Eagle Guardian: The War of 2010

[oldbleep]

It is well that war is so terrible - otherwise we would grow too fond of it.
General Robert E Lee

[usnvet]

Jul 8, 2019 18:48:09 GMT lordbyron said:

To know how bad things could have gotten, just watch this fictionalized BBC special report on a Russia-NATO war (from 2016):


Glad that didn't happen here...

[lordroel]

Thanks for this great TL forcon and James G, it was a great read.

[James G]

Jul 8, 2019 21:58:08 GMT arrowiv said:

I see Russian being barred from the 2012 London Olympics for being "naughty boys", just like Germany and Japan in the 1948 Games.
Another question is what happened to the Russian space program during all of this mess? Did the cosmonauts on the ISS stuck it out and joined the American side? What about the Baikonur Cosmodrome?

Once more, stuff I hadn't thought of!
forcon? 

[James G]

Jul 8, 2019 22:39:52 GMT oldbleep said:

It is well that war is so terrible - otherwise we would grow too fond of it.
General Robert E Lee

Lots of postwar war here. Peace is elusive.

Jul 8, 2019 22:42:00 GMT usnvet said:

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Lovely! 

Jul 9, 2019 3:15:23 GMT lordroel said:

Thanks for this great TL forcon and James G, it was a great read.

Thank you for your kind words.

[forcon]

Jul 9, 2019 8:43:11 GMT James G said:

Jul 8, 2019 21:58:08 GMT arrowiv said:

I see Russian being barred from the 2012 London Olympics for being "naughty boys", just like Germany and Japan in the 1948 Games.
Another question is what happened to the Russian space program during all of this mess? Did the cosmonauts on the ISS stuck it out and joined the American side? What about the Baikonur Cosmodrome?

Once more, stuff I hadn't thought of!
forcon? 

I would think the astronauts on both sides in the ISS would have avoided conflict with each other. It would be nescessary for their own survival to work together at least to get down to earth again. If the crew landed in either an Allied mation or Russia during wartime they would likely have been interned as POWs (not the members from nations on the same side as the one they landed in, obviously), but it's hard to say.

[James G]

As for Baikonur, my personal thinking is that it wasn't bombed nor attacked by SF teams. Maybe there might have been plans too but with it in Kazakhstan, even when the Kazakhs were at war with the Coalition, I think it gets left alone.

[davidfloyd]

Great story! Loved it!

I think the stage is set for Round 2 down the road. On the other hand, Europe has seen the need for a robust national defense demonstrated on a massive scale. Hopefully, NATO will mandate and enforce higher defense spending - minimum 2-2.5% of GDP.

Japan is an interesting case. They stayed out, but a weakened United States and a relatively stronger China should lead inevitably to increased Japanese defense spending - and Japan should in theory have the capability to check China single handedly.

China, of course, saw the dominance of Western technology. Expect Chinese industrial espionage, cyber capabilities, and patent theft to increase exponentially. China still isn't militarily as strong as the US, much less NATO, but they have a justifiable opportunity (hey, Russia just invaded Europe and they are on our border too) to massively increase their capabilities, both conventional and asymmetrical. Expect them to do so.

Space. The Final Frontier. The US should and probably will see the absolute necessity of space dominance. Treaties restricting the militarization of space are done. ASAT weapons will be deployed on a large scale. The US has the ability to absolutely dominate in space, but will they? Time will tell.

Ultimately, with the destruction of the Putin, Gaddhafi, and Assad regimes as well as the defeat of ISIS, the world of 2019 is probably a better place initially, but far more dangerous long term given the probability of a rearmed and pissed off Russia and a weapons race in space between the US and China (and probably Japan).

[davidfloyd]

Goes without saying that Trump is butterflied away.

[lordroel]

Jul 9, 2019 18:54:57 GMT davidfloyd said:

Goes without saying that Trump is butterflied away.

I think a lot of things have been butterflied away.

[ricobirch]

That was an entertaining read guys.

Thanks for the hard work.

Looking forward to your next threads.

[James G]

Jul 9, 2019 18:53:48 GMT davidfloyd said:

Great story! Loved it!

I think the stage is set for Round 2 down the road. On the other hand, Europe has seen the need for a robust national defense demonstrated on a massive scale. Hopefully, NATO will mandate and enforce higher defense spending - minimum 2-2.5% of GDP.

Japan is an interesting case. They stayed out, but a weakened United States and a relatively stronger China should lead inevitably to increased Japanese defense spending - and Japan should in theory have the capability to check China single handedly.

China, of course, saw the dominance of Western technology. Expect Chinese industrial espionage, cyber capabilities, and patent theft to increase exponentially. China still isn't militarily as strong as the US, much less NATO, but they have a justifiable opportunity (hey, Russia just invaded Europe and they are on our border too) to massively increase their capabilities, both conventional and asymmetrical. Expect them to do so.

Space. The Final Frontier. The US should and probably will see the absolute necessity of space dominance. Treaties restricting the militarization of space are done. ASAT weapons will be deployed on a large scale. The US has the ability to absolutely dominate in space, but will they? Time will tell.

Ultimately, with the destruction of the Putin, Gaddhafi, and Assad regimes as well as the defeat of ISIS, the world of 2019 is probably a better place initially, but far more dangerous long term given the probability of a rearmed and pissed off Russia and a weapons race in space between the US and China (and probably Japan).

Thank you.
There's a complicated future laying ahead for so many. Russia can build tanks all they want but they'd need top quality aircraft in serious number (each of those factories got bombed a few times), a whole new navy (shipyards got whalloped) oh and so much more. Whether NATO could maintain a unity against a renewed Russian threat for a long time before complacency sets in is debateable.
China is the new big threat on the world stage. If something happens, Russia will be their lackey.
Things will be very different in this current world indeed.

Jul 9, 2019 21:05:38 GMT ricobirch said:

That was an entertaining read guys.

Thanks for the hard work.

Looking forward to your next threads.

Thank you.
Forcon has a story he is currently writing - alternate-timelines.proboards.com/thread/2757/duel-desert-holiday-tehran-redux - and I'm still thinking what to do next.

[arrowiv]

As for keeping an eye of Russian obligations to the post-war treaty, it does stand a better chance than what the old League of Nations did after the Treaty of Versailles. Satellites, better HUMINT resources, and the Internet would keep a very sharp eye on Russian cheating and then if those darned Russkies do some cheating, expect NATO to come down hard in contrast to the old LN.

[James G]

Jul 9, 2019 21:55:52 GMT arrowiv said:

As for keeping an eye of Russian obligations to the post-war treaty, it does stand a better chance than what the old League of Nations did after the Treaty of Versailles. Satellites, better HUMINT resources, and the Internet would keep a very sharp eye on Russian cheating and then if those darned Russkies do some cheating, expect NATO to come down hard in contrast to the old LN.

The thing was though was that there was a verbal ceasefire and then a written armistice. A proper peace treaty kept getting kicked into the long grass.
Russia is behaving in many ways but cheating elsewhere. So the US and NATO countries are left frustrated as to how to enforce their will on Russia. As you rightly say, they can see all this.
However, how long before the usual voices start talking of 'we need to move on, open a new chapter', 'Russia learnt its lesson', 'the more Russia is exposed to our democracy via trade, the freer things will become within' etc etc etc?

[dunois]

This is a bittersweet ending to the TL. The Baltic countries may never truly recover from the war considering their own economic situations and demographics. Belarus may get help in rebuilding if its lucky but my gut feeling is that the country will become a bigger version of Moldova. I.e a poor and corrupt country with emigration to the West as the aspiration for many.

I will have to object somewhat to the posited fate of NAT POWs in Russian captivity. The Russian army is not the Soviet Army and while discipline may not be as strong and atrocities may happen. The Russians aren't some kind of barbarians that kill, main and rape everything they see. It's senseless from a strategic standpoint too. Conditions will be harsh for POWs on both sides to be honest. I frankly wouldn't want to be a Russian solider or nurse caught surrendering in the heat of a difficult battle in the Baltics etc. Bad things happen in war sadly :-(

What gets me very interested in this timemline is what the fate of my TTL self would have been. I reckon that I would have tried to enlist in some capacity, which means my life would have been completely different.

I have a feeling that my TTL self wouldn't have been walking the streets of Moscow in April 2019 like my OTL self did. Or even if I had done so by some kind of miracle, gettong my visa wouldn't have taken just one week ...