Flash fiction thread

[fieldmarshal]

Nov 4, 2020 18:24:05 GMT James G said:

Shot Before Sundown

Really enjoyed the twist ending in this one! Really makes you wonder how much of the charges are true and how much is potentially dictatorial exaggeration designed to eliminate opponents of the new regime.

Nov 3, 2020 19:11:27 GMT James G said:

Certain conscription indeed for everyone in both nations though the North might be a little less restrictive.
Derby is the North, yes: edited, thank you.
The parallel is Divided Germany and so Ulster is, say the Sudentland, with 'Brits sent home'. Scotland is Austria here.
I didn't really have a POD but thought that an alliance of the UK/Russia/Japan against Western Europe & America would be an interesting one.

Definitely not the strangest alliance -- Britain and Japan were allies before the formation of the Axis Powers.

Russia is a bit harder to factor in considering historical conflicts between Britain/Japan and Russia but perhaps competition with the Franco-German (and possibly the US?) in both Europe and China might have pushed Russia and the Anglo-Japanese bloc into an alliance out of necessity. Meanwhile the US was notably concerned about the naval power of said aforementioned British-Japanese alliance and considered going to war with it an absolute worst-case scenario in the 1930s, though the fact that Canada ultimately leaves the British Empire -- presumably due to a conflict with whatever government attempted to launch this world war -- does mitigate one of the scenarios the US was particularly concerned about, that being a land invasion via Canada.               

Nov 3, 2020 11:53:57 GMT stevep said:

  fieldmarshal,

  Interesting and dark, although not as much as I initially thought.  With those commentaries by Radek and Bush I was fearing a lot of those nukes flying.  What is the status of Russia in this world?  Assuming since there was conflict with the 'Soviet Union' its not a Putin dictatorship?  Although since its mentioned as the 'War in Russia' does that mean a civil conflict with Soviet intervention.

  Is the UCASR a predominantly Kazak state or one with the Russian minority riding roughshod over everybody else.

  Thought I recognised Radek's name.  Rather over the top like so many Hollywood action films but quite good.

  Steve

Thank you! The nukes haven't flown ... yet. In seriousness, the only reason I didn't turn this into a full-on nuclear war is because this was partially modelled on Oppo's Alan Keyes' End of History over on AH.com, in which a similar scenario occurs after a delayed Soviet breakup in 2001 that does end in a full-on nuclear war. 

You are correct, Putin is not leader of Russia in this TL. I have some ideas for this universe that I haven't fully fleshed out, but I had been thinking that ITTL good old Alexander Lebed comes to power after deposing Yeltsin in a coup sometime in the 1990s - 2000s. Lebed soon becomes a "Russian Pinochet" who reforms the Russian Federation into the Russian Federal Republic, forges a confederation with Ukraine and Belarus, and successfully transitions Russia into a free-market economy. While the Russian government is far less oppressive than the North Korea writ-large Soviet remnant, it is still a rather authoritarian state roughly comparable to OTL Russia and China. There is extensive surveillance, dissidents are often arrested or killed, and their systematic destruction of Chechnya in the early 2000s is often considered a genocide. 

The US and RFR are close allies in this world due to increased economic ties as a result of Lebed's reforms shared common enemies in the form of Islamic extremism and the lingering spectre of Communism as exemplified by a strengthening Sino-Soviet bloc. This has alienated a lot of America's traditional European allies, who strongly disapprove of the wars in Iraq and Chechnya and are wary of a resurgent Russia on their eastern borders. 

I might alter the timeline of the War in Russia a bit (most probably by breaking it into two separate wars, one in the 1990s-2000s and another in the 2010s-modern day) but you have the basic gist correct. In the first war, the KGB sews chaos in Russia by arming and provoking both Russian communists and ethnic separatists into rising up against Moscow and invades across the Kazakh border once it deems Russia unstable enough to reconquer. 

[James G]

Expansionist China

Communist China was never an expansive nation in terms of gobbling up territory beyond the historic borders of China. Capitalist China would be though. Following the Great National Revolution of 2022, communism came to a sudden end. Soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) liberated their nation from oppression. Rising to the top on the back of all that work done by soldiers were a new class of oppressors though. The revolution was betrayed, as they generally are, but men more ruthless than those before them. At the top, President Cheng set about expanding China two years after the fall of the communists.

Across in Taiwan, which the capitalists like the communists before them regarded as rebellious province needing to be brought back into line, severe public disturbances rocked that little island nation in late 2024. Street protesters came out against a corrupt government and were met with force by the authorities. No one in Taiwan wanted help from China but China send help regardless. The PLA (the name had been kept) went across the Straits and into Taiwan. Taiwanese unity in the face of an invasion came too little, too late. Chinese military might overawed what was once the Republic of China and ‘liberated’ the people there from oppression. This conflict came about in the midst of a presidential election in the United States. The incumbent president sat on her hands and watched as Taiwan was conquered. Fears of war with Cheng were too much for her election chances, she gambled. She was wrong. Her opponent beat her at the polls with the vote-winning rhetoric that she allowed the loss of Taiwan to happen. However, once in office the following year, the new American President did nothing to reverse the successful integration of Taiwan back into China. Cheng got away with it.

In 2025, that new leader in Washington did nothing when Beijing focused its military might against the Japanese. A long-standing dispute over some small, seemingly-unimportant islands turned into an armed clash. China and Japan blamed each other for the outbreak of fighting over the Senkaku Islands. Japan took a beating, a war-ending one at sea and in the air, while the United States did nothing. China took those islands and integrated them into the ever-enlarging China and the result was a wholescale realignment of US-Japan ties. Rightly feeling betrayed, Tokyo cut all military connections with America. Defence spending rocketed and constitutional changes were made to allow for Japan to defend itself if Cheng went after more territory belonging to Japan. He had no intention of doing so though. His eyes had already turned the other way and down into the South China Sea.

Chinese activity here before Cheng had long worried the West. This was the region which made defence analysts and politicians concerned as they were when they claimed that Communist China was expansive when it really wasn’t. Now, under new leadership, China showed just how much it wanted to fully dominate this region. There were island atolls here but also rich deposits of minerals & hydrocarbons below the water. Cheng wanted them and had the PLA, the PLAAF & PLAN (People’s Liberation Army Air Force & Army Navy respectively) take each and every one of the Spratly Islands. Taiwanese ones were seized in 2024 when that country fell and now, two years later, those belonging to further countries were taken. Brunei and Malaysia didn’t fight for what they had long claimed were theirs: the Philippines and Vietnam did. The Chinese beat both with ease. Manila appealed to Washington for aid but received none. There would be a change in leadership in the Philippines afterwards, one which would see a government friendly to China and willing to forget what happened. Vietnam wasn’t about to bend over. They carried on the fight and attempted a counterattack to seize the disputed, and Chinese-held, Paracel Islands. Cheng rose to the challenge and Chinese military forces defeated this effort. He also instigated the conflict on the Sino-Viet border too… while blaming Hanoi. In May 2026, Chinese tanks crossed the border to liberate Vietnam.

The world was outraged. There was nothing done in military terms though. Cheng’s war with Vietnam saw him send paratroopers and marines in as well. Vietnam didn’t stand a chance against the frontal attack on the border and could do nothing to stop China hitting their long coastal flank. Laos was in the Chinese sphere of influence too and from across their border with Vietnam came further Chinese forces which were striking from three sides. The Vietnamese fought on. They had a few successes but the Chinese war machine was at full stretch. The technological might of China in military matters ripped them apart. Hanoi fell with Hue and Haiphong already in Chinese hands before the Vietnamese lost their capital. The government fled and a new one, sponsored by China, took their place. The war ended. Chinese forces were given military basing rights in the peace deal and there were also ‘border corrections’ along the frontier to favour Cheng.

Throughout 2027, Chinese military bases continued to pop up overseas. Manila was browbeaten into giving one to China and the Vietnamese ones got bigger. The United States took notice but its president had no desire to fight a war with Cheng: Cheng didn’t want a conflict with the US either. They stared each other down while China focused elsewhere. Military bases in Burma and Sri Lanka caused tensions with India and so did the PLAN making extended deployments in the Indian Ocean. A Sino-Indo was didn’t occur that year though. Instead, fighting erupted once more in South East Asia. Thailand sought to curtail growing Chinese influence in Cambodia as Bangkok worried about encirclement. Things went wrong and an armed clash occurred. Before the Thais could slow things down as their king wished, Cheng unleashed war against Thailand. Out of Burma and Laos, plus over the Chinese border, the PLA came. Up through the Gulf of Thailand the PLAN attacked as well. Landings by Chinese marines at selected points in the Kra Isthmus cut off the extreme south of Thailand where the Thais had many troops fighting insurgents. Hit by long-range missiles, drone strikes and commando attacks, Bangkok gave in after three days. Chinese peace terms were harsh but were granted in the end. The Thai King, like other regional leaders before him, had gone begging to Washington for help but found none forthcoming.

Another election year came around in America in 2028. Chinese expansion was a hot-button issue in US politics with those who wanted to stop it opposed by those who saw what was happening in the region as none of America’s business unless ‘key interests’ were attacked. Cheng worried about seeing the wrong candidate win but he needed not too. The incumbent held off a strong challenge and, unless something outrageous happened, there would be no war with America. Such a conflict wasn’t wanted by Cheng though he did believe that it would be won if it happened. China was immensely strong and would fight such a war on ‘home turf’. South East Asia was growing more and more under Chinese control. Military agreements were made with Indonesia to allow for basing rights for both the PLAAF and the PLAN. The Australians were furious but without American support, could do nothing to stop these opening that year.

War broke out the next year. In March 2029, Chinese-influenced disputes between Malaysia and the Philippines – based on long-standing maritime border issues though – erupted. Cheng forced a fight between the two and at once stepped in to aid his ally in Manila. Brunei joined with Malaysia because it had no choice but their involvement in the conflict was a footnote in history. What mattered was the entry into the fight of Singapore. They fought to help defend Malaysia. This made strategic sense from their point of view. Alas, Singapore couldn’t stop what happened. Chinese & Filipino troops landed in Sabah while coming down from the Kra Isthmus were more of the PLA. Georgetown and then Kuala Lumpur fell in the Malay Peninsula. Singapore had troops fighting to try to save the irreversible situation there on the mainland and not enough men at home on their island nation. Chinese paratroopers landed, soon supported by marines after the PLAN broke the last maritime defences of Singapore. Malaysia dropped out of the war with a last-minute peace deal to retain some sovereignty: Brunei and Singapore didn’t get the opportunity to do so and came under the control of puppet rulers whom Cheng personally selected.

Singapore was one of those Key Interests which the United States had long been suspected to go to war with China if it was threatened, let alone swallowed up by Cheng. Brunei, Malaysia & Singapore were Commonwealth countries whom Britain had decades-old defence obligations to. Australian politicians, including their current Prime Minister, had said many times that those countries would be defended against Chinese aggression. These Western powers did nothing though. Cheng had a stranglehold on the whole region and the Chinese had grown ever-so strong with their immense, and battle-hardened, war machine. So many promises to now defeated allies meant nothing when it came down to it. Cheng had South East Asia fully in his pocket.

Where would his expansionist eyes turn to next?

[stevep]

Nov 26, 2020 19:48:24 GMT James G said:

Expansionist China

Communist China was never an expansive nation in terms of gobbling up territory beyond the historic borders of China. Capitalist China would be though. Following the Great National Revolution of 2022, communism came to a sudden end. Soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) liberated their nation from oppression. Rising to the top on the back of all that work done by soldiers were a new class of oppressors though. The revolution was betrayed, as they generally are, but men more ruthless than those before them. At the top, President Cheng set about expanding China two years after the fall of the communists.

Across in Taiwan, which the capitalists like the communists before them regarded as rebellious province needing to be brought back into line, severe public disturbances rocked that little island nation in late 2024. Street protesters came out against a corrupt government and were met with force by the authorities. No one in Taiwan wanted help from China but China send help regardless. The PLA (the name had been kept) went across the Straits and into Taiwan. Taiwanese unity in the face of an invasion came too little, too late. Chinese military might overawed what was once the Republic of China and ‘liberated’ the people there from oppression. This conflict came about in the midst of a presidential election in the United States. The incumbent president sat on her hands and watched as Taiwan was conquered. Fears of war with Cheng were too much for her election chances, she gambled. She was wrong. Her opponent beat her at the polls with the vote-winning rhetoric that she allowed the loss of Taiwan to happen. However, once in office the following year, the new American President did nothing to reverse the successful integration of Taiwan back into China. Cheng got away with it.

In 2025, that new leader in Washington did nothing when Beijing focused its military might against the Japanese. A long-standing dispute over some small, seemingly-unimportant islands turned into an armed clash. China and Japan blamed each other for the outbreak of fighting over the Senkaku Islands. Japan took a beating, a war-ending one at sea and in the air, while the United States did nothing. China took those islands and integrated them into the ever-enlarging China and the result was a wholescale realignment of US-Japan ties. Rightly feeling betrayed, Tokyo cut all military connections with America. Defence spending rocketed and constitutional changes were made to allow for Japan to defend itself if Cheng went after more territory belonging to Japan. He had no intention of doing so though. His eyes had already turned the other way and down into the South China Sea.

Chinese activity here before Cheng had long worried the West. This was the region which made defence analysts and politicians concerned as they were when they claimed that Communist China was expansive when it really wasn’t. Now, under new leadership, China showed just how much it wanted to fully dominate this region. There were island atolls here but also rich deposits of minerals & hydrocarbons below the water. Cheng wanted them and had the PLA, the PLAAF & PLAN (People’s Liberation Army Air Force & Army Navy respectively) take each and every one of the Spratly Islands. Taiwanese ones were seized in 2024 when that country fell and now, two years later, those belonging to further countries were taken. Brunei and Malaysia didn’t fight for what they had long claimed were theirs: the Philippines and Vietnam did. The Chinese beat both with ease. Manila appealed to Washington for aid but received none. There would be a change in leadership in the Philippines afterwards, one which would see a government friendly to China and willing to forget what happened. Vietnam wasn’t about to bend over. They carried on the fight and attempted a counterattack to seize the disputed, and Chinese-held, Paracel Islands. Cheng rose to the challenge and Chinese military forces defeated this effort. He also instigated the conflict on the Sino-Viet border too… while blaming Hanoi. In May 2026, Chinese tanks crossed the border to liberate Vietnam.

The world was outraged. There was nothing done in military terms though. Cheng’s war with Vietnam saw him send paratroopers and marines in as well. Vietnam didn’t stand a chance against the frontal attack on the border and could do nothing to stop China hitting their long coastal flank. Laos was in the Chinese sphere of influence too and from across their border with Vietnam came further Chinese forces which were striking from three sides. The Vietnamese fought on. They had a few successes but the Chinese war machine was at full stretch. The technological might of China in military matters ripped them apart. Hanoi fell with Hue and Haiphong already in Chinese hands before the Vietnamese lost their capital. The government fled and a new one, sponsored by China, took their place. The war ended. Chinese forces were given military basing rights in the peace deal and there were also ‘border corrections’ along the frontier to favour Cheng.

Throughout 2027, Chinese military bases continued to pop up overseas. Manila was browbeaten into giving one to China and the Vietnamese ones got bigger. The United States took notice but its president had no desire to fight a war with Cheng: Cheng didn’t want a conflict with the US either. They stared each other down while China focused elsewhere. Military bases in Burma and Sri Lanka caused tensions with India and so did the PLAN making extended deployments in the Indian Ocean. A Sino-Indo was didn’t occur that year though. Instead, fighting erupted once more in South East Asia. Thailand sought to curtail growing Chinese influence in Cambodia as Bangkok worried about encirclement. Things went wrong and an armed clash occurred. Before the Thais could slow things down as their king wished, Cheng unleashed war against Thailand. Out of Burma and Laos, plus over the Chinese border, the PLA came. Up through the Gulf of Thailand the PLAN attacked as well. Landings by Chinese marines at selected points in the Kra Isthmus cut off the extreme south of Thailand where the Thais had many troops fighting insurgents. Hit by long-range missiles, drone strikes and commando attacks, Bangkok gave in after three days. Chinese peace terms were harsh but were granted in the end. The Thai King, like other regional leaders before him, had gone begging to Washington for help but found none forthcoming.

Another election year came around in America in 2028. Chinese expansion was a hot-button issue in US politics with those who wanted to stop it opposed by those who saw what was happening in the region as none of America’s business unless ‘key interests’ were attacked. Cheng worried about seeing the wrong candidate win but he needed not too. The incumbent held off a strong challenge and, unless something outrageous happened, there would be no war with America. Such a conflict wasn’t wanted by Cheng though he did believe that it would be won if it happened. China was immensely strong and would fight such a war on ‘home turf’. South East Asia was growing more and more under Chinese control. Military agreements were made with Indonesia to allow for basing rights for both the PLAAF and the PLAN. The Australians were furious but without American support, could do nothing to stop these opening that year.

War broke out the next year. In March 2029, Chinese-influenced disputes between Malaysia and the Philippines – based on long-standing maritime border issues though – erupted. Cheng forced a fight between the two and at once stepped in to aid his ally in Manila. Brunei joined with Malaysia because it had no choice but their involvement in the conflict was a footnote in history. What mattered was the entry into the fight of Singapore. They fought to help defend Malaysia. This made strategic sense from their point of view. Alas, Singapore couldn’t stop what happened. Chinese & Filipino troops landed in Sabah while coming down from the Kra Isthmus were more of the PLA. Georgetown and then Kuala Lumpur fell in the Malay Peninsula. Singapore had troops fighting to try to save the irreversible situation there on the mainland and not enough men at home on their island nation. Chinese paratroopers landed, soon supported by marines after the PLAN broke the last maritime defences of Singapore. Malaysia dropped out of the war with a last-minute peace deal to retain some sovereignty: Brunei and Singapore didn’t get the opportunity to do so and came under the control of puppet rulers whom Cheng personally selected.

Singapore was one of those Key Interests which the United States had long been suspected to go to war with China if it was threatened, let alone swallowed up by Cheng. Brunei, Malaysia & Singapore were Commonwealth countries whom Britain had decades-old defence obligations to. Australian politicians, including their current Prime Minister, had said many times that those countries would be defended against Chinese aggression. These Western powers did nothing though. Cheng had a stranglehold on the whole region and the Chinese had grown ever-so strong with their immense, and battle-hardened, war machine. So many promises to now defeated allies meant nothing when it came down to it. Cheng had South East Asia fully in his pocket.

Where would his expansionist eyes turn to next?

  I wouldn't say communist China wasn't expansionist as it has shown a lot of activity in recent years especially as well as under Mao.  Also can't see the current regime falling that quickly with the personality cult Xi is developing.  However this is imperialism on hyper-drive and am surprised that the US especially has given up so much influence and economic positions.

  Steve

[James G]

Nov 27, 2020 12:44:15 GMT stevep said:

Nov 26, 2020 19:48:24 GMT James G said:

Expansionist China

Communist China was never an expansive nation in terms of gobbling up territory beyond the historic borders of China. Capitalist China would be though. Following the Great National Revolution of 2022, communism came to a sudden end. Soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) liberated their nation from oppression. Rising to the top on the back of all that work done by soldiers were a new class of oppressors though. The revolution was betrayed, as they generally are, but men more ruthless than those before them. At the top, President Cheng set about expanding China two years after the fall of the communists.

Across in Taiwan, which the capitalists like the communists before them regarded as rebellious province needing to be brought back into line, severe public disturbances rocked that little island nation in late 2024. Street protesters came out against a corrupt government and were met with force by the authorities. No one in Taiwan wanted help from China but China send help regardless. The PLA (the name had been kept) went across the Straits and into Taiwan. Taiwanese unity in the face of an invasion came too little, too late. Chinese military might overawed what was once the Republic of China and ‘liberated’ the people there from oppression. This conflict came about in the midst of a presidential election in the United States. The incumbent president sat on her hands and watched as Taiwan was conquered. Fears of war with Cheng were too much for her election chances, she gambled. She was wrong. Her opponent beat her at the polls with the vote-winning rhetoric that she allowed the loss of Taiwan to happen. However, once in office the following year, the new American President did nothing to reverse the successful integration of Taiwan back into China. Cheng got away with it.

In 2025, that new leader in Washington did nothing when Beijing focused its military might against the Japanese. A long-standing dispute over some small, seemingly-unimportant islands turned into an armed clash. China and Japan blamed each other for the outbreak of fighting over the Senkaku Islands. Japan took a beating, a war-ending one at sea and in the air, while the United States did nothing. China took those islands and integrated them into the ever-enlarging China and the result was a wholescale realignment of US-Japan ties. Rightly feeling betrayed, Tokyo cut all military connections with America. Defence spending rocketed and constitutional changes were made to allow for Japan to defend itself if Cheng went after more territory belonging to Japan. He had no intention of doing so though. His eyes had already turned the other way and down into the South China Sea.

Chinese activity here before Cheng had long worried the West. This was the region which made defence analysts and politicians concerned as they were when they claimed that Communist China was expansive when it really wasn’t. Now, under new leadership, China showed just how much it wanted to fully dominate this region. There were island atolls here but also rich deposits of minerals & hydrocarbons below the water. Cheng wanted them and had the PLA, the PLAAF & PLAN (People’s Liberation Army Air Force & Army Navy respectively) take each and every one of the Spratly Islands. Taiwanese ones were seized in 2024 when that country fell and now, two years later, those belonging to further countries were taken. Brunei and Malaysia didn’t fight for what they had long claimed were theirs: the Philippines and Vietnam did. The Chinese beat both with ease. Manila appealed to Washington for aid but received none. There would be a change in leadership in the Philippines afterwards, one which would see a government friendly to China and willing to forget what happened. Vietnam wasn’t about to bend over. They carried on the fight and attempted a counterattack to seize the disputed, and Chinese-held, Paracel Islands. Cheng rose to the challenge and Chinese military forces defeated this effort. He also instigated the conflict on the Sino-Viet border too… while blaming Hanoi. In May 2026, Chinese tanks crossed the border to liberate Vietnam.

The world was outraged. There was nothing done in military terms though. Cheng’s war with Vietnam saw him send paratroopers and marines in as well. Vietnam didn’t stand a chance against the frontal attack on the border and could do nothing to stop China hitting their long coastal flank. Laos was in the Chinese sphere of influence too and from across their border with Vietnam came further Chinese forces which were striking from three sides. The Vietnamese fought on. They had a few successes but the Chinese war machine was at full stretch. The technological might of China in military matters ripped them apart. Hanoi fell with Hue and Haiphong already in Chinese hands before the Vietnamese lost their capital. The government fled and a new one, sponsored by China, took their place. The war ended. Chinese forces were given military basing rights in the peace deal and there were also ‘border corrections’ along the frontier to favour Cheng.

Throughout 2027, Chinese military bases continued to pop up overseas. Manila was browbeaten into giving one to China and the Vietnamese ones got bigger. The United States took notice but its president had no desire to fight a war with Cheng: Cheng didn’t want a conflict with the US either. They stared each other down while China focused elsewhere. Military bases in Burma and Sri Lanka caused tensions with India and so did the PLAN making extended deployments in the Indian Ocean. A Sino-Indo was didn’t occur that year though. Instead, fighting erupted once more in South East Asia. Thailand sought to curtail growing Chinese influence in Cambodia as Bangkok worried about encirclement. Things went wrong and an armed clash occurred. Before the Thais could slow things down as their king wished, Cheng unleashed war against Thailand. Out of Burma and Laos, plus over the Chinese border, the PLA came. Up through the Gulf of Thailand the PLAN attacked as well. Landings by Chinese marines at selected points in the Kra Isthmus cut off the extreme south of Thailand where the Thais had many troops fighting insurgents. Hit by long-range missiles, drone strikes and commando attacks, Bangkok gave in after three days. Chinese peace terms were harsh but were granted in the end. The Thai King, like other regional leaders before him, had gone begging to Washington for help but found none forthcoming.

Another election year came around in America in 2028. Chinese expansion was a hot-button issue in US politics with those who wanted to stop it opposed by those who saw what was happening in the region as none of America’s business unless ‘key interests’ were attacked. Cheng worried about seeing the wrong candidate win but he needed not too. The incumbent held off a strong challenge and, unless something outrageous happened, there would be no war with America. Such a conflict wasn’t wanted by Cheng though he did believe that it would be won if it happened. China was immensely strong and would fight such a war on ‘home turf’. South East Asia was growing more and more under Chinese control. Military agreements were made with Indonesia to allow for basing rights for both the PLAAF and the PLAN. The Australians were furious but without American support, could do nothing to stop these opening that year.

War broke out the next year. In March 2029, Chinese-influenced disputes between Malaysia and the Philippines – based on long-standing maritime border issues though – erupted. Cheng forced a fight between the two and at once stepped in to aid his ally in Manila. Brunei joined with Malaysia because it had no choice but their involvement in the conflict was a footnote in history. What mattered was the entry into the fight of Singapore. They fought to help defend Malaysia. This made strategic sense from their point of view. Alas, Singapore couldn’t stop what happened. Chinese & Filipino troops landed in Sabah while coming down from the Kra Isthmus were more of the PLA. Georgetown and then Kuala Lumpur fell in the Malay Peninsula. Singapore had troops fighting to try to save the irreversible situation there on the mainland and not enough men at home on their island nation. Chinese paratroopers landed, soon supported by marines after the PLAN broke the last maritime defences of Singapore. Malaysia dropped out of the war with a last-minute peace deal to retain some sovereignty: Brunei and Singapore didn’t get the opportunity to do so and came under the control of puppet rulers whom Cheng personally selected.

Singapore was one of those Key Interests which the United States had long been suspected to go to war with China if it was threatened, let alone swallowed up by Cheng. Brunei, Malaysia & Singapore were Commonwealth countries whom Britain had decades-old defence obligations to. Australian politicians, including their current Prime Minister, had said many times that those countries would be defended against Chinese aggression. These Western powers did nothing though. Cheng had a stranglehold on the whole region and the Chinese had grown ever-so strong with their immense, and battle-hardened, war machine. So many promises to now defeated allies meant nothing when it came down to it. Cheng had South East Asia fully in his pocket.

Where would his expansionist eyes turn to next?

  I wouldn't say communist China wasn't expansionist as it has shown a lot of activity in recent years especially as well as under Mao.  Also can't see the current regime falling that quickly with the personality cult Xi is developing.  However this is imperialism on hyper-drive and am surprised that the US especially has given up so much influence and economic positions.

  Steve

Sorry, I disagree. I don't think China is really expansionist as oft is portrayed.
As to the rest, unlikely yes, but its fiction and we never know what the future might hold either.

[James G]

The Wolf

She saw the Wolf.

She ran.

Behind her she left her Beloved. There was no hope for him, she knew. He was gone, soon to be surely devoured by the Wolf. Everything they had long had together, the good times and the bad, were all gone now. Killed by the Wolf was he, but she would live.

Through the trees she ran, going the fastest way to the edge of the forest. There was moonlight shining through the trees and it was enough to allow her to navigate a path. There was no noise, no sound no more from the Wolf, and that of nothing else too. She only needed light to guide her. There was safety outside of the forest and she was close.

Mud splashed up on her. Leaves brushed past her face. A twig scratched her arm. All the things which would have caused her to pause, and share a laugh with her Beloved, mattered for naught now. There was no time to stop and think about such trivial matters when her life depended on getting away.

Before as a child and now as a woman, she had always been able to run well. She’d raced the boys and had done so with him when he was a man. Her footing was good because she was a country girl. As long as she could see where she was going, she believed she would escape with her life from the forest and the killer which lay within.

A bush was dodged as she broke left. Ducking her head down as she sprinted, a low-hanging branch was passed under. There was a puddle of muddy water off which the moonlight reflected. She went through it with the knowledge that deep it wasn’t. Across mud she ran and closer to the forest edge. It was only just a bit further, just up ahead was safety.

A howl came.

She stopped and turned. Terror overcame her.

The Wolf leapt on his prize. Only a few more feet, a couple of seconds more, and she would have made it. But he got her, just where and when he wanted to. The Wolf took the life from her in an instant. His fangs went for where there was weakness, where the blood ran fast. He swallowed the warm blood before lifting her up. He took his second prize back to join the first.

What a meal he would have tonight!


The party of men came into the forest at first light. There were dozens of them. The Wolf smelt them long before he heard them. He rose from his resting place and listened. His own belly grumbled, disturbing his hearing for a moment, but the sound of men were unmistakable. They were marching in a line, calling out to each other.

They were coming for him.

Lazily, he crawled out of his hide. He stretched his tired limbs then raised himself up to his full hight. It was daylight and not the time to do what he normally did when the Sun was out. Yet, regardless, he let out a howl. Across the forest, and beyond, the Wolf was heard. The men coming for him froze. Weapons they had in their hands and a burning desire for revenge in their hearts, but the sound which the Wolf made gave them a pause.

One man spoke. His voice silenced all the others. The Wolf’s ears located where he was. His nose zeroed in upon that man’s scent. That was their leader, the one with the stoutest heart. The Wolf would feast upon that man’s heart and deliver his head to the edge of the dwelling place of humans beyond the forest. Those who lay their heads there, who raised their children and felt safe there, would feel terror.

In a flash, the Wolf went running. He sprung away from where he was, moving through the undergrowth. He was where he wanted to be soon enough, in a hiding place like no other. Hidden from observation, the Wolf was concealed in plain sight. In daylight and in the hours of darkness, he knew that this was somewhere where he would never been seen.

He waited.

The hunters came closer. The leader approached out ahead with others following. The long line of men had shortened. They had bunched up behind the one ahead. The Wolf waited until they came into view. He spied them with his narrow eyes, taking note of all that they carried. They had weapons to kill him and to make a feast of him like he did their folk. A smile reached his lips.

Still and silent the Wolf was. He was near invisible. The men came up close to where he was and then past him. Their leader was in leaping distance though there were men between the Wolf and his target. He feared none of them but he didn’t move. This was sport, as it always was, and his prize was whom he wanted to tackle alone. Further they went away from his hiding spot. He used his eyes, ears and nose against them.

When ready, he emerged. Nose first followed by the rest of his head. The Wolf’s body came out afterwards He was huge: bigger than two of the largest men among the party who had come into his forest. They knew not what exactly they hunted, he knew, and would soon regret their choice of coming in here.

Silently, he moved forward. Towards their leader he went, the one still leading the way. Ahead or to the side all eyes were. None of the men looked backwards, none of them would have seen the Wolf had they done so. He was too good for them. This was his forest for hunting food. Today his meal was looking for him yet they were foolish to think he was theirs for the taking.

Once more the Wolf smiled.

Once more the Wolf closed in upon his meal.

[forcon]

Nice work there. I can visualise a forest in the dark with the moon shining through the naked trees on a cold November night!

Reminds me of the film, Howl.

[James G]

Nov 30, 2020 21:46:16 GMT forcon said:

Nice work there. I can visualise a forest in the dark with the moon shining through the naked trees on a cold November night!

Reminds me of the film, Howl.

Thanks. I've had some further ideas overnight and considering redoing it, longer in length.

[forcon]

We do not go into the woods.

Some people say that on midsummer nights, beneath the ethereal starlight, you can still hear them giggling mellifluously, incarnating the adolescence that was stolen from them by what can only be described as evil itself, an entity as opposed to the hideous cravings of a single man. I have never myself found any comfort in the idea that the purloin souls of so many are wandering through oblivion, still filled with innocent reveries of ice cream and swing sets, tranquil and unfazed by the touch of evil. The notion is saccharine, of course; but it is merely an sublime delusion that teachers and parents in our diminutive town tell to the children in their charge when they unavoidably ask why they are not allowed to stray beyond the boundaries marked by the rustic barriers that now barricade the treeline, shielding them from the beckoning grasp of the forests’ outstretched branches.

In the thick fog of a forbidding autumn, red and brown leaves ornamenting the sidewalks, a far more macabre anecdote also drifts across our town. They say that in the spring, flowers do not grow in the woods anymore. They say the birds do not chirp as they flutter betwixt the treetops. They say that you can hear the tortured screams. That the souls of so many are clasped in the vice of an eternal despair, forced to relive the sorrowful concluding moments of their lives as the oxygen was not only stolen from their lungs but as their hopes and dreams seeped from their wounds into the cold, muddy ground. They say that the victims are condemned to an eternity of terror and solitude, unable to go forwards into paradise. That, too, is thankfully nothing but a fiction. When the children of our town grow into rambunctious teenagers, they are told that a fate so much worse than the omnipotent demise that awaits all those cursed to live, is out there in the labyrinthine gloom of the woods, calling to the naïve and the insubordinate.

We tell these stories for two reasons. On the surface, we assert that it is to keep the woods bereft of trespassers, to preserve the final resting place of evil’s victims. This claim is based in truth. Regardless of creed or outlook, we all believe that this is a place that should remain undisturbed, where respect should be granted to the dead so that they might at least rest in a façade of peaceful silence. We do this to preserve their last vestiges of dignity. The darker truth, however, is that nobody in our little town, once bucolic and wholesome, wishes to confront the solemn reality of what happened here. What we allowed to happen. Not one of us wishes to step forwards and take ownership of the fact that this tragedy occurred beneath our oblivious noses, or for the fact that evil walked among us for so long without ever being exposed.

I, for one, am guilty of that same obliviousness, for granting my silent, obedient consent to the atrocity. In my youth, long before what happened in the forest came to light, my friends and I would sit on the riparian of the lake beside the woods, setting fires at dusk. Our summer nights were spent passing elixirs of vodka and Pabst Blue Ribbon and singing along to the sounds of Nirvana. In the darkest of nights, I sometimes wonder how many of the victims heard our laughter and our music in the distance, how many of them screamed out for our help. Did I myself ever hear them scream, and dismiss the occurrence as a hoax or as the bellow of a wild animal? Conceivably my own subconscious denies me an answer to that most solemn of questions in order to spare me the horror of an answer that would confirm my dreadful suspicions. The picnic tables are now desuetude and the water murky and uninviting.

John Starling was one of us. He had been born here, lived here, had worked as a children’s performer, donning a large red nose and a chequerboard of makeup on his stubble-flecked face as the people of our town entrusted him with their offspring. His work had taken him not only out of state, but all across the country. Beneath the portico of pleasantness, malevolence lurked. I do not believe that John Starling was a man corrupted by evil. I believe that he was evil, incarnate in human form. He was Pandora’s Box, containing all the vile desires of Moloch and Belial and Paimon and of Lucifer himself, waiting to be unlocked. When he took his first life at the ripe at of 23, the padlock was torn asunder and hell itself was unleashed on so many. Starling’s name is near unmentionable in our town. At the mere muttering of Starling’s name, townsfolk’s eyes will flicker towards the ground, to avoid a burning gaze that could cast a shred of the guilt down unto them, guilt that stems not from their complicity but from their ignorance. How, outsiders ask, could we all have been so oblivious? So many ambitions and expectations snuffed out, so many children slain in such horrible, agonising ways – how did we let it happen? Are they now all responsible, the outsiders ask?

When the FBI agent investigating the vanishing of a young girl from the city passed through our town, we tried to help him. Our ignorance was not feigned to mask our own complicity, but genuine, for even as the life of Sabrina McBride was extinguished in a maelstrom of Starling’s hatred and lust, we were unaware. When they finally closed in on Starling, his downfall came not with a fight but with an anticlimactic surrender. An FBI agent searching Starling’s woodland cabin wondered away from the primary locale of the examination, and stumbled upon a hillock of dirt protruding from the forest floor. Looking around him, the agent had suddenly found himself encircled by dozens upon dozens of shallow graves, rotting in the mud as winter closed in. When all was said and done, they had found 217 such graves. Girls as young as five and as old as twelve – Starling had a type, it appeared – all slain at the will of this individual. All the efforts of the FBI, the State Police and our disgraced sheriff’s department, could not identify more than a half of the corpses. We started naming them ourselves. Emily, #164. Bella, #165. Katie, #166. That small comfort was all we could grant them. For many, it was too much to bare. Our town has the highest rate of alcohol abuse amongst people over thirty in the entire Midwest. In the year after the FBI’s grisly discovery, there had been twenty-two suicides in a population of just twelve hundred.

People like to say that John Starling cried like a baby when they came to plunge the needle into his veins, but the truth is less satisfying. He simply lay back with a smirk and waited for the end, unafraid of what was to come. If there is a hell, John Starling is deep below it's darkest, most horrifying circle. Justice was served swiftly, and the world soon forgot about the horror that was discovered in our little town. But we did not forget. Even when we pass our neighbours in the streets, we look at them as if to ask “did you know?” “Why didn’t you save them?” We will not let ourselves move on from what happened in the woods. That is our way of honouring the lives extinguished beneath our very noses. It is because of our unanimous devotion to honouring their names that we care ourselves condemned to our interminable shame.

We do not go into the woods.

[forcon]

Skyking, Skyking, do not answer

FLASH/FLASH/FLASH
From: Commander, Second Fleet
To: Commander, Carrier Strike Group Twelve
Message Follows
Set DEFCON 2. This message is to be considered a War Warning. Situation in Baltic Region continues to deteriorate. Hostilities considered HIGHLY LIKELY in in light of Russian President’s threat.
Russian Northern Fleet forces sortieing en masse from Kola Peninsula facilities. Continue on present course at flank speed & link up with CSG 8 approx. 240 nautical miles northeast of Faroe Islands.
Good luck & Godspeed.
Message Ends.

FLASH/FLASH/FLASH
From: SACEUR
To: National Command Authority
Message Follows
Russian Federation attacks Allied Command Operations. Air/Missile/SOF/Artillery attacks underway. Ground forces currently crossing Estonian, Latvian & Lithuanian borders. Scale of attack not yet clear. MFL.
Message Ends.

FLASH/FLASH/FLASH
From: Commander, Second Fleet
To: Commander, Carrier Strike Group Twelve
Message Follows
Set DEFCON 1. Hostilities between NATO and Russian Federation now in progress. Commence unrestricted air & naval warfare against Russian Federation forces. ROE OPTION BRAVO. OPLAN REVENANT WINTER repeat OPLAN REVENANT WINTER.
Good hunting.
Message Ends.

From: Chief of Staff, Estonian Defence Forces
To: All relevant commands
Message Follows
Estonia is under armed attack by forces of the Russian Federation. Heavy air attacks are underway. Ground forces have crossed the border. Wartime emergency powers are now in effect. Looters & fifth columnists are to be shot on sight. You have full authority to move your troops against the enemy as you see fit if communications with higher authority is lost. Continue to resist the enemy as long as you have any reasonable means to do so. If the Republic should fall, continue to operate in a guerrilla capacity. Any orders to surrender or cease hostilities before the enemy are to be considered illegitimate and treasonous: do not comply.
Your homeland and your families are counting on you.
Message Ends.

FLASH OVERRIDE
From: SACEUR
To: National Command Authority
Message Follows
Nuclear detonation REPEAT nuclear detonation over 1ST BCT/1ST ARMORED DIVISION approx. 26 kilometres southwest of Riga. Yield as yet unknown. Casualties believed total. Requesting authorisation to initiate RED NOVEMBER.
Message Ends.

FLASH OVERRIDE
From: National Command Authority
To: CINC-STRAT
Message Follows
Set DEFCON 1. NCA has devolved nuclear launch authority to COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, STRATEGIC COMMAND in the event of BALLISTIC WINTER contingency.
Message Ends.

EMERGENCY ACTION MESSAGE
SKYKING SKYKING DO NOT ANSWER
SKYKING SKYKING DO NOT ANSWER
SKYKING SKYKING DO NOT ANSWER
SKYKING SKYKING DO NOT ANSWER
SKYKING SKYKING DO NOT ANSWER
Message Authentication Phrase: HATEFULNESS/HATEFULNESS
From: CINC-STRAT
To: All CINC-STRAT forces
Message follows
Execute OPLAN 8022-23-ALPHA.
Message Ends.

[stevep]

Dec 6, 2020 20:33:31 GMT forcon said:

Skyking, Skyking, do not answer

FLASH/FLASH/FLASH
From: Commander, Second Fleet
To: Commander, Carrier Strike Group Twelve
Message Follows
Set DEFCON 2. This message is to be considered a War Warning. Situation in Baltic Region continues to deteriorate. Hostilities considered HIGHLY LIKELY in in light of Russian President’s threat.
Russian Northern Fleet forces sortieing en masse from Kola Peninsula facilities. Continue on present course at flank speed & link up with CSG 8 approx. 240 nautical miles northeast of Faroe Islands.
Good luck & Godspeed.
Message Ends.

FLASH/FLASH/FLASH
From: SACEUR
To: National Command Authority
Message Follows
Russian Federation attacks Allied Command Operations. Air/Missile/SOF/Artillery attacks underway. Ground forces currently crossing Estonian, Latvian & Lithuanian borders. Scale of attack not yet clear. MFL.
Message Ends.

FLASH/FLASH/FLASH
From: Commander, Second Fleet
To: Commander, Carrier Strike Group Twelve
Message Follows
Set DEFCON 1. Hostilities between NATO and Russian Federation now in progress. Commence unrestricted air & naval warfare against Russian Federation forces. ROE OPTION BRAVO. OPLAN REVENANT WINTER repeat OPLAN REVENANT WINTER.
Good hunting.
Message Ends.

From: Chief of Staff, Estonian Defence Forces
To: All relevant commands
Message Follows
Estonia is under armed attack by forces of the Russian Federation. Heavy air attacks are underway. Ground forces have crossed the border. Wartime emergency powers are now in effect. Looters & fifth columnists are to be shot on sight. You have full authority to move your troops against the enemy as you see fit if communications with higher authority is lost. Continue to resist the enemy as long as you have any reasonable means to do so. If the Republic should fall, continue to operate in a guerrilla capacity. Any orders to surrender or cease hostilities before the enemy are to be considered illegitimate and treasonous: do not comply.
Your homeland and your families are counting on you.
Message Ends.

FLASH OVERRIDE
From: SACEUR
To: National Command Authority
Message Follows
Nuclear detonation REPEAT nuclear detonation over 1ST BCT/1ST ARMORED DIVISION approx. 26 kilometres southwest of Riga. Yield as yet unknown. Casualties believed total. Requesting authorisation to initiate RED NOVEMBER.
Message Ends.

FLASH OVERRIDE
From: National Command Authority
To: CINC-STRAT
Message Follows
Set DEFCON 1. NCA has devolved nuclear launch authority to COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, STRATEGIC COMMAND in the event of BALLISTIC WINTER contingency.
Message Ends.

EMERGENCY ACTION MESSAGE
SKYKING SKYKING DO NOT ANSWER
SKYKING SKYKING DO NOT ANSWER
SKYKING SKYKING DO NOT ANSWER
SKYKING SKYKING DO NOT ANSWER
SKYKING SKYKING DO NOT ANSWER
Message Authentication Phrase: HATEFULNESS/HATEFULNESS
From: CINC-STRAT
To: All CINC-STRAT forces
Message follows
Execute OPLAN 8022-23-ALPHA.
Message Ends.

  forcon,

  Short but very grim.  Not sure why a Russian President would be so stupid as to escalate to a nuclear exchange but then Putin hasn't exactly shown himself as being that bright.

  Steve

[James G]

The Lighthouse


In the Spring of the year 802 A.D., a longship sailed west across the Great Sea. It was laden with Norsemen on their way to seek plunder, and a fight too, in the recently-visited place called ‘England’. None of those aboard had been there beforehand, but they had heard the stories from others of great undefended wealth there. Navigation across the open water was difficult but was done. For many long days, and longer nights too, the ocean-going boat with a shallow bottom ready for beaching or sailing up rivers headed towards new territory to be raided. The Norsemen carried were almost to a man veterans of previous fights, yet ones closer to home and away to the east. There were forty-one of them. Forty-two had set out but that now missing man had been gravely ill and died last night. He’d been given a burial at sea despite the protestations of some of his comrades aboard. The leader’s word carried the day though: they needed the space and he would understand. The dead man could give no answer to that though.

A storm came from nowhere. The skies darkened and the waves intensified. Good sailors these Norsemen were yet this was something else. Their vessel was nearly lost fighting the wind and the waves. Each man was soon drenched head to toe. They sang. Their tune was a warrior’s song with praise directed towards their Gods, one of whom threw this storm towards them. In the mist of it, there was a blinding light. The eyes of each man were drawn to the light. Then there was darkness. And silence too.

Into the sea of time the longship and all who sailed in her went. For hundreds of years, more than a millennium, they were gone. Forgotten by everyone, this group of Norsemen raiders were.

Then, suddenly, there was light again.

Eyes opened. The men shook off their sleep. All had questions, all wanted to know what had happened. Their leader hid his fear and ordered them to row. There was no wind for the sail but he was determined to go on. He’d try to figure out what had happened later. With clear skies and only a watery horizon, he took a gamble. The caged crows were released. They’d slept too but now they raced away. They went west. Instinct took them towards land and so the Norsemen in their longship followed.

Soon, land was sighted.

England.


A white tower was seen first. Atop it was a shiny stone. What it was, the leader of the Norsemen didn’t know. However, towards it he sent his Norsemen when the wind picked up and the oars were pulled inside. With the keen eyes of his youngest son, here on his first raid, the longship was steered towards the rocky outcrop on which that tower sat. There was a sort-of bridge towards the shore connecting the rock, the teenage lad said, and then he called out what more he saw alongside the comments coming from others. There were strange houses, cut grassland, little flags, metal boxes moving about, flat stone paths and open beaches. People could be seen, just about anyway. This wasn’t the England which the leader expected but England was a strange place he’d been told, full of all sorts of wonders to be taken by force. He directed his boat crew towards that rock with the tower. They’re anchor there, carefully, and then get off the longship.

Plunder lay ahead.

Out of their boat the Norsemen went. Three men would stay behind to guard it while everyone else went ashore. Each man carried several weapons. Others had grappling hooks fitted to ropes with there was more rope too so as to secure bundles of plunder. Shields were carried and helmets worn. The leader was out front, his son at his side. Behind him came the file of Norsemen as they went onto the rock. The tower loomed above them. In there, the leader directed his son to take half a dozen of the men. He and the others waited outside. They spied the land ahead. There were people gathering. Some of the metal boxes were coming towards them across one of the flat stone paths. Two men, dressed strangely, were on the cut grass with the man-high flag posts dotting it. They had sticks in their hands and one waved his while shouting something.

Those who’d gone into the tower came back out. The leader’s son was first up to him. He couldn’t explain what the purpose of the tower was. It was made of stone and metal. Steps went up to the top but there was a locked hatch which neither he nor anyone else could break through despite all effort expended. His father told him they would come back here for whatever treasures were stored safely there on the way back. Was there anyone in there he asked. His son told him that there wasn’t. Everything remained strange. Regardless, the leader wasn’t about to stay still. There had to be far more treasures out ahead, there in that town which stretched all out ahead of him. He took the lead again, marching across what his son had said from the boat was a bridge. It wasn’t that but instead a stone causeway.

The Norsemen crossed it, towards the people up ahead. Plunder and a fight awaited them. Following their leader, and his rather confused son, they ran towards it.


On December 7th 2020, top trending on the social networking platform Twitter was #TheLighthouse.

Looking towards St. Mary’s Lighthouse in Whitley Bay, on Tyneside, was where the first mobile phone footage was filmed before being uploaded onto the internet. It was tagged with such a description where first one, then later several more members of the gathered crowd that Winter afternoon filmed what first at first seemed something harmless. A party of men landed on a boat at the tourist attraction which hadn’t been a working lighthouse for nearly three dozen years. They must have been making a movie, some sort of historical drama. Their boat, their dress and their realistic-looking weapons were all taken as some sort of live action scene for a film or web series.

Then came the first blood being spilt.

Others recording more scenes, giving them to media organisation as well as putting it on Twitter with #TheLighthouse tag, caught what happened afterwards with the murderous mob on the mini golf course, in the car park and then along the beach. The band of killers – maniacs they must be – moved onto neighbouring streets soon enough. They attacked dozens upon dozens of people: men, women and children. A pair of police officers in High-Viz jackets and facemasks too bravely tried to get in the way. They had their batons and their PAVA sprays (the latter a variant of pepper spray) and tried their best. A valiant stand was made before both were brutally slain. A few houses and a shop were broken into. The killers ran this way and that way, confused it seemed to those who would later watch #TheLighthouse images. Suddenly, there were blue lights and sirens. Twenty minutes had passed since the policemen were killed and in that time anti-terrorism police, on roving patrol in Newcastle as they were in other British cities, raced to Whitley Bay.

Shots rang out, warnings might have been shouted first but there was a lot of noise.

The maniacs ran. They headed back to their boat next to the lighthouse. There were other policemen, those with tasers who took down some more of them crazed killers. With an axe, one ran towards an armed policemen. He was shot once and kept on coming. A second shot, perfectly caught on camera and watched worldwide later on, put an and to him as his head seemed to explode in a bloody red mist.

Nine of them were seen making it back to their boat. They got underway fast, rowing away with shots slamming into their wooden vessel. Later #TheLighthouse images showed a helicopter in the sky going out to sea after them. All around the world, there were questions mirroring in many ways those silently asked by the Norsemen who had come ashore earlier on: what was this strangeness?

Meanwhile, the white base of St. Mary’s Lighthouse had a red streak at its base. The body of a young boy, a teenager who’d followed his father across the Great Sea, lay there. The policeman who’d shot him had tears in his eyes, only partially caused by the gaping sword wound on his arm. He’d shot this boy dead because he had no other choice. Killing a kid was what he’d never wanted to do. Dressed like a Viking, high on mind-altering drugs surely, it was that kid or him though.

The Lighthouse loomed above him and the arriving paramedics. What a backdrop for this tale in soon-to-be written history this tower was to be.

[forcon]

Great writing from start to finish: I did not expect the story to end the way it did when I started reading it.

[James G]

Dec 7, 2020 20:27:36 GMT forcon said:

Great writing from start to finish: I did not expect the story to end the way it did when I started reading it.

Thank you.
I had lots of fun with it and didn't know where I was going either.

[James G]

Security Zone


Once the Mexican Civil War began, everyone knew that the Americans would eventually intervene. There would be CIA paramilitaries, air strikes and boots on the ground. Denials that it would happen in the end, by seemingly everyone with a microphone in their face, didn’t matter: the truth was that there would be entry of American soldiers was apparent even to those who told such lies. It was fated. The United States wouldn’t sit by and allow Mexico to tear itself apart, not when everything that occurred south of the Rio Grande negatively affected the powerful neighbouring country to the north. The president’s press secretary was asked such a question about intervention in a White House press conference days after the fighting started. He was pressed into hypotheticals by a clever reporter and was unable to give a definitive ‘no’ on possible intervention. He quickly backpedalled, saying how unlikely the particular posed series of events was, and denied that it was ever likely to happen. Everyone knew he was lying though. He knew it too. It was just going to happen in time.

The fall of the Mexican president came about due to a series of articles in the New York Times. That newspaper exposed how Mexico’s leader had gotten himself elected on the back of drug cartel cash two years past. Much of the groundwork for the story came from a local journalist in Mexico City who was murdered before he could see the story run but the Times pressed on with their story. They had all sorts of proof about the mass of corruption including leaked documents from the CIA. Faced with the political fallout at home in light of such revelations, the president was forced to resign. His successor was unable to hold things together. There were street protests in Mexico City which aided in the fall of the corrupt president and the new president made an effort to end them. A violent incident occurred, one foreseen by no one. Things got pretty crazy pretty fast. Mexico City was engulfed in rioting which the security forces were unable to control. The new president fled his capital in fear of the mob using a helicopter. Someone shot that down with a shoulder-launched missile.


Viva La Revolución.

Socialists, anarchists, cartel bosses and military officers tried to seize power. They competed against each other for control of the levels of power as Mexico broke out in wide-ranging conflict. The institutions of state collapsed in panic. This shouldn’t have happened, not to a country like Mexico. It did though. The revolution was underway, one which was multi-faceted. The death toll spiralled. Mexico City then much more of the country was fought over. Everyone wanted power with no one willing to concede that they couldn’t have it. They destroyed their country in the process. Anarchy reigned here while over there was martial law. In another place a people power movement grew in strength while elsewhere criminal organisations took over so as to expand their wealth. Mexican soldiers and police deserted while people started fleeing abroad. The economy was destroyed and normal civil society brought to an end among the violence.

Mexico was gripped by full-scale civil war before anyone could make a move to stop this.


In Mexico, American citizens lived. There were others who had family there. Business interests in the United States had immense holdings to the south. The security situation with regard to cross-border restrictions on the movement of people and the fight against illegal drugs was a co-operative effort. The ties between Mexico and the United States were extensive. Neighbours, partners and allies – though not one of equals – the two countries were. Mexico was now being torn apart from within though.

The economic hit upon America came first. This was a big deal, one which no one could say didn’t mean anything. The manufacturing and import/export sectors were hit hard following the initial stock market meltdown on Wall Street. Fuel imports coming up from America were halted, leading to sudden price rises and shortages. In time, these could be recovered from yet the immediate impact was quite something especially politically. Next came the movement of people. Refugees entered the United States. There were no longer any border controls to the south. Desperate people fleeing war sought sanctuary in America. Cartel violence, already extreme due to the involvement of several groups in the civil war, spiked with a noticeable effect this time inside the United States. The cartels saw interruption in supply leading to domestic ramifications within the country of their prime customer.

Then there were Americans who went south, going in the opposite direction of seemingly endless lines of Mexicans fleeing north. Mercenaries, organised and not, sought to join the conflict raging for their own ends. They were joined by others from Central American nations, some of them impressed into service, entering Mexico too. Some of those mercenaries from the United States lost their lives while the effects down in countries such as Guatemala, Honduras & El Salvador threatened regional security.


Out of the limelight, American intervention in the Mexican Civil War began early on. Diplomatic activity and then clandestine intelligence operations requiring military support took place as the cataclysmic collapse of order in Mexico took place. Washington tried to back a general at the beginning before it became clear that the socialists had more support. Restoring the situation back to the status quo ante was the goal in the White House, even with that meaning supporting the taking of power by radical leftists. Drones and black ops using Special Forces troopers failed. Exposure came back home. Leaks and principled politicians – yes, they existed – taking a stand occurred. The president’s actions south of the Rio Grande were put into the public eye. Moreover, the failure was shown. If what the United States did had been successful, then the outrage would still have been quite something yet there was only failure in all of this once secret war being raged in the shadows. That made domestic opposition even stronger.

Air strikes started. American jets flew southwards to join Tomahawks in hitting Mexico. The nation’s capital was at that point held by the military with the United States supporting the socialists in trying to take Mexico City… well, this was certainly an interesting twist for American foreign policy in Latin America! The military regime had shown itself to be especially evil though and their activities had killed many Americans. Operation Freedom Rider was a disaster. On the public relations front as well as militarily there was only failure for this latest American effort to try to bring an end of the civil war which it had involved itself in. An about-turn was urged upon the White House where it was argued that Washington should move to back the military instead. It was said that only they could unite Mexico and end this. The president wasn’t about to do that. The humiliation was too much: his whole Mexico strategy would have to be binned if that was to happen.

The Del Rio Massacre then took place. Into that Texan border town came a barrage of rockets launched from over the other side of the Rio Grande. US-backed socialists were fighting with American air support to seize Ciudad Acuña from the military. Nineteen American lives, three of them being those of children, were taken and a portion of Del Rio engulfed in fire. The images from the Texan frontier town of dead Americans resulting from a cross-border attack were on the television & computer screens of everyone in the United States. The Mexican military denied doing this despite evidence pointing to their guilt and said it was a socialist dirty trick. Why would they be stupid enough to do that!? The denials weren’t believed. This came on the back of more cartel violence inside the United States with those activities being linked to a military-cartel alliance (something also denied by Mexico City) that the Americans were already fighting against.


Operation Mexican Solidarity commenced.

Into Mexico went the United States Armed Forces. They crossed over the Rio Grande from Texas as well as attacking across the deserts to the west too. Via land, air and sea came an army. It was boots on the ground from now on by the American president when everything else had failed. A security zone was what he sent troops into Mexico to achieve.

The intention of Operation Mexican Solidarity wasn’t to conquer Mexico. No march on Mexico City was being made either. Instead, there was to be a coast-to-coast occupation zone – deeper in some places than other – so that no more attacks could be made on American soil. Like all the previous plans, this one was supposed to be the decisive act to resolve an intolerable situation. Support came from the leader of the socialists in this and Washington had also managed to gain international support for this as well.

It was an invasion. That was how Mexicans of all stripes saw it. And so, like their forefathers, they began fighting against the invaders coming from the north. The boundaries of security zone were quickly secured but there was no security within. The Mexican civil war continued and now the United States was an active participant. From friends and foes alike came bullets, bombs and knives used against American soldiers serving in the security zone. The endless cycle of violence continued though now Mexico was more united than it had been beforehand: that unity was against the invader.

The quagmire of the security zone had no end in sight.

[James G]

(Brexit voted down and Trump defeated here)



Operation Acorn


In late-February 2017, newly-elected President Hillary Clinton authorises the bombing of Syria in defiance of Russian activity inside that country. Operation Righteous Justice is the official American name for their military campaign and is used extensively in media briefings. Britain, led by Prime Minister David Cameron, participates in the attacks against the Assad regime too though the designation used by the Ministry of Defence in London is ‘Operation Acorn’.

On the first night of the air campaign, RAF Tornado GR4s fly from the long-established UK Sovereign Base at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus to launch cruise missiles from distance. Storm Shadow missiles race away from the Tornados without the aircrews entering Syrian airspace. One missile has an in-flight failure (crashing harmlessly into the waters of the Med.) while two more are shot down over Syria. What hits them is later determined to be Russian-operated S-400 air defence SAMs… though a statement from Moscow will deny that their forces were involved. Other Storm Shadows smash into air defence targets and also Syrian airbases. From out in the Med., a Royal Navy submarine also lofts more cruise missiles, Tomahawks this time, at Syria yet none of those are engaged by enemy forces before hitting more targets across the war-torn country.

The next morning, while flying counter-air missions between Syria and Cyprus, a pair of RAF Typhoon FGR4s see action. A flight of Syrian aircraft are racing fast and low towards Akrotiri on an attack mission. Spotted by one of the American’s AWACS aircraft, they are identified as Sukhoi-24M strike bombers. Several years ago, when Syrian feared an American-led attack in 2013, Syrian aircraft flew mock strike missions towards Cyprus. Today they are doing it for real. The aircraft come close to entering the kill zone of a US Navy destroyer with its own missiles, with the Typhoons nearly waved off, but they avoid that with a course correction no doubt brought on by electronic signal warnings about that naval ship. The AWACS guides the Typhoons into a perfect position and then they are cleared for missile launch. Meteor air-to-air missiles strike each Su-24 some distance away from Akrotiri. Down those jets go, into the water taking their crews with them.

Typhoons join with Tornados in overflying Syria on the second night. Operation Acorn steps up a gear. The attempted Syrian air strike against Cyprus was done alongside other actions by the Assad regime during the day where Western confidence over the destruction of his air force was shown to be wrong. Assad’s jets weren’t all blown up on the ground and made attacks against Iraq (where US jets are flying from) too. Bombs are dropped on Syria from the Tornados while the Typhoons fly escort. No air action is met. The Americans get several Syrian fighters but the RAF sees none. There are launches of SAMs though. A hidden Syrian-operated Buk-M2 lofts missiles skywards in an ambush. One Tornado is hit and explodes in mid-air while another struck RAF jet has part of a wing torn off. The latter will make an emergency landing in Turkey – both airmen surviving but their jet not – but the explosion of the former sees two British lives lost. That missile launcher is mobile and cannot be located afterwards by neither the RAF nor the Americans.

The same night, the Royal Navy stops a ship trying to run the naval blockade imposed against Syria. It’s come up from Lebanon aiming to deliver what intelligence suggests is war cargo in the form of munitions. With the protection of a fast-moving frigate, SBS commandos assault the small freighter in a helicopter-borne attack. They abseil down onto the foredeck and rapidly storm the vessel. Gunfire is exchanged which leads to the wounding of a SBS man. Seven gunmen, later identified as Palestinian-Lebanese, are killed in return. Another Royal Navy helicopter brings in a ‘prize crew’ and towards Cyprus that ship is soon sailing. There is plentiful war supplies aboard from missiles to anti-aircraft shells to bombs. While the ultimate identity of where the cargo has come from is hidden, Britain and her allies believe that this is in fact the work of Iran. Israel – not bombing Syria – and the United States have both stopped other ships which have come from Iran with disguised identities: this is another.

More Tomahawks are fired by the Royal Navy the next day and the RAF goes back into action once more, this time making daylight attacks. The skies over Syria are full of American aircraft from three carriers of the US Navy and a significant land-based component of the US Air Force too. British Tornados and Typhoons appear to be only few in comparison but for Operation Acorn, this is a big commitment of available air power. Bombs are dropped on Syrian targets and one of the Typhoons makes a long distance air-to-air kill against a Syrian MiG-21 taking off from a dispersed air strip. There are no successful SAM launches made against the RAF today. That Russian S-400 system is active though. It’s radar ‘lights up’ American aircraft yet neither side fires on the other: the RAF is attacking targets some distance away.

The third, and last night, of Operation Acorn sees more Storm Shadow launches made against Syria. The nation’s military forces get struck from above extensively with the British continuing to follow the American’s lead. There is another SAM launch made against the RAF when a flight of Typhoons is over the north of the country: that same Buk-M2 battery is making another attempt. The Typhoons escape unharmed and, before the RAF can, the US Air Force makes a successful attack to wipe out that air defence unit. The RAF would have liked to get revenge for the loss of two airmen by that particular enemy but are beaten to the punch by the Americans.

Before dawn the next morning, ahead of more Operation Acorn attacks commencing, a Moscow-instigated ceasefire takes place. The bombing of Syria comes to a conclusion.