Battlefield Taiwan

I’d Trade My Kingdom for a Horse

The President rubbed his temples. He was feeling immensely overwhelmed by the events swirling around him.

As the Secretary of Labor, Maria Sanchez, finished her brief on the state of the economy and the manufacturing sector, Gates was lost in a sea of thoughts. “I wanted my presidency to be focused on domestic issues — fixing our economy, tax reform, regulation reform, healthcare and immigration. Now we’re embroiled in a global war that just keeps spreading, destroying any hope I had of trying to fix the nation for the little guy. These wretched war hawks have led us to this mess… I’d like to string them all up. Especially that Senator McGregor, who thought sending a carrier strike group into the Black Sea would force the Russians to back down from their threat of force.”

He heard the secretary say something more interesting, and it brought his attention back to the task at hand. Sanchez continued, “While the war is certainly taking resources away from our grander infrastructure plans, it has caused an immense boom in the manufacturing sector. Ford, GM, and Chrysler have shifted over 70 % of their production lines to producing military equipment and their factories are now operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Shoot, even Boeing has had to shift from producing civilian airliners to nearly 100 % military production. They just can’t keep up with the demands of the Defense Department.”

“You realize they’re having to do all this because tens of thousands of military members and their equipment are getting killed and blown up?” the President shot back. “While the economic news is good, let’s not forget that we are in the middle of a war — a war that has cost our nation deeply up to this point.”

Secretary Sanchez stiffened at the comment. “I meant no disrespect, Mr. President. I’m just stating the facts. I have a daughter who just enlisted in the Air Force, so I’m well aware of the war and its many consequences. The truth is that the economy is still booming as a result of what’s going on, and that, Mr. President, is a good thing,” she replied matter-of-factly. She then closed her briefing book and sat down.

The president looked at his economic team. They were smart people, all hand-picked based on their ability to get things done, not based on political donations or nepotism. He sighed as he realized his response might have been overly harsh.

“I appreciate everything you guys are doing. I just want everyone to remember that our goal right now is to win the war and bring a lasting peace to our nation and the world. Unfortunately, I need to end this meeting and head down to another briefing. If you will all please excuse me and continue your efforts, that would be greatly appreciated.” The President got up and headed for the door.

As the President began to walk the corridor to the elevator that would take them to the basement and the Situation Room, his Chief of Staff, Retired General Liam Greeson, leaned over. “You were a bit harsh with them, don’t you think?” he muttered.

The President grunted as the elevator door opened and they got in. “You’re right, I was. I’ll call Maria later and apologize.”

The two of them rode the elevator in silence and walked into the Situation Room. The generals and military advisors had already beat them to the meeting and stood up once Gates walked in, waiting for him to take his seat before they took theirs, as was customary.

Once everyone had taken their seats, Jim Castle, the Secretary of Defense, cleared his throat. “Mr. President, would you like me to begin with the overall brief of what is going on, and then you can ask more pointed questions of the various generals?” he asked. They had a lot to discuss and needed to make decisions on all the major theaters of conflict: Europe, Korea, and now Taiwan.

The President looked up and simply nodded for him to begin.

The SecDef brought up a map of Europe with various unit markers and symbols written on it. “Our forces in the Belarusian capital of Minsk had to withdraw back to Lithuania. While this is a minor setback, the Polish forces and the rest of Three Corps was able to push the Russian 6^th Tank Army to the outskirts of Minsk and is now holding the line. The 4^th Infantry Division and two battalions of the 82^nd Airborne in Lithuania still pose enough of a threat to the Russians’ right flank that they haven’t tried to push our forces out of Belarus.”

The President held up his hand. “What happened with the 4^th ID? Why did they have to give up Minsk?” Gates asked.

“The Russians rushed two additional divisions from other parts of the country and a brigade of Special Forces to the capital region. We just were not able to hold the line — the 6^th Tank Army fought better than we thought they would. While they didn’t have any of the newer T-14 Armata tanks, they were able to maintain a high level of air defenses over most of the country, negating our air power and making this much more of a one-dimensional fight,” Jim replied, hoping that his answer would suffice.

Gates nodded in acknowledgement and signaled for him to continue.

“In Ukraine, the Russians have held their current positions and appear to be settling in for the winter. We have a couple of proposals we would like to go over with you, Mr. President, regarding our choices in Europe.”

Jim signaled for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to proceed with his portion of the brief.

Admiral Peter Meyers stood up. “Mr. President, we’re training 6,000 new infantry soldiers each week. That number will rise to 25,000 a week by the end of the year and hit 75,000 a week by April of 2018. With the war going full speed ahead in Europe and Asia, we’re stretched incredibly thin right now. Presently, we’re training just enough soldiers to replace our casualties. We’re still not training enough soldiers to start creating the new divisions needed to win this war. That should start to happen around January if we slow the pace of the war in Europe and Asia down and allow our forces to build back up. What we’d like to propose is pausing the war in Europe while we focus on building up an army to defeat the Russians and looking to launch a new offensive in May or June—”

“—If we hold off until essentially the beginning of the summer,” the President interrupted, “what exactly is that going to provide us with at that point, and what are we going to do to harass the Russians throughout the winter?”

“Holding off until summer will allow us to build up our forces in Europe and give our allies the time they need to rebuild their own armies. The Germans have said they’ll be able to field an army of 300,000 soldiers by June. The French have said they’ll make 250,000 soldiers available by that deadline as well. While there is significant political opposition to the war in Britain, the Minister of Defense has assured me that the Prime Minister is going to move forward with a draft to rebuild their military, and they would also contribute 250,000 soldiers to the fight by the June deadline. Italy is drafting 90,000 for their new army group, and the Greeks are drafting 400,000, although we believe that’s most likely in response to the Turkish government’s announcement that they would be doubling the size of their military.”

“Mr. President, by holding off until June, our allies will be able to provide 890,000 soldiers, in addition to the 250,000 new soldiers we’ll be sending to Europe when they complete basic infantry training. Mind you, these are infantry soldiers, so our overall troop levels will probably be closer to double that by the time the offensive kicks off,” Admiral Meyers explained.

Gates smiled. “Finally, the Europeans are building an army to take ownership of this war,” he thought.

“Admiral, please send my regards to our allies for agreeing to begin a buildup of forces. I will call the various political leaders to thank them as well. From the onset of this war with Russia, I have been adamant that this war cannot be an American war. I’m very relieved to hear that our European allies are finally moving forward and doing something about the state of their militaries. I want you to press them hard in meeting the timelines. Do whatever you need to in order to prod and poke them to make sure they are ready. I’ve already spoken with the Treasury Secretary, and we are making 2 % interest loans available to our allies if they need access to additional funding — so there should be no excuse of them not having enough capital to meet the deadlines,” Gates said.

Admiral Meyers leaned forward, pausing for a second. “Mr. President, do you approve of our buildup in Europe and plan for a resumption of offensive operations in June? It means we’ll settle in for the winter where our troops are at right now. The Air Force and the Navy will of course continue to carry out operations, but the ground war will remain static until we’re ready to move forward,” he clarified.

“I’m fine with holding things in place in Europe until June,” said the President, resigned to the reality before him. “What I still haven’t heard from you guys, and what we need to figure out, is what is going to be our end state? Aside from removing the Russians from Ukraine, we still have to determine what we’re going to do with Petrov. If we leave him in power, he will just rebuild his forces and remain a belligerent threat to Europe. I don’t think that’s the outcome any of us wants.”

Those around the table sat back in their chairs, digesting what he had just said. It was a rather profound statement. Until now, the objective had been to remove the Russians from Ukraine, but with the massive buildup of military forces in Europe, they were being presented with an opportunity to do something more.

Tom McMillan, the President’s National Security Advisor, leaned forward. “What would you like to see happen, Mr. President?”

Gates thought about that for a moment before responding. He had been pondering this question for some time. “The world is at a tipping point,” he realized. “These conflicts have been brewing under the table for some time, but now that things have finally boiled over, it might just be time to reassert American dominance as a world power. We could build ourselves up not only as the military superpower, but also as the leader of a new global alliance so these wars don’t happen over and over again.”

He sighed. “Too many people are being killed in these senseless wars, and for what?” he wondered. “So that the defense industry can continually have a boogeyman to create more means of killing each other? To fund a trillion-dollar defense budget? No… this war may have been thrust upon me, but if I have to fight it, then by God, I’m not just going to win it — I will end it!”

When he had fully finished calculating his answer, President Gates cleared his throat. “First, I want us to finalize the creation of this global defense force alliance to replace NATO. This alliance needs to be politically and militarily binding in all respects. Nations will be obligated to maintain 3 % of GDP spending on defense, no matter the size of the nation. They will also fall under US military control in times of war. We will integrate their military leaders into the leadership structure of the force carrying out any military operations, so that they are fully vested in the alliance. They will also have to meet whatever force compositions we determine the alliance needs; we don’t need the entire alliance to focus on aircraft and not have a ground component or naval component, for instance.”

The President paced with excitement. “Second, with regard to Russia — I want Petrov removed. I want us and the Allies to start working on finding a political opposition group we can start to back now, and we should work with them on fomenting resistance to the current government. When we topple the Petrov regime, I want this new opposition government to come into power, fully backed by us. To ensure this new government has a chance to take root and survive, I propose the Allies assert administrative control of Moscow, just as the Allies did to Berlin at the end of World War II. We will work with the new government to assume full control of the government and military within a ten-year period. Unlike Iraq, Germany and Japan, we are not going to demand the dissolution of the military. We will need those troops to assist in maintaining law and order. We are also not going to occupy all of Russia with an occupation force. The new opposition force will handle that with advisors from the Allies until they’re fully able to assume control of the country from us.”

The President sat down, and there was a brief moment of silence as everyone in the room absorbed the massive amount of information that had just been thrown their way.

NSA McMillan folded his fingers into a temple on the table as he leaned forward, clearly deep in thought. Admiral Meyers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, likewise said nothing, wanting to see what the others had to say. Jim Castle placed his pen down and looked around at the group.

“I like it,” Castle began. “I think this is a solid plan to ensure we have peace and stability in Europe for generations to come. We need to find a way to end the hostilities and animosity left over from the Cold War and World War II, and this is probably our best course of action. It may be a hard sell to the Allies, but if they join this new alliance we are going to create, they’ll have to go along whether they like it or not,” he concluded.

The generals nodded in agreement, all except for Admiral Meyers.

“Mr. President, I like this idea, but let’s go over the logistics,” Meyers asserted. “We’re talking about keeping a substantial number of US forces in Europe for at least five to ten years. We still have to figure out what we’re going to do with Korea and China,” Meyers said.

“I don’t want to be a wet blanket,” Admiral Meyers thought, “but we have to make sure we are thinking things all the way through.”

McMillan jumped back into the conversation. “Admiral Meyers is right about Asia. That’s going to be a long, drawn-out fight. Even if we are able to knock the Russians out of the war by the end of summer or the fall, we’re going to have to shift a lot of our combat power from Europe to Asia. The logistics alone are going to be a challenge. We’re also going to have to convince our allies that they will need to shift their forces to help us deal with the Chinese as well. That’s going to be its own challenge, to say the least.”

The President scratched his chin, deep in thought. “They’re right, of course. It would be a challenge to get our allies to want to support our fight in Asia. I don’t want this war to still be going on as we enter the 2020 election — then the election would just become a referendum on the war. This war needs to be fought clean of politics, if at all possible,” Gates thought as he weighed the options.

“You bring up a great point, Admiral. I’ve been reading up on the Republic of China in Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China and their history. I think we can do something similar with China. Taiwan views itself as the rightful government of China, and if this war has shown us anything, it’s that communist China is not only a rival superpower. If left unchecked, it will become the dominant power in the world. Their version of government and civil society is not something we want to see promulgated across the world.”

Gates took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “What if we look to remove the communist government and replace them with the democratic government of the Republic of China? We could break Beijing down into administrative zones, along with the rest of the country. We could administer the country until elections can be held and then work with the newly elected government to take full control of the country. Over time, we would phase ourselves out of occupation duty and control of the country, just as we would with Russia.”

The President paused for a second before continuing. “I know this would be a long-term commitment on the part of the alliance and the United States, but if we don’t address these problems now, we’re going to be fighting the same war twenty or forty years from now. We need to find a way to end the bloodshed and get our countries focused on economic prosperity for our people,” Gates explained.

McMillan understood the President’s grander vision but wanted to focus on the short-term issues. “This has been a lot to take in, Mr. President, and you’ve certainly made your wishes known for how you’d like things to play out in both Europe and Asia. The challenge for us as your military and national security team is to determine how best to implement the vision you have just laid out. While a lot of details need to be hashed out, I’d like to present you with some options for how to handle China and work to contain them in their current positions while we grow the Navy and finish off the Russians,” McMillan said, looking to Admiral Meyers for support. The admiral just nodded, as if telling him to run with it.

“With regard to China, we have to acknowledge that Taiwan is lost. Our initial wave of bombers and cruise missiles did hurt the PLA invasion force, but it was never going to be enough to stop it, nor can we sustain any sort of heavy military support to Taiwan with the conflicts in Korea and Russia still going. I know that the attack on Taiwan is less than two days old, but we have no forces we can shift in their direction to help. We can hope their military is able to maintain an effective insurgency operation and keep the dream of freedom alive, but aside from periodic military and strategic bomber support, we just don’t have the naval or ground troops available to intervene. The Chinese navy has dispatched so many of its submarines to the Taiwanese sector and the areas around some of the Japanese islands that it’s incredibly risky for our ballistic missile submarines to launch continual cruise missile barrages against the Chinese mainland or in support of operations in Taiwan. It’s going to take us a few months to hunt these submarines down. Our ballistic missile submarines are too important of a national asset to risk losing them in combat right now. We should have an additional thirty attack submarines in the East China Sea and the South China Sea within the next forty days, but until then, we’re being very cautious with what we do with our submarines,” McMillan explained.

The President didn’t like what he was hearing, but knew he needed a better understanding of the situation on the ground. He gestured for McMillan to continue.

“While we can’t do anything about Taiwan, what we can do is fight to win in Korea. The Chinese have sent over 150,000 regular army soldiers across the border. They’re also in the process of preparing to send more than 200,000 militia forces to join them. We expect these numbers to more than double over the next couple of months. As of right now, the Republic of South Korea or ROK forces have done a superb job in blunting the Chinese advance. With help from Japan, our Allied forces have been able to secure half of North Korea, and we may have the rest of the country within our grasp before the end of the year. The ROK has fully activated their reserves and is currently rushing them towards the frontlines. Nearly 60 % of the North Korean Army was either destroyed during the first 72 hours of the war or has surrendered. The remainder of the army is poorly equipped and poorly fed. While the Chinese have announced a new leader to take control of North Korea, that new leader has virtually no support with the army or among the civilian population.”

Admiral Meyers cut in at this point. “Mr. President, the military recommendation, which I am sure the NSA will agree with, is for us to do whatever is necessary to capture North Korea and then park our forces on the Chinese-North Korean border for the winter and well into the summer months. While the focus is on building up our forces for Europe to finish off the Russians, the Navy and Air Force will look to expand our capabilities in Asia. The Japanese, for their part, are converting their helicopter support ships into modern-day aircraft carriers. Each carrier will be able to hold 62 aircraft, making them a potent force considering that the Japanese have three of them that will be ready by spring. They’re also announcing a draft of two million men to join their self-defense force and have suspended parts of their constitution that restrict them from operating an army on foreign soil. Like our European allies, they’ll be ready to contribute a significant ground force in June.”

The President interrupted Meyers before he could continue. “So, what would be the strategy for attacking China and defeating the PLA?

The admiral turned briefly to confer with the Commandant of the Marine Corps before turning back to the President. “We plan on launching a two-pronged attack. The first will be a massive invasion across the North Korean border into China proper. This prong, which will be led by the ROK forces, will be the right flank pincer that will drive towards Beijing. The second pincer will be an amphibious assault on the critical port city of Qingdao. Once the port has been secured, we will be able to offload our heavy armor forces and begin to expand upwards towards Beijing from the left flank. This force will be largely led by the Japanese and the US Army. The US Marines will be accompanying them and securing the beach and port for them, but the JDF will be the bulk of the ground force that will lead the way to Beijing while our forces focus on holding the port and the outer flanks.”

Meyers took a swig of water before he continued. “To further complicate the PLA’s ability to reinforce their northern military district, we’re going to carry out a massive invasion of the ports near Nantong, which is just north of Shanghai. Once our forces have secured the ports and begun landing the bulk of our ground forces and their armor support, they’ll drive our forces to the industrial heartland of Hefei, 441 kilometers inland from the cost, essentially dividing northern China from the rest of the country.” Admiral Meyers brought up a map of the area and walked the President through the plans and objectives.

Gates nodded in approval. He was partial to the idea of hitting the Chinese from multiple points. “In general, I like the plan you’ve laid out, but what forces are going to make up this landing force north of Shanghai?”

Marshall Grant, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, answered. “This would be a Marine-led operation. By the time the end of summer rolls around, the Corps will be standing at nearly one million Marines. We’ll have 60,000 Marines operating with the ROK in northern China on the right flank, another 60,000 operating with the JDF on the left flank, and then nearly 550,000 leading the charge from Nantong to Hefei. We’re going to make central China howl as we look to divide the country,” Grant said with a mischievous grin. His devil dogs would be chomping at the bit to be released once they reached full strength.

The President smiled at the confidence his Marine commander was showing, but he still had concerns and questions. “Assuming all of this goes according to plan, what will we do with the Army forces in Europe once they have defeated the Russians? Also, what type of resistance are we potentially looking at?” he asked.

The Marine Commandant replied, “We expect there to be heavy resistance, Mr. President. In addition to the PLA’s reserve force, they also maintain a multimillion-man militia force. These soldiers are much less trained and probably equipped with subpar weapons compared to their regular army counterparts, but they have numbers. Their goal will be simple, to try and overwhelm us wherever they can.”

He pulled up a map on the PowerPoint. “Our plan, or at least the Marine plan, calls for us to advance in a relatively slow and methodical approach. We’ll be establishing firebases with artillery support at set intervals throughout the lines of advance. Every so often, a brigade of soldiers will be left to support the bases as a quick-reaction force. Our goal with this 441-kilometer line here is to prevent any additional reinforcements from arriving up north to where the battle of Beijing will be taking place. I suspect that as the army units from Europe start to arrive, we’ll start to be reinforced by them as well.”

Gates sighed for a moment, wishing they had more time to get into the details. But as he thought about it, he felt he had enough information from these guys to feel comfortable in giving them the go-ahead to begin the plans for this major operation. It might still be nine months away, but it would be imperative to get the planning of it underway.

The President briefly stood, signaling for the others to stay seated for the moment. They had been talking for several hours and were probably hungry. “This has been a productive meeting. I’d like to talk privately with McMillan and Jim about some of these options over lunch. I would like to request that you all remain here and continue to flesh out more details on this new alliance we’re going to form. Start to identify what countries we should extend an olive branch to and why. Determine what they’ll be able to offer the alliance and how much long-term support we should expect from them. I’ll have lunch brought in for everyone. We’ll reconvene in two hours.”

NSA McMillian and Jim Castle pulled out their chairs and sat down for an informal lunch with the President. When Gates wanted to have a frank and open discussion, he usually held them over a meal at his personal kitchen table. It was less formal and provided a softer environment for everyone to talk freely, something he greatly valued.

“OK, so what countries do you believe we should include in this new alliance?” asked the President, wanting to get right down to business.

Jim smiled. “I think we want to ensure the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, Romania and the Nordic countries stay in the alliance. We should also work with Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Argentina, Columbia, Thailand, Israel, and South Africa. These should at least be the charter members of the alliance. We can expand it in the coming years to include other countries, but for the time being, I believe these countries should make up the bulk of the alliance,” the SecDef said as he popped open the can of Coke he had grabbed from the counter before he sat down.

“Why not try and include India, Indonesia, Malaysia or any of the other Gulf states?” asked the President.

McMillian responded, “Frankly, Sir, while it may not be the PC answer, Indonesia has a large Muslim population, so they would have a huge problem being in an alliance with Israel. The same goes for the rest of the Gulf states. Malaysia is not the most stable government and has issues with Indonesia. That could cause problems if the two of them restarted their border disputes, believing they now have a protective alliance that can bail them out if they get into trouble.”

The President nodded. These were the off-the-cuff comments he had been hoping for.

Tom continued, “While it would be ideal to have India as part of the alliance, we’re not certain they would join right now, given the open hostilities with China. They just signed a nonaggression treaty with them. I suspect that once the war has concluded, they’d be more than open to becoming a member.”

Less than thirty minutes later, the White House chefs brought out a five-star lunch fit for a king, and the three men continued to discuss their ideas and plans for how this new military alliance should work and the finer details of actually implementing it.

They determined that a special military and diplomatic emissary should be commissioned and given power to negotiate the establishment of this new alliance. This would allow the existing generals and senior diplomats to stay focused on their current tasks and what they were working on, which was doing whatever was necessary to win this war. Following their lunch, they had plenty to discuss with the rest of the national security team and the military leaders. It would be a busy couple of weeks as the wheels of progress moved forward with lightning speed.