Eagle Guardian: The War of 2010

[James G]

Jul 5, 2019 22:45:23 GMT arrowiv said:

I think a referendum should be held in Sakhalin on if they wish to be Russian or Japanese. What about the Kuriles?

Sakhalin and the South Kuriles, both occupied by Coalition forces, will be withdrawn from and returned to Russia. Japan wasn't in the Coalition so they have no say in things.
For a referendum, you'd need an expressed public desire for that. I don't see it happening.
The territorial returns to Russia will set off a lot of anger throughout the West but the Coalition gets back what is theirs, a return of POWs and an end to the very real threat of more usage of nuclear weapons. 

[James G]

Two Hundred and Six

There had been a verbal agreement between Biden and Gerasimov when it came to Putin. The deposed Russian president would be joining his counterpart who used to rule Belarus at an international war crimes tribunal: Lukashenko and Putin were envisioned to be side-by-side in the dock at a trial in The Hague. Then Putin had his fatal ‘accident’ before he could reach Coalition custody. Only a fool would believe the accident story… but there are many fools. The murder of Putin would just be the first, though the most high-profile, of figures who would suffer a demise before they reached a public punishment that the West would like to see done. Part of the reason for Kremlin-ordered killing was to silence these people yet another factor was that Gerasimov didn’t want the Russian public to be later treated to images of once-powerful Russians being paraded as prisoners by the victorious Coalition. The Rodina wouldn’t stand for the humiliation, Russia’s new leader believed, and would extract their revenge upon those who allowed it to take place.

Fatal accidents, apparent suicides and disappearances which took place among key people came alongside other violations of the spirit of the arrangement between Biden and Gerasimov. There was no written agreement yet made but the American president and his Russian counterpart had struck a deal. Gerasimov took the opportunity presented to have things done to save what was possible despite that. As the fighting came to an end with nothing concrete confirmed on what would happen next, Russian forces did things they were unable to do when the conflict was raging. Transport aircraft landed in Estonia, the Crimea and Kamchatka: Coalition fighters would previously have blown them out of the sky. There was destruction of equipment and infrastructure that Russia looked likely to lose once a written agreement was made. A lot of this was seen by Coalition reconnaissance assets and strategic intelligence means. There were urging made to political leaders across the West to do something to stop this.

The war was over with though.


To confirm the end of the conflict, a physical meeting took place where a ceasefire would be signed and armistice arrangements made: a final peace deal wasn’t something that was going to come as quickly. Contact was made between Nunn and Zubkov as the US Secretary of Defence and the Russian Defence Minister where they exchanged messages over the Hot Line to set this up. At midday on September 22nd, two Russian Army helicopters arrived at the grounds of Vilnius University in Lithuania. Few of the buildings here had seen war damage and it was a secured area. There were Canadian troops here, men from the Primary Reserve serving with the 32nd Reserve Brigade–Group, who had been transiting through Lithuania yesterday when the fighting stopped and were diverted to Vilnius to provide security. The pair of Mil-8 helicopters were ‘escorted’ in by US Army Apaches – with French Rafales in the sky as well – and once they landed, from out of one came Colonel-General Khrulyov. This general officer, the man who’d taken Tbilisi and arguably set into motion the chain of events leading to this war, had recently been named the Western Front commander: the Russians had gone through three previous commanders before Khrulyov. SACEUR also arrived by helicopter. General Petraeus flew in on a Blackhawk and had his own airborne escort with Apache gunships too, though that had been rather friendly unlike those which had been with the Mil-8s.

The meeting between Khrulyov and Petraeus was short. Through interpreters, their meeting went on for less than an hour. Each of them were following political guidance though SACEUR was here on behalf of the Coalition – close to fifty nations now, all who wanted to have some input in what happened at Vilnius – while the commander of the Western Front was representing Russia alone. Despite all of those issues with many Coalition desires, the shortness of the meeting and the lack of any major disputes came because there had already been much agreement made by political masters. There was a document which was signed and an armistice would come into effect. This superseded much of what had been said before in political contact and made everything official when it came to bringing an end to the war.

It was all over officially at two o’clock in the afternoon, Eastern European Time (GMT +2). For almost twenty-four hours beforehand, there had been a distinct lack of gunfire throughout all regions of the war as the unofficial ceasefire rolled into effect – a few flare ups had occurred though – but after this, there was supposed to be no chance of further outbreaks of fighting.


The Vilnius Agreement covered many issues.

Russian forces cut off behind the frontlines where they ran through Latvia and into Belarus would all surrender themselves into Coalition custody with immediate effect. There were many pockets of resistance though none of them really had significant numbers of active personnel: regardless, the men inside them would surrender and turn over all weapons & military equipment. This would be repeated at the very top of Norway and also in areas of Georgia. On the Russian side of the frontlines, there would be withdrawals made out of Norway, Estonia, Latvia and the Georgian breakaway regions of Abkhazia & South Ossetia by Russian military forces starting today and to be completed within five days. They would only be allowed to leave those areas with their own military equipment and not allowed to take with them any spoils of war. Fighting had already ceased on Afghanistan’s borders with Russian-aligned Central Asian nations and then with air & sea combat elsewhere around the globe but this made all of that official too. When it came to Estonia and its capital, Russian forces were to leave there within eighteen hours. A minor point of contention had arisen between Khrulyov and Petraeus over what exactly constituted Tallinn when it came to the area around that city, but they eventually went with the Estonian government definition of the city for electoral purposes. Russian forces were to be out before NATO troops began landing there.

Methods for the transfer of POWs and detained civilians were agreed to. The Coalition wanted everyone back and would only afterwards discuss addressing the issue of anyone Russia accused of war crimes: they would then decide later on whether any of the allegations made had merit with international trials to be undertaken, not Russia-located ones. It was the same issue with those the Coalition accused of war crimes: Russian nationals would face international justice unless there were specific circumstances such as some of those that the France, Poland and the United States had in custody (with the Americans, that was the Obama assassination team). Each side held many other POWs as well as civilians who weren’t subject to these levelled charges against them. Retuning them to the other was something that was easier to agree to though going to be very difficult to achieve physically with the speed desired. The logistics of transfers were arranged with medical cases being at the top of the list. At the suggestion of Khrulyov, Petraeus gave his consent to an immediate exchange of a select number – they shook hands on the figure of one thousand patients (half each) – of badly wounded POWs to occur starting at midnight through Daugavpils in Latvia. Further exchanges of medical cases and others would take place at agreed locations down the Belorussian-Russian frontier over the coming week. Following what Gerasimov had conceded on in talks with Biden, the Coalition would retain a certain number of senior Russian military officers for the purposes of Russia showing ‘good faith’. These weren’t those accused of war crimes and would only be kept for a few months but many colonels and every general held by the Coalition weren’t going home yet. What these exchanges of personnel didn’t cover was Belorussian military personnel nor armed civilian militia in custody unless the latter were Russian nationals. With the former, the Coalition considered Belarus a failed state so there was no one in charge there to yet arrange a return of POWs with. As to non-Russian militia prisoners, they were being currently treated as ‘Unlawful Combatants’. There were those detained in the Baltics, in Belarus, in Transnistria and in Georgia. Their future was one which Russia was entitled to have a say in unless it could prove that they were Russian citizens.

Further matters discussed at Vilnius concerned Russia providing information of where unexploded ammunition, mines and other leftover dangers of war could be found in areas to come back under Coalition control but also elsewhere such as at sea. Bodies of prisoners who had died in the custody of each side were to be returned. Should there be knowledge of where each side knew the remains of military personnel lay and those were in inaccessible areas –mainly at sea – that information would be shared as well. The biological weapons leak, which the Coalition wouldn’t accept any responsibility for despite a missile strike being the direct cause, would be addressed by a joint Russian-Coalition military effort due to its spread over the areas of five countries now: Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Russia. They would work together on the clean-up and sharing of information. There was also the issue of Russian sovereign soil which the Coalition would withdraw from: Kaliningrad, Sakhalin and the South Kuriles. Demilitarisation of the first of these was key to what Biden and Gerasimov had discussed but before then there was the agreement put on paper of the removal of Coalition forces from each of these places. The Pacific territories of Russia would see Coalition forces leave within six weeks with a gradual return of Russian military forces to each made during that process. Kaliningrad was going to be turned over to Russia within two months though with a delay of half of that time before any Russian civilian law enforcement personnel could arrive to establish order. There would be no military presence allowed to be re-established and the Vilnius Agreement contained ‘penalty clauses’ within it for any Russian violation of promises on that: the penalties would mean continued Coalition military presence.

Khrulyov and Petraeus chose the location of Balbasovo Airfield to be where their subordinates would meet after Vilnius to discuss ongoing matters relating to the armistice. There would have to be further talks to resolve any problems with ongoing issues and things which popped up unexpectedly. Later prisoner exchanges past the initial ones would occur here in Belarus outside the city of Orsha. This facility was near the Russian border and Khrulyov said that it was heavily damaged by NATO air attacks but Petraeus told him not to worry about that: again, the future of Belarus was in Coalition hands now. SACEUR had some of his people there already, he told his opposite number, and they reached an agreement on what form Russian access with (unarmed) military staff officers would have there including the logistics of setting up a liaison team there with Russian attendees.


There was a short media event – invited journalists and no questions asked – once the agreement was signed though that actual physical act wasn’t something recorded to be broadcast around the world. Gerasimov had refused to allow that done, something reaffirmed by Zubkov over the Hot Line and then Khrulyov in person. Biden would soon catch a tremendous amount of backlash for allowing for Russia to hold out on that matter with the criticism at home but more so abroad. Gerasimov got his wish though: he didn’t want the Russian public to at some point see that humiliation occur with their own eyes. Afterwards, Khrulyov left Vilnius. There was a problem with one of the helicopters though he took the other Mil-8 out of Coalition territory – leaving staff officers behind to go out by land if that helicopter wouldn’t fly – and headed home.

Surrenders started talking place of encircled Russian forces behind the lines and there were instances at sea of a couple of Russian submarines surfacing in areas which caused the Coalition some alarm. With the latter, two of the trio went home but the third sailed for Gibraltar. Distress calls were made from the boat where the captain claimed several serious medical emergencies aboard. A Royal Navy frigate, joined by a Portuguese frigate afterwards, responded to this. An armed escort was provided. Contact came from the Spanish who wanted to know whether it was a nuclear-powered boat – it was – and whether it had any nuclear weapons aboard – no one knew – because the Russian submarine was heading for Gibraltar. A diplomatic incident began between allies. Onboard the submarine, there was no intention to surrender but rather offload casualties from an accident to where the lives of sailors could be saved. However, at the behest of the War Cabinet in London, orders were sent outside of the NATO chain of command to HMS St. Albans: seize the submarine. Royal Marines aboard from a detachment of the Fleet Protection Group (once known as the Comacchio Group) did so with the dubious excuse of the Russian Navy breaking ceasefire terms here. They hadn’t but it would be hard for anyone to prove otherwise… until the British newspaper The Guardian did two years later.

There were defections from Russian military personnel in many areas. Hundreds of conscripts, reservists and officers abandoned their posts and headed for NATO and Coalition lines following the Vilnius Agreement. Their fate, along with other wartime deserters & defectors, would cause issues later down the line with Russia wanting them back and the Coalition refusing to hand them over. Elsewhere, there were localised, unauthorised ceasefire violations which continued into armistice violations. They took place in many places with each opposing side being guilty of them. Provocations were made, it was said, and the other guys had fired first too. Much of this occurred in the Caucasus. American and Georgia forces with the Allied II Corps fought Russian soldiers who’d changed out of their uniforms to fight as militia but also many ‘locals’ as well. Abkhazia and South Ossetia were being abandoned by Moscow but not everyone wanted to see that done. The Georgians weren’t prepared to see a slow Russian withdrawal – they’ll heard that story before! – and found excuses to carry on with the war in those breakaway provinces until they were conquered and returned to their ‘rightful’ owners.

There was fighting in Tallinn the day after the Vilnius Agreement too.

A week beforehand, the US II MEF had left Norway – the Germans were there with the Norwegians fighting the last of the Russian holdouts – with SACEUR intentions to send them to the Baltics once the last of the extensive sea minefields had been cleared. Plans were in motion for a forced landing into Estonia when the fighting stopped. That amphibious assault was due to occur in the northwest, at the edge of the Gulf of Finland. American and British marines would have landed at Paldiski on the shoreline and inland at Amari Airbase before moving on Tallinn from the flank and behind. It would have been a hard, bloody fight. The amphibious ships weren’t yet in-place, the demining hadn’t finished and little on-the-ground intelligence gathered by Force Recon marines. However, the II MEF went to Estonia early. Flown by Luftwaffe, RAF, US Air Force transports rather than US Marines assault helicopters, the 2nd Marine Division sent its first wave to the international airport: within the city limits. Russian forces had left a few hours beforehand. Royal Marines followed them with transport flights but also coming off HMS Ocean which was out in the Baltic; more US Marines came off American amphibious ships too once they had sailed north along a route which the Russians said was mine-free.

At an agreed upon location on the edge of the city, a party of Russians were met. They still had forces in Estonia outside of the capital which were all soon to leave. The Russian Airborne Troops officers were all armed: a violation of the armistice. Questioned as to why this was the case by the US/UK military liaisons who met them (themselves well-armed) the Russians pointed to the gunfire in Tallinn that could be heard. That wasn’t Russian soldiers fighting NATO’s marines. Groups of armed militia – some Russian-speaking Estonia, some Russian nationals and some Slavic foreign volunteers – were engaging those who’d arrived to liberate Tallinn. Officially Russia had washed their hands of them and those liaison officers even helpfully provided a little information on where they could be found and what weapons they had, but, unofficially, those militia had been pre-warned of the incoming NATO forces and there had been several caches of weapons ‘lost’ by the Russian Army which had found their way into their hands. The war was over but the Coalition was fighting armed enemies in Tallinn.


This would continue here in the Baltics plus also in Belarus and in the Caucasus for some time to come with fighting undertaken by armed irregulars & committed terrorists. Moreover, the conflicts in Libya and Syria weren’t finished either.

Yet, as said, the war itself was over. World War Three had come to a conclusion.

NATO and the Coalition had won; Russia had lost, decisively so too. Putin was dead and Lukashenko was in custody. Russia had survived but its allies such as Belarus, Transnistria and the Georgian breakaways hadn’t. The global effects were immense. Casualties, military and civilian, were in the hundreds of thousands while there were millions of refugees (temporary and permanent) in wide areas. Biological weapons hadn’t been used purposely but had been released; chemical weapons had been deliberately employed. Worse than any of that, there had been ‘demonstrations’ made with nuclear weapons.

But it was finished.


End of Part Ten

[James G]

An epilogue in two parts is planned for the coming two days.

[dunois]

Looking good! For your next story James G why don't you write something where Russian and NATO are on the same side for a change ;-)

Perhaps a war against China in a scenario where Hong-Kong is still British?

[lordroel]

Jul 6, 2019 18:19:09 GMT James G said:

An epilogue in two parts is planned for the coming two days.

Damm, i was hopping this TL to reach 100 pages, but still great work, both of you James G and forcon, thanks for having posted this TL on Alternate Timelines.

[James G]

Jul 6, 2019 18:42:42 GMT dunois said:

Looking good! For your next story James G why don't you write something where Russian and NATO are on the same side for a change ;-)

Perhaps a war against China in a scenario where Hong-Kong is still British?

HA! That would be fun.
Hong Kong would be over in a day though!

[James G]

Jul 6, 2019 18:44:48 GMT lordroel said:

Jul 6, 2019 18:19:09 GMT James G said:

An epilogue in two parts is planned for the coming two days.

Damm, i was hopping this TL to reach 100 pages, but still great work, both of you James G and forcon , thanks for having posted this TL on Alternate Timelines.

So was I.
Thank you. Still not finished yet though!

[arrowiv]

What about post-war US relations with Japan, South Korea, China, Israel, and Taiwan?

[James G]

Jul 6, 2019 19:08:59 GMT arrowiv said:

What about post-war US relations with Japan, South Korea, China, Israel, and Taiwan?

Added to the last for the epilogue!
Israel would be in the best standing - on the face of it anyway.
China would be at the bottom.
SK has aided the US a great deal despite being neutral and Taiwan has somewhat too, though less so.
Japan stayed out of the fighting though there would have been many things they would have helped with, but a lot of that wouldn't be in the public eye so there would be much general hostility.

[James G]

Anyone else have any ideas /suggestions for things to be covered in the epilogue?
Russia's future under a military strongman, NATO defence policy, China, pop culture etc?

[elfastball7]

Jul 6, 2019 22:03:15 GMT James G said:

Anyone else have any ideas /suggestions for things to be covered in the epilogue?
Russia's future under a military strongman, NATO defence policy, China, pop culture etc?

All of it, lol. Idea for pop culture: Team Yankee style movies and novels for the tank fighting etc. The metal head in me is thinking of WWIII themed albums by bands such as Sabaton?

[redrobin65]

Jul 6, 2019 23:51:43 GMT elfastball7 said:

WWIII themed albums by bands such as Sabaton

I'd imagine that they'd have enough material to make multiple albums.

[redrobin65]

I feel that Russia will experience quite a bit of instability in the years to come. All those men coming home...and all those paramilitaries. Will there be something similar to the Freikorps; will Russia be the newest version of Weimar Germany?

[Dan]

Jul 6, 2019 19:03:05 GMT James G said:

HA! That would be fun.
Hong Kong would be over in a day though!

I don't see it last that long.

[forcon]

Part Eleven

Two Hundred and Seven

The end of World War III, while being marked with celebrations, gave way to a turbulent and dangerous world. The global economy was in utter ruins, destroyed beyond repair as a result of the conflict. When European politicians had decided that they would rather see their nations brought down by debt than the treads of Russian tanks, it had left the Continent shattered. A recession struck with a vengeance in the immediate aftermath of the conflict, echoing the troubles of 2008. This was caused by the wartime halt on civilian shipping through the Atlantic and various regions of the Pacific Ocean as well, by the end of Russian gas and oil supplies to Europe, and by the global terror felt at the prospect of a nuclear exchange. While Armageddon was averted in a physical sense, the after effects of so many close calls were still felt despite the promise of economic reparations from Russia to Europe.

Despite the economic chaos and the ongoing fighting in the Baltic States and Belarus that lasted until the end of November as the last remnants of pro-Russian militia groups were wiped out by NATO occupation forces, Russian and NATO POWs were handed over. At least, the vast majority of them were; this began properly in early October as the Russian MVD began escorting groups of prisoners from their Gulag style labour camps back to the Estonian and Belarusian borders by road and rail.

In a few cases, US Air Force C-17s landed at a number of airfields in the Russian Far East to retrieve prisoners being held there. Most Russians in NATO custody were handed back over as well, but the Spetsnaz men captured in the United States were executed following their wartime tribunals for their involvement in numerous war crimes while evading US forces. France and Poland likewise retained a number of commandos caught on their soil in foreign uniforms or after killing civilians, keeping them back for what was sure to be a lengthy series of trials and tribunals.

There was to be an unimaginable amount of international bickering with regards to war crimes trials following the end of the fighting, but the successful prosecution of Alexander Lukashenko not only for Belarus’ war crimes but also for participation in Russia’s war of aggression and the suppression of internal dissent brought an end to many of those concerns. Lukashenko was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole and began his sentence in Britain’s Belmarsh Prison in July of 2011. Many Russian war criminals, almost all of them military officers captured during the fighting who had been discovered to have killed civilians, allowed abuse of civilians in occupied territory, or abused prisoners of war, faced the same fate as Lukashenko did.

Though the United States called for an American-led trial where Lukashenko would face the death penalty, this was rejected by the European community despite all that they had lost in the war. A major cause of dissent within the United States was the release of a handful of Russian bomber pilots captured in the United States; many wanted them to be shot, but lengthy investigations by the JAG corps of the US Army and that of the Air Force showed that no crimes had been committed here; prosecuting those Russians while American pilots who had bombed Moscow and St Petersburg were allowed to go free would have shown hypocrisy, and the post-war Biden Administration was attempting to portray itself as a government of moral principles.

Like World War II, the Third World War was seen by an overwhelming majority in the West as a justified struggle against an invading enemy. Those who saw the conflict as a display of Western imperialism were few and far between, with the arrogance of their arguments pointed out daily by television pundits. Few dared to oppose NATO and the Coalition’s role in the conflict, although some more serious criticism did arise about the Coalition’s interventions in the Middle East and the necessity of that, especially in Syria, when it came to defeating Russia. Likewise, the Coalition’s admittance of dictatorships such as Egypt was bemoaned.

The nuclear close calls that had occurred during World War III failed to prevent nuclear proliferation around the world; North Korea expanded its nuclear arsenal as Iran was accused of seeking to gain an atomic weapon. Several close calls occurred throughout the end of September and October 2010 as General Gerasimov found himself confronted with the fact that Russia’s only defence against a renewed NATO offensive or an attack from the lengthy Chinese border was now his nation’s nuclear arsenal.

While instability continued throughout the world, the end of WWIII did produce a huge number of effects regarding popular culture. Films, books, music and television shows about World War III became mainstream, some better than others. The new wave of war films, including hits such as Zero Dark Thirty, a relatively realistic depiction of the US-run Operation Midnight Talon in Libya, became especially popular, as did miniseries’ such as HBO’s The Darkest Night, which discussed the conflict from the point of view of the US Army’s 77th Armor Regiment, earning critical acclaim alongside Generation Kill as the most realistic depiction of combat ever seen on television. Musicians turned their focus to the war as it occurred and afterwards as well; the Green Day album ‘When the Jackboots Come’, telling the story of a young enlisted soldier from a small town in the American heartland, was one of the most popular ever released and was later adapted into an award winning film, while Radiohead’s cover of Nena’s 1980s-era anti-war song 99 Red Balloons, released three days before the war as a result of the crisis, likewise became an instant hit.

While the War of 2010 was reflected in fiction, it had very real consequences all around the world.

42,000 American servicemen and 2,100 civilians had perished, while 9,000 Americans had endured barbaric treatment while in captivity. In Russia, the numbers were far higher. 239,000 military personnel had been killed and another 90,000 captured, while over 10,000 Russian civilians had lost their lives either in air raids against the Rodina itself or when caught up in the fighting in Kaliningrad and Sakhalin. Poland had seen 26,000 of its soldiers die, along with 57,000 civilians, most of them at the hands of cluster munitions, thermobaric weaponry and other hi-technology weapons of war. Over 8,000 Polish soldiers had been taken as POWs and a further 5,000 civilians had simply vanished into thin air while in Russian captivity. Britain was mourning the 9,000 servicemen and women and 549 civilians who had been killed. Over the 3,781 British troops thought to have been captured, 2,401 returned home at the end of the war. The figures for Germany and France were much the same; thousands dead and thousands more captured or badly wounded. Norway had seen its military suffer heavy casualties, while brave civilians caught behind the Russian lines had acted as partisans or assisted those who did, with grave consequences to themselves.

With the average age of the American soldier being just 21, a whole generation had seen its ranks decimated by World War III. For the generation known as millennials, often criticised by some of their elders as lazy and work-shy, World War III had been the defining event of their lives. Even those who hadn’t seen combat in the military had seen bombs fall on their homelands and faced the constant, nagging terror of nuclear annihilation for three months. Hundreds of thousands had flocked to recruiting offices while others had gone to war as volunteer aid workers helping to assist in the rebuilding of Belarus, Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia.

The consequences of one man’s decisions would of course be held in the minds of millions, but even with the Third World War now a piece of history, there would be other wars.