Cyber Warfare and the New World Order

Liberators

President Stein was sitting in his chair at the head of the table in the PEOC, listening to the military advisors around the table talk about the next steps in the war. America had been in conflict for three years now. Millions of people had died as war had been brought directly to Main Street, America. At least after a bloody summer campaign in Alaska, the Chinese and Russians had been defeated and had withdrawn the majority of their troops, leaving those that could not be rescued to surrender. Nearly 128,000 Chinese and 83,200 Russian soldiers had been captured once it was clear they were not going to be rescued.

The re-capture of the Hawaiian Islands and Midway Island a month ago meant the American navy was finally back in control of the Pacific. The US had completed construction of two additional Supercarriers and moved them to the Pacific to join the three operational carriers of CSG12. President Stein had appointed Admiral Michael Stonebridge to be the new Seventh Fleet Commander, and directed him to work with General Gardner on developing a plan to liberate Japan and the Pacific from the Chinese.

Admiral Juliano observed that Stein only appeared to be half listening. “Mr. President,” he said, gently tapping the desk and hoping to gain his fully attention. “We have to be realistic in our expectations regarding taking back the Pacific from the Chinese. I know we have just scored two huge victories in recovering Alaska and in seeing a successful coup in Japan, but the liberation of the Pacific is going to take time.”

The President understood the challenges; the Pacific was a big ocean. Despite the defeat of the Chinese fleet, they still possessed dozens of submarines and other surface ships. They had also established a network of military bases throughout the South China Sea that had been turned into missile bases. Penetrating the Chinese missile swarms to get close enough to their shores and industrial heartland was going to be difficult, but not impossible.

“What I want from everyone is a realistic plan of how we are going to bring this war to a close. We have popular uprisings that we are supporting in the Philippines, Vietnam and now Japan. The Chinese will squash these uprisings if we are not able to offer more assistance. What are your suggestions?”

Admiral Juliano jumped in saying, “Sir, I have redirected our SUDs to the South China Sea to start engaging Chinese shipping. We are also going to start placing a bigger emphasis on going after the shipping between the African Confederation and China as well. Not nearly enough has been done to try and sever the mineral and natural resource pipeline between Africa and China that is keeping their factories going. I also believe we should step up our insertion of Special Forces to these countries.”

General Branson agreed. “We need to send more Special Forces to these countries to help. I also think we should increase the number and type of weapons we provide them. The Chinese are deploying their own version of the M5 AIR, so I do not believe we should hold out on providing them to the insurgent forces any longer. These weapons would greatly increase their ability to conduct hit and run attacks.”

“I agree” echoed CIA Director Rubio. “We held these weapons back in the past because we needed them for our own forces. Now it’s time to step up the scale and type of weapons we provide them.”

“All right then,” said the President. “General Branson, Director Rubio, move forward with the new plans, and let’s see what more we can do to help sow some chaos. In the meantime, I want to know — what is our strategy and plan for liberating Japan and the rest of the Pacific? What forces do we need, and when will we have them?”

Admiral Juliano brought up a new image on the holographic monitor for them to look at. “Sir, what you are looking at is our initial plan for re-securing the Pacific. We have four of our new Reagan class Supercarriers and three of our older Nimitz class Supercarriers in the Pacific. We also have four of our Webb class Battleships.” On-screen he also showed the list of cruisers, destroyers and frigates that were also assigned to the Seventh Fleet. It had taken several years, but the navy finally had the ships it needed to take the Pacific back.

“Our plan is to liberate Japan first, then move to assist Taiwan. To free Japan, we are going to need to secure a launch platform from which we can move in air support to help on the main Island. We have identified the island of Hokkaido as our best location to use for housing our aircraft.” A map of the Island was brought up with several identified landing zones, airports and other strategic targets that would need to be secured.

“The assault against the Kola Peninsula in Russia with the EHDs was a resounding success. We are going to use that same strategy to capture Hokkaido. Four of our American class amphibious assault ships are currently being outfitted with EHD simulator pods just like the ship that we used in Russia. These four ships will be able to carry an assault force of 8,000 Reaper drone operators. Once the key objectives have been secured, we will begin to ferry in tens of thousands of Raptor-equipped soldiers to capture the rest of the Island. With the Island under our control, we’ll begin to move in additional men and material and get ready to liberate the rest of the Japan.”

The President looked over the information, and asked several clarifying questions, but in general, he agreed with the premise of the plan. Then he probed about a more pressing issue. “What I want to know is when this plan will be ready to execute?”

General Branson saw this as his opportunity. “Sir, it is going to take time to get everything ready and in position. We anticipate launching the invasion of Hokkaido in February, and then moving to the rest of Japan in May of 2043. At that point, we will have 12,000 EHDs available for the operation, and the necessary ships to support the mission.”

After thinking about the information provided, the President responded, “I’d like to take the rest of the evening to think about it. Why don’t we dismiss the meeting for now, and we can come back tomorrow?”

There were no arguments from the group, so the President returned to the Residence to mull things over.