalion interdiction teams of the 12th Marine Regiment) to arrive from the north. In a brutal meeting engagement, the scratch force stops the PLA cold at Won Pat International Airport. Guam holds.
The PLA-SOF elements on Saipan have much success at first, slaughtering sleeping Soldiers, Aeros, and Marines. However, the remains of the 2-294th Marianas Infantry and the rotational 3/1 Battalion Landing Team retreat in good order into the hills west of Kagman and Kagman itself. The force—under the command of 3/1’s operations officer—Major Monica Hanson, the seniormost officer still alive on the island—stubbornly refuses to collapse and will repulse six bayonet attacks that night alone.
A PLA-SOF brigade secures Tinian and its airfields from its USAF Security Force Squadron in short order; several aeros swim to Saipan, only to be captured by PLA reinforcements who cross to Saipan via seized boats. However, the small Aerospace Force garrison on Tinian does manage to kill the northern force’s local commander.
The landfall on Rota does not go so well. Two battalions are deployed in a single mass drop. The PLA had assessed that Rota would have the least defenses and that it could then be used to launch an amphibious flanking maneuver against Andersen. 2nd Battalion, 84th Special Operations Brigade and 2nd Battalion, Jiaolong Naval Commando Unit slam teeth-first into a brick wall. Counter-Landing Readiness Force-Keelung—a combined OSATO special operations battalion task force—had been waiting for the go order to surge into Taiwan when the XK-7s started landing. The unit—a mix of US Army Rangers, JGSDF Airborne Rangers, PAVN Commandos, and British Army Gurkhas—throws the PLA into the sea at immense cost, despite being outnumbered by 2-to-1.
While Unit 31697 fails to capture Guam or Saipan, they do secure roughly half of the 53rd State. This incomplete success—less than what the CMC had hoped for in the feverous jubilation of the war’s first hours—still neutralizes a key OSATO hub for interdicting the ongoing “main card,” the invasion of Taiwan. One of the three key “roads to hell” is cut off before the fight has truly even begun. Access via Okinawa and the Japanese Archipelago was always likely to be tenuous, but truly paralyzed after the Okura Attack. Access via the Philippines will be complicated in the coming days by the Day of Three Coups and its aftershocks.
Taiwan will stand alone—its leadership coming together far too late.
The CMC’s plan for quickly reinforcing and resupplying the island—foreign-flagged civilian merchantmen carrying paratroopers—meets with disaster. The US identifies the transports as a ruse de guerre, and the remaining Coast Artillery formations on Guam send the 77th Sustainment and 77th Air Defense Brigades from the Western Theater Command to the bottom, along with the 137th Airborne Brigade of the 86th Airborne Group Army. The 86th Airborne Group Army had been formed to provide additional rapid deployable force and additional mass for the PLA’s punitive forces—to reduce the burden on the Special Operation Forces while allowing the 85th Airborne Group Army (ex-15th Airborne Corps, ex-PLAAF Airborne Corps) to remain solely focused on Taiwan.
The PLA would be forced to run converted airliners to Guam for resupply—through the hotly contested Philippine Sea. The operation would prove to be extremely costly, destroying ~11% of Air China’s fleet, some 74 aircraft of various makes. However, the airliner runs ferry small parties of parachutists and PLASOF to Pagan, Palau, Yap, and Alamagan as the bulk of the 86th AGA secure airheads into the Philippines amidst the political chaos, and the Republic of China enters its death throes.
The Allied Powers will move to secure control of the seas and deploy a major counter-landing force to Guam. The PLAN sallies every available carrier—something not thought feasible by pre-war OSATO analysts, as the PLAN was thought to lack the trained crews needed (having adopted a strategy of switching crews between ships during maintenance availabilities) and support vessels to sustain its full carrier fleet outside of the First Island Chain. The resulting clash of titans will be known as the First Battle of the Mariana Trench. It will end in a double upset. A PLAN tactical victory, but with the Allied Powers thwarting a total defeat after the PLAN presses their attack too far into the Pacific. It will remain the worst defeat in the history of the United States Navy.
Soon after the fall of Taipei—but before the formal surrender of the Republic of China—there will be the Day of Dueling Jumps. The 136th Airborne Brigade, the only para-capable brigade in the 86th Airborne Group Army, and the 505th Airborne Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division drop onto Guam on the same day. Both sides are unaware of the other’s plan—the drops will happen mere hours apart, with opposing transports spotting each other at extreme range. The following ground battle will be nearly as ferocious as the fight days of fighting—but neither side will yield.
The situation on the Marianas will freeze. Neither the PLA invaders nor the American defenders possesses a sufficient overmatch to clear the islands. So they dig in and dig deep, both sides supplied by hastily cobbled-together transport routes. The battle will last until 13 September 2038, and be ubiquitously known as the Mariana Sieges.
Second Sino will continue for three years. It will spiral from a war in the Western Pacific to a global-orbital war. Taiwan will fall. The Philippines will burst into civil war after a failed coup attempt and will be occupied by PLA forces. Catastrophe on the Sino-Vietnamese Border will give way to a desperate gamble on the Perfume River. The Allied Powers will suffer their worst defeat at First Trench—losing seven carriers in an afternoon, including two CVNs. Great victories lead to an even greater stalemate.
There will be the island hopping, swirling knife fight up the Solomons, the seesawing campaigns across Micronesia, and the opposing rat lines to the Mariana Sieges—the Pig’s Tail and the Anderson Express. There will be fighting in the mountains and frost of the Korean Peninsula after the sudden death of Kim Jong-un ignites the North Korean Civil War and the Korean Belligerency. Xi’s Politburo will press its luck and spread its economic and military might over theater after theater. OSATO’s grand strategy will leverage the PLA’s Victory Disease, turning it into a slow and insidious killer, leading to high-altitude battles on the Himalayan Front and chaos in the depths of the jungles and cities of Borneo and Malaya.
If Uncle Xi wants to fight the world—we’ll let ‘im. And we’ll let ‘im drown it and bury the fucker in same the grave as all the bastards who thought they could rule the world with the barrel of a gun or the edge of a sword. Same shit, different face. He’ll die all the same.
— Rear Admiral Kimberly J. Scott on becoming Commander, Battle Force, Allied Fleet, Combined Pacific Command (COMBAT-ALFLT-COPAC), c. 2037
The turning point of the war will be the Second Battle of Mariana Trench, Operation HAMMERHEAD. The People’s Liberation Army Navy will lose fourteen of its twenty remaining fleet carriers over two days in the largest naval battle in history. The Allied Powers’ Combined Pacific Command will fight back to the First Island Chain under the command of Admiral (later Admiral of the Navy) Chris “Chowda” Hill. It will not be a quick and decisive battle of fires and maneuver but a knock-down, drag-out fight to the death. The war will see the United States turn the People’s Republic of China’s hyper-centralized industrial cyber-defense infrastructure on itself. It will be a brutal, costly war, but a war that will be won not in spite of democracy, but because of democracy.
Second Sino will come to an end, an OSATO victory, with the signing of the Malmö Accords on the 21 October, 2040. The Republic of Taiwan will declare its formal independence on the October 28, electing resistance leader and former member of the Legislative Yuan, Freddy Lim, as its first president.
The war will create a generation of bloodied, experienced, and battle-tested veterans who will make up the heart, soul, and mind of the Composite Testing Force that goes through the Departure on the 4 June 2042.
God that is so damm good. Love the amount of detail, can't wait to see more as well! Probably one of my most hyped for series
Wow! One line suddenly stood out to me: "leading to high-altitude battles on the Himalayan Front" and I got an image of O2 bottle equipped Indian mountain troops fighting PLA 52nd Mountain soldiers at 21,000 feet on the Siachen glacier.