...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.

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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 another term, 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 just six 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, former Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Maryland Senator Wes Moore, 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 effective and generally 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. 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 16% of delegates and 11% 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 the campaigns 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 Eric Adams as his running mate.

Newsom’s choice to pivot to the right on economics—rejecting Bidenism-Harrism in reaction to the 2030 GOP landslide goes down like a pile of bricks. An open fight with AFL-CIO President and former Secretary of Labor Shawn Fain was an intentional plan to compensate for his lack of moderate bonafides, but it mostly only results in demotivating swaths of the Party. The campaign is poorly run 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 runs as a moderate, dynamic candidate who is going to bring boring and competence to Washington. A kindly father figure to make an increasingly scary world seem less bad. Britt allows him to sure up his right flank, and he delegates most red-meat base baiting activities to her, even if she’s extremely mediocre in the role.

The Republican Party wins the presidential popular vote for the first time in almost three 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: the Marianas, Hawaii, Utah, 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 Texas and North Carolina away from Young’s column—no one of the states’ margins exceeds 30,000 votes. Despite losing the popular vote by nearly 3%, Newsom would come just two states and 34,943 votes away from the White House (Virginia and 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 US 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 would not come to pass. Their aspirations for a New Republican Majority would be dashed upon the rocks of history. However, this would lead to several policy moves that are 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 huge swing intended to solidify the GOP as a pro-worker party and boost flagging recruitment numbers (the latter is the only reason why Cheney did not scupper the idea). It would actually prove to be quite popular, despite all expectations. It would not drastically transform the military, but it would improve the quality of life of the average Soldier, Sailor, Aero, and Marine.

Moreover, the administration is fundamentally held back by their 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.

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. The legal status of his nomination remains a point of contention. The White House then nominates their emergency option—one that is sure to pass the Senate—Attorney General Paul Clement. He is defeated in a 57-49 vote, a 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 White House Chief of Staff Kirstjen Nielsen, 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.

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Fifth Persian Gulf War of 2034

The Nuclear War / Arabian Awakening / Second Gulf Coast-Iranian War / Seventy-Eight Day War

In the wake of the Fourth Persian Gulf War, the Gulf Cooperation Council states have become the leading energy suppliers to the People’s Republic of China, deepening rapidly after the Saudi-American Diplomatic Crisis of 2027-2028. At the same time, the Bretton Woods II, NATO, and OSATO states have increasingly weaned from their dependence on hydrocarbons for energy, save for Germany. The Gulf States embark on a two-step policy—a steady authoritarian turn while maintaining their standing with Western publics by lavishly funding propaganda campaigns. This sees direct funding of otherwise unrelated progressive non-profits while also giving all-expenses-paid trips to “manfluencers” to locales like the still-under-construction Neom (despite the city being declared open in 2032) and, of course, the continued bankrolling of IR think tanks, the traditional keystone of Gulfer support in the west.

This authoritarian pivot is ungirded by the reinvigoration and expansion of the kafala system of domestic slavery. The primary source of expansion is the creation of what amounts to an Export Gulag system. The premise is simple: the Gulf States import dissidents from the People’s Republic of China, the post-Putin Russian Federation (still recovering from its defeat in Ukraine), and anywhere else. In fact, it is marketed as a service for authoritarian regimes—sell your dissidents to the Gulf at an affordable rate! It is treated as a win-win; foreign states disappear problems while the Gulf States keep a steady stream of disposable labor for use in homes, the service sector, light or dangerous industries, and to construct vanity mega-projects. The Export Gulags are complemented with closed cities for ‘valued workers’ from various South Asian and East African countries, especially those burdened by predatory loan traps run by Chinese banks (particularly state banks). The residents of these cities are not subjected to the same conditions as those in the Export Gulags but are subject to “martial labor discipline.”

Iran, on the other hand, remains in flux. It has partially democratized in the wake of 2026. The nation is on a tightrope walk from a hybrid regime to a full democracy. It has a civilian-controlled armed forces/security apparatus operating at complete odds with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. In fact, the Iranian Civil Government (ICG) and IRGC support separate, warring proxy groups in Iraq, Lebanon, and al-Julani’s Third Syrian Republic.

Critically, by 2034, both the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran have procured nuclear weapons. Iran came first in 2028. The effort was spearheaded by the reformist clique in abid to undercut the IRGC and hardliners. The effort was all but openly aided by Mishustin’s Russia as recompense for support during in Russo-Ukraine War of 2022-2026 (and as a thumb in the eye to NATO). In response to the Iranian test, the Saudis finally coerce the Pakistanis to live up to their long-promised assurances. The Saudis test an indigenous weapon just three months after the Iranians, adding to speculation that the Saudis had already begun their own nuclear weapons program before they formally sought one.

The Fifth Gulf War begins on 17 May 2034, with a media and internet blackout across Saudi Arabia. Within a few hours, social media posts of drone footage show Saudi National Guardsmen and General Directorate of Public Safety paramilitaries firing on workers and slaves protesting at Al Murabba Square in Riyadh. Word spreads, and within forty-eight hours, every GCC State has imposed martial law. The Gulf Council issues a joint declaration authorizing a joint effort to put down “the terrorist revolt of Iranian proxies and collaborators.” The lash no longer cows the victims of the “new and humane” kafala system. It only begets more resistance, more 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 since the Haitian Revolution.

Within five days of the first uprising, the entire Middle East is on fire. The Gulf States formally claim (and earnestly believe) that the Awakening is the work of the IRGC (it is not, even though the Iranians planned to provide arms to the rebels). Accordingly, the GCC prepares for war with Iran. At the same time, the Gulf States activate their proxy groups in the Levant. The ICG and IRGC retaliate in kind with their networks of proxies. The first phase of the war climaxes when the Royal Saudi Strategic Missile Force launches seven Chinese Dong Neng-3D anti-ballistic missiles at Iran’s humble collection of communications and intelligence satellites. The resulting debris field causes a partial Kessler Syndrome and nearly $350B worth of damage in mere hours.

The damage the Saudis caused to global communications undermines much of their clout in Washington—the Young Administration actually uses the chaos to scupper their failing Social Security privatization/expansion. The Administration pivots to a limited intervention as Iraq invokes its 2028 Mutual Defense Treaty with the United States. 82nd Airborne Division, 108th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, and II Marine Expeditionary Force are deployed to defend Iraq as the lead elements of Operation DESERT SENTINEL while the Navy launches Operation EARNEST WILL III. These operations are drafted to avoid the United States and Iraq from being further drawn into either side of the conflict, on the express orders of the White House. The Young Administration has no interest in joining the Saudis—it would be political suicide—but has no intention of striking deep into the Gulf States until pushed. The White House, however, is much more willing to confront the Iranian Governments directly.

Skirmishes between the Gulf States and Iranian Governments become an escalatory spiral. Neither side feels able to back down despite both believing war is a very bad idea. This leads to a ?-way war between the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Iranian Civil Government, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the US and Iraq, dozens of proxy groups across the Levant, and a constellation of Awakened factions.

Visual confirmation of atrocities (the mass execution of non-combatants in Dubai, Doha, and Riyadh) and a missile attack on the cruise ship Wonder of the Seas (transiting the Gulf of Aden to the Maldives) forces the Young Administration to act. On the 3rd of July, 2034, CENTCOM launches Operation DESERT TYPHOON, the clearing of the Persian Gulf. Two surface action groups are deployed, one centered on the USS Lyndon B. Johnson (CG-1002) and the other on the recently commissioned USS Long Beach (CSGN-42). Long Beach definitively proves the value of electrothermal chemical gun technology and Fleet Architecture 2040 by clearing the sea singlehandedly. The two SAGs destroy the vast majority of naval forces on both sides of the Gulf and also disrupt air and anti-tanker operations for almost two weeks.

“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.”

The limited, but decisive, intervention provokes violent responses from both sides of the Gulf. This culminates in both Iran and the Gulf Coast States launching nearly simultaneous invasions into Iraq, near Basra. After the Gulf States gamble with their best forces and their last reserves, the Awakened groups renew their attacks on urban centers and begin to gain territory.

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. His allies in Moscow and Beijing have done little to assist him; the wholesale slaughter of revolting slaves is too much to stomach, even for the leading global authoritarian powers. His military is on the brink of collapse. The best of the United Forces of the Gulf and most of the IRGC Ground Forces lay broken and burning after the Battle of the Shatt al-Arab.

The two invasions of Iraq are too much for the Young Administration. The Saudi’s rapidly disappearing sources in Washington warn of an imminent counter-air and SEAD campaign to enforce a no-fly zone against both belligerents. The Russians and Chinese have already signaled they will not block a UN mandate. As the 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 Iran and American forces in Iraq and the Arabian Sea. It calls for the use of the entire Saudi ready-use nuclear arsenal, roughly 150 weapons.

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 SIOP’s transmission, and after a short delay, President Young is consulting with STRATCOM, the Joint Chiefs, and Secretary of Defense Liz Cheney about a nuclear counterforce strike to pre-empt a potential nuclear launch order. However, the US is 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 State be put into action, immediately.

Thirty minutes later, an RSAF J-20D drops the first nuclear weapon since 1945 on a suburb of Riyadh. The 1.2-megaton weapon is a modified version of the American B83 nuclear bomb, whose design was stolen from the US. The RSAF begins a campaign of nuclear strikes against the strongholds of the Awakening 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.

Operation TREBUCHET, the US counter-force mission, begins nineteen minutes later with a salvo of eighty-seven LGM-200 Long Range Hypersonic Weapons from Dark Eagle launchers, USS Lyndon B. Johnson, and several nuclear submarines. Upon detection of the American launch, the key turn order is automatically given for the entire Saudi nuclear and conventional missile inventory, 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 US 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-nine 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 burts two nautical miles off her port bow. The nuclear weapons that evade interception are primarily scorched earth strikes directed against Gulf State cities. However, some missiles, with particularly shallow trajectories or those aimed at targets whose defensive batteries were overwhelmed, bypass American IAMD.

Hundreds of American aircraft scream into Saudi airspace. A massive air battle rages over the entire country as desperate American 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). TLAMs, PrSMs, and Crossbolt OpFires are launched by the score. The main targets of TREBUCHET are the Royal Strategic Missiles Force’s six hardened missile fields and two battalions of mobile MBRM 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 US and Iran intercept an additional eighty-six delivery vehicles—both missiles and jets—interspersed amongst scores of conventional ballistic missiles and nearly every functional GCC aircraft remaining.

Six weapons hit American-Iraqi targets—Al Assad Air Base, Balad Air Base, Camp Victory II, FOB Weathers in Iraq itself, FOB Emancipation in Dubai, and the Long Beach SAG in the Gulf. Six weapons hit targets in Iran—Mehrabad International Airport, two ICG military bases, and three IRGC military bases. The remaining thirty-one weapons are used against Saudi and Gulf Stater cities. Iran responds with a two-for-one retaliatory strike at the GCC, a total of twelve nuclear-tipped ballistic and cruise missiles. The US intercepts ten.

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, mostly a carrier group in the 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 the PLA. This marriage of horrified convenience overwhelms the remains of the United Forces of the Gulf and aids the Iranian Civil Government in neutralizing the IRGC. The region is devastated. The world stands speechless.

The war had only lasted seventy-eight days.

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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 China—where gas prices soar and the power grid rolling blackouts. Gulf oil is rapidly replaced with Russian oil, 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). Notably, Senator Chuck Schumer retires, but House Minority Whip Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez does not run to replace him, instead remaining in the House of Representatives where she becomes Majority Leader.

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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 rapidly to just House Majority Leader Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senators Gretchen Whitmer, Wes Moore, and Ron Nirenberg. AOC, ahead of Ultra Tuesday in May, secures the endorsements of Whitmer and Moore and then wins a 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 the RNC that follows it.

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.

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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 March 18, 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 shootdown, 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 shootdown 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 William 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. A result of the change in schedules—beyond pushing aircraft and ships past expected maintenance availabilities—is that the capstone of REFORT, the Tokyo Security Conference, grows exponentially in size and mess. The TSC 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 the hard work of a 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 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 dusts off its long-awaited plans for reunification with Taiwan but is keenly aware that its every move is scrutinized and could be used to justify what it believes is the imminent OSATO first strike. The Osaka Alliance becomes 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 to cover periods of internal deliberation in senior PRC leadership, it is the Swan Lake of 2030’s China. However, more reliable channels begin to convey messages begging for a path to ‘honorable de-escalation,’ making it clear to DC and Osaka that the PRC believes a Blue first strike is imminent.

It is in this moment that the PLA transmits the world’s most confusing “Go” order; because it is, on its face, the exact opposite of “Climb Mount Narodnaya.”

The order to prepare for a real attack is a stand-down order.

The PLA announces that it will remain on full alert so long as OSATO “escalations” (jargon for OSATO exercises) continue. This order includes a sentence: “Stand by for an immediate return to the general standing settlement.” The language is unfamiliar to OSATO analysts—as generally these kinds of PR orders are all boilerplate recycled for over a decade. It is the signal to prepare for war.

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. A part of what would be commonly described by American officials after the event as a “drunken boxing first strike” (with the USIC ascribing these moves to a conscious plan) would be a daring plan for a false flag that would spiral into something much more.

OSATO is plainly aware that the Taiwan Presidential Crisis is the perfect opportunity for a ‘forceful resolution to externally supported rebellion’ (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. The psychosis spreads from the waist down, with mid-level managers countermanding each other—orders for war readiness and immediate de-escalation criss-cross desks across every Ministry and 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 judgment comes as the PLAAF prepares a massive multi-bomber division training exercise, the final element of JOINT SWORD 2037A.

The US 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 US 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, he detonates 50 pounds of an Octaazacubane-Caesium-based novel composite 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. 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 American 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 US Ambassador to Japan, the Commandant of the US 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 US Forces Japan, the Commander of the US Fifth Air Force, the Commander of the US Army Pacific, and George, Prince of Wales (serving as flag aide to the First Sea Lord).

The attacker was a member of a radical sect of the Unification Church—but the attack on the Okura was not the one ordered by the CMC. That operation fizzles.

A Hello Kitty wrap Suzuki Every VBIED is intercepted and jammed by American and Japanese security forces before it can ram into the PRC Embassy gates and detonate 1,500-pounds of explosives among misinformation-instigated dueling protests. The two groups, anti-American demonstrators protesting the alleged imminent OSATO first strike and ultra-nationalists protesting the ‘kidnapping’ of a Japanese woman by the Chinese Ambassador, are dispersed with force. Like the Okura bomber, the Suzuki driver is identified as a member of the “Proactive Self-Defense Wing of the Legitimate Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.”

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. The 20th Bureau—special direct action—agents had changed plans without alerting the CMC, Politburo, or core Guóānbù leadership. Beijing is entirely caught off guard by what they see unravel on television and social media.

The team from the Special Purposes Bureau, armed with forged press and diplomatic passes, accessed the Okura and planted the explosive vest, benefiting from lax security overwhelmed by an overbooked conference. Half of these agents were crushed by the hotel, having been unaware that the Hotel had received a top-of-a-line hydrogen fuel-cell power system two years prior. The Japanese domestic intelligence agency, the Public Security Intelligence Agency, will later claim that the detonation signal came from the Guóānbù team. Two survivors would be immediately detained after being pulled from what was clearly a surveillance van. But with Tokyo fully paralyzed, this information is not widely known until the next day. It will not take long, however, to understand that the Okura Attack was conducted by the Chinese state.

The inferno kills and wounds nearly 1,500 and decapitates OSATO, INDOPACOM, JSDF, and the incumbent Japanese government. The bulk of the alliance’s senior staff are killed or wounded, however, the majority of the lower-level commands had yet to arrive to the conference. The word is passed from Osaka. HIEROPHANT. Condition One. However, that order comes too late, as most units had begun their maintenance cycles, and much of their personnel dispersed 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, sounds general quarters and orders the group to flank speed. The task force readies for Operation POSEIDON FURY, the neutralization of the Sakishima Islands, amid a massive PLA jamming effort. Before the formal orders are transmitted from the National Command Authority, Reagan’s orbiting E-2E Super Hawkeyes’ radar warning receivers light up, and hypersonic surface-to-air missiles pluck them from the sky.

It is 10:12 PM.

The battlegroup escorts energize their radars and see the PLAAF bomber exercise, which had been returning based, has reversed course and is 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 (licensed and improved versions of the Tu-160M2).

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 wraths.

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 Lawerence 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 six Type 054 frigates, four 052 destroyers, and seven Type 056 corvettes.

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 impregnable defenses of the Giáp Line. The PAVN garrisons have been awake, in most cases, for days with several key officers incapacitated by lack of sleep as the Vietnamese government had the OSATO power most confident that this war scare was actually The Moment. 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 and Jason on the line. *incomprehensible response* Don’t give me that bullshit, John. Get it done.

— 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-35 Thunderbird supersonic VTOLs from HMX-1. The trio will proceed toward Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst until the President personally orders Marine One back to the Douglass Commonwealth. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will be the first sitting President to break the sound barrier as the VV-35N “Kiss Me I’m Irish” hits Mach 1 over Staten Island. The flight will sprint to DC by nap-of-the-earth, their active defense systems hot, escorted by a pair of F-26A Voodoo II NGAD-A air superiority fighters scrambled from Langley Aerospace Force Base.

The President had come to New York City for a summit on her sectoral unionization bill, and she will leave it as a war president. It is April 10th, 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 slow hypersonic missiles—what they assume are missiles—launched from one of the major three campuses of the China Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics; the location had been the site of a flurry of activity in the preceding week. However, it is not considered a pressing concern, especially as the first pitched orbital battle begins.

But there is another salvo from the campus. 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 glance, it appeared as if DIA and the USIC 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 their 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, most of the officer cadre had served in First Sino in combat.

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 for 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 US standards, GY-3 is not “true” powered armor and merely 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 off-hand 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. 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 on the Marianas, 123 are intercepted. The active defenses on the islands are oversaturated by the well-timed barrage, with the XK-7s arriving alongside the Lingyun-10, DF-ZF, and DF-26.

“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 intervie, 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 from Detachment Three, Marine Special Operations Group One (the Corps’ special mission unit).

The Chinese missile barrage is only partially successful—with American defenses on and around Andersen sparing the key aerospace force base from total destruction. 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 PLA's main landing is at LeoPalace Golf Resort, where 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 briefly regroup before launching an attack northward, brushing aside the remnants of 1-294th with some difficulty. The delay after seizing Naval Base Guam and 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 most senior 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 kill the northern force’s local commander.

The PLA 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 attack on 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, despite being outnumbered by 2-to-1, at immense cost.

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 interdiction 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, as the US quickly ID the transports as a ruse de guerre and the coastal artillery batteries on Guam use their Joint Strike Missiles, sending 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 seizing 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 will sally with every available carrier—something not thought feasible by pre-war OSATO analysts as the PLAN was thought to lack the trained crews needed (PLAN 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 at the last moment.

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 504th Airborne Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division will drop onto Guam on the same day. With both sides 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 possess 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 September 13th, 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-Vietnames 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 great 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 which sparks the Nork Civil War and 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 21st of October, 2040. The Republic of Taiwan will declare its formal independence on the 28th of October, 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 4th of June, 2042.