Operation Red Dawn and the Siege of Europe

Trying to See Eight Moves Ahead

The President was becoming nervous after reading through the various intelligence reports and summaries of the numbers of Chinese troops arriving each week and their grand totals. As of that moment, there were nearly one million enemy soldiers on American soil. Now there were reports that millions more were on the way, and President Stein was unsure if even the mighty Third Army could stop them; they were still close to sixty days away from being fully ready for combat after their R & R and training, and no one knew how many more Chinese soldiers would be on American soil by then. General Black (the Second Army Commander, and overall Commander for all US Forces in North America) was doing his best to keep the Chinese bogged down. Thus far, his efforts had kept the Chinese from being able to break out of Alaska, but that would only last for so long.

The President sat at the head of the table with the rest of his National Security team and his senior military advisors trying to ascertain what their next move should be. “General Scott, what is the DIA’s assessment of what the Chinese may do next?” asked the President, wanting to get a better picture of the Pacific and Asia.

Lieutenant General Rick Scott prepared to speak. He had been the Director for the Defense Intelligence Agency for nearly three years; however, he and the President had a very checkered past. He had nearly been fired in the opening days of the war with China because of his disregard of what his other intelligence departments had been warning him about with regards to the Chinese. LTG Scott had believed (like many others) that the Chinese had too many economic ties with the US and Europe to risk an open war. Like everyone else on that ill-fated date, he was proven wrong when the Chinese launched a massive surprise cyber-attack against the American communications grid, taking AT&T, Sprint and many other internet and cable providers down for nearly two months. Verizon was the only internet and data provider who had survived the Chinese cyber-attack; they had essentially prevented the entire government and country from what would have been a full economic collapse. The CIA and the Joint Counterterrorism Task Force (JCTF) had also missed the warning signs of an imminent attack by China; it was for that reason alone LTG Scott was not relieved on the spot-that and his ability to work with British Telecom and Verizon to quickly get America’s cell phone and data providers back online in two months. He had been redeeming himself ever since.

LTG Scott finished his preparation as he brought up some images from his tablet to the holographic map at the center of the table for everyone to view. “Mr. President, there are two items of concern. The first is the massive troop movement we are seeing in the North China Sea; it would appear they have assembled a convoy of nearly 280 troop transports. Each transport can carry 3,000 troops; if they load them up with only troops, then they will be bringing 840,000 fresh troops to Alaska.”

Audible sighs and groans could be heard throughout the room. “The second area of concern is the activity we are seeing in Hawaii. The Chinese have spent the last two months doing a lot of repairs to the facilities there, and they have repaired all of the runways on the island. They presently have a garrison of 20,000 PLA soldiers there, and they were just augmented by 30,000 PLAN infantry. The PLAN is currently moving their entire amphibious assault capability to Hawaii, along with four of their five carriers from Alaska. They have started a massive airlift of their PLAN infantry from the Mainland to Hawaii as well,” LTG Scott explained as he showed more images of what was transpiring.

“Are you suggesting that the Chinese are planning another amphibious assault, possibly against California or somewhere along the West Coast?” asked the SecDef Eric Clarke.

“Yes Mr. Secretary, it would appear so.” Scott replied.

The President looked around the room and asked, “Any suggestions on where they may be heading and what we should do about it?” He was hoping to hear some good ideas from his brain trust.

Patrick Rubio, the Director of the CIA, chimed in, “If I were a guessing man, I would say they will look to land their troops in the Pacific Northwest, most likely in Oregon or Seattle. This would put them in position to cut off our entire force in Alaska and put our guys in to a terrible position for retreating.”

“You don’t think they would go for Los Angeles?” inquired General Branson, curious to know his logic in his assumption.

“No, I think they would like to avoid the urban areas and focus more on defeating our Army rather than capturing a symbolic trophy. We can trade land for time and maneuverability; they are most likely going to look to defeat our armies and then have free range.” Director Rubio said.

The President asked, “Can we shift our SUDs to focus more around Hawaii and help to keep that amphibious group from going too far?”

Admiral Juliano, the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) spoke up, “We can, Mr. President, but I doubt it will make that much of a difference; we just do not have the numbers. Personally, I do not believe the Chinese are going to launch another amphibious assault. I know the intelligence says otherwise, but the logistical capability of the PLAN does not support it. The PLA is chewing through resources in staggering numbers in Alaska. The PLAN support ships are having a hard enough time trying to keep up with them. Throw in another 840,000 soldiers into that mix, and they will be thoroughly overwhelmed. They just do not have the logistical capability to support two landing zones like that.”

“So you think this is a diversion?” inquired the President.

“I do. I believe they are going to send their PLAN infantry to Hawaii and train them hard for a few months, making us think and believe they are going to launch another landing. In doing so, they will force us to tie up hundreds of thousands of soldiers and precious materials on the West Coast, as opposed to having them engaged in the fighting in Alaska. They know we rotated the Third Army in, and this is their attempt to neutralize General Gardner by having him chase a ghost invasion that will never happen.” The CNO was very matter-of-fact in his response.

Director Rubio interjected, “Mr. President, I have to disagree. If we do not take this threat seriously, they could potentially cut our entire force off in Alaska, and if we send General Gardner’s army in as well, then we have little in the way of forces that can be used to defend the West Coast.”

The Admiral quickly cut in, “I understand your concern, Director Rubio, but the logistics do not lie; they could land those forces, but they would run out of fuel and munitions within a week. Then they’d have a large amphibious force on the ground with no ammunition. This is meant as nothing more than a distraction to tie our forces down.” The Admiral was speaking with great force and conviction to hammer home his point. “Furthermore, it’s not your people who are going to have to do the fighting Director. Our intelligence does not support the information the Agency has been pushing, and we categorically disagree with it as fiction.” This last point was made in quite a sharp tone towards the CIA Director, to a point that the room suddenly filled with awkward silence.

Lately there had some friction between the Services and the Intelligence Community (IC). The CIA and DIA had really fouled up the intelligence about the IR prior to their sneak attack, and then again had been completely wrong about the Chinese. The Services had developed a real dislike for the IC outside of their own intelligence channels, and often brushed their assessments off or disregarded them entirely. The Army, Navy and Air Force shared intelligence seamlessly as they fought hand-in-hand; this intelligence sharing stopped or was reluctant when it came to disclosing anything with the CIA. Despite the fact that the NSA and DIA were military-run organizations, the Services still did not trust them because of their ties with the CIA. This distrust of each other’s intelligence was becoming more apparent during each of the National Security Council meetings, and it was going to need to be addressed.

The President raised his hand to stop the parties from bickering further. “I agree Admiral; the PLAN logistics do not support a second large-scale invasion. However, that does not mean we can just ignore the PLAN infantry build-up in Hawaii either. For right now, we will not shift men or material around to the West Coast; we will move some air assets to attack their ships if they venture away from Hawaii, but that is it. Our main focus has to be on stopping the Chinese in Alaska and pushing them into the Sea,” the President spoke with force and conviction in his voice, which commanded respect and attention from both parties. “I want one of our two F41 flights to be focused on defending the West Coast and harassing the Chinese efforts over Hawaii, while the other flight continues to stay engaged in Alaska. As soon as the third flight of F41s is complete, they are to head to Europe. We may not be able to commit a lot of ground reinforcements to Europe, but we can send them additional air support as it becomes available.”

Shifting in his seat before continuing, the President redirected, “I want to discuss Japan and India next. I have a feeling more is going on between China and India than we would like to believe, and frankly, I’d like to know what the heck the Japanese are doing as well.”

Director Rubio pulled some information from a folder on his tablet and brought it up for the group. “With regards to India, we do believe there is more going on. Since the non-aggression agreement was signed, the Indians have started construction of 86 new troop transport ships, 19 amphibious assault transports, 46 new attack submarines and two supercarriers. All of these appear to be of Chinese design and specifications. In addition to the naval ships, they have started manufacturing the Chinese main battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, munitions and other tools needed for war.”

LTG Scott added, “Their ground forces have also started a series of training exercises. Most of them appear to be armored and urban warfare exercises, which leads us to believe the Indians may not stay as neutral in this war as we had hoped. Albeit, we have not intercepted any information suggesting they are going to join the Chinese, or obtained any human intelligence on that matter just yet, but their training cycle, type of training, military manufacturing and increases in the size of their military suggest that they are at least planning on a future military engagement.”

The room sat silent for a minute digesting what they had just heard. Could it be possible that India would join Axis powers and turn on the Allies?

The President made a sour face before adding, “This information about India is troubling to say the least. The last time I spoke with the Indian PM, he was short and curt with me. He had expressed his outrage at our use of nuclear weapons against the IR. He further voiced his anger at the fallout that was landing across India. When I communicated with our Ambassador to India last week, he said they had seen a massive uptick in anti-American demonstrations. I believe we should plan on the Indians joining the Axis at some point, and continue to pray they do not. We should look at using cyber-attacks against any manufacturing production that is being used to support the Chinese war effort. No need to let them off the hook entirely.”

Clearing his voice and then taking a couple of gulps from his Red Bull, the President asked, “What about Japan? What are they doing?”

LTG Scott shifted the map screen away from India and zoomed in to show Japan. “As of right now, we believe the Japanese are still planning on sitting out the war. They continue to train and modernize their forces; they have two additional carriers completing construction this month as well. It will bring their total carrier count up to five.”

Director Rubio interjected to add, “On this front, I believe we have some better information. One of our sources within the defense ministry said that they have been ordered to ramp up plans for attacking the Chinese fleet at Hawaii.” (Unfortunately, unbeknownst to the CIA and the American government, this high level source was not just a spy for the Americans, but a double agent for the Chinese. He had been feeding China intelligence about the American and Japanese relationship since the start of the war, which had greatly enabled the Chinese politically to counter every move the Americans attempted to make to strengthen their relationship or convince the Japanese to join the Allies.)

Perking up at this piece of information, Admiral Juliano asked, “What exactly are the Japanese proposing to do, and when will they reach out to us formally?”

“I am not 100 % sure yet on both accounts; our agent only said that plans were in the works for the Japanese to attack the Chinese fleet assembling in Hawaii. The logic behind the attack is that if they can cripple the Chinese fleet there, then it relieves a lot of anxiety about them being able to launch an invasion of the Japanese home front.”

The President smiled and said, “This is good news indeed. Will we have any of our carriers from the Atlantic that might be able to participate?”

Admiral Juliano glanced down at his tablet and flicked through a few tabs to find the one he was looking for before answering. “As of right now, we have two supercarriers coming out of mothball this month, two more by the end of the year. We will not have a fully operational support fleet though until around the end of the year. Right now, all of our ships coming out of mothball and the shipyards are staying on the East Coast where we can protect them, until we can put together a large enough fleet.”

“We have the 6^th Fleet still operating in the Mediterranean, and one carrier battle group operating in the North Sea, trying to keep the Russian fleet bottled up. I’m afraid we do not have a fleet ready to sail to the Pacific just yet in order to support any operation the Japanese may have planned,” the Admiral said, clearly disappointed.

The President looked saddened as well. “Let’s look to move our SUDs over to the Hawaiian area when and if this plan does pan out. Maybe we can get lucky and score a few critical hits; in the meantime, let’s keep those SUDs sinking transport and fuel tankers. If no one else has any major points to discuss, let’s end the meeting here, and we’ll meet back again in a couple of days for our next update, unless something major happens,” said Stein.

He stood to end the meeting, but Admiral Juliano moved to grab his attention. “Sir… not to be impertinent, but there is still something that we need to discuss.”

“Oh? What would that be, Admiral?”

“It’s Dr. Rosanna Weisz, Sir,” replied Juliano. “Her protests are starting to gain quite a lot of traction. She has another one scheduled here in DC in two weeks. We don’t want the war to be lost in the tide of public opinion.”

“I see,” the President responded. “What would you propose that I do in this situation?”

The Admiral straightened up (even more than his usual strict military posture) and asserted, “Sir, I think you should come out hard against this group. You can’t let these people walk all over you; you have to show them that you are the one in power.”

Director Rubio was aghast, “Mr. President, with all due respect to my colleague, I cannot imagine that would go well. Simply telling someone what not to think only makes them want to think about it more. It’s like saying, ‘Don’t think about yellow elephants,’ and suddenly, that’s all you can think about. If you come at them harshly, it will only legitimize their position and give them more publicity.”

“I see your point, Pat. Do you have any suggestions?”

“I don’t know, Mr. President… I do concede that this is becoming a real issue. It wouldn’t be such a problem if Dr. Weisz wasn’t so… well… reasonable. She’s about the most intelligent and non-crazy protestor I have ever seen.”

The President furrowed his brows for a brief moment before turning to his Chief of Staff. “Monty, I want you to set up a meeting with Dr. Weisz and myself before this next protest. Bring her to the White House and give her a nice tour, and then let me meet with her personally. No cameras. I think I know what to do.”

“But sir, by meeting with her directly, aren’t you legitimizing her claims?” dared Admiral Juliano.

“If I want to slow this waterfall, I’m going to have to go to the source,” replied the President. “We may have differing opinions, but if she truly is reasonable, I think I can at least bring us to a mutual understanding.”

Admiral Juliano had said his piece, and so he deferred to the judgment of his Commander-in-Chief. The President dismissed the group, and then turned to walk out of the Situation Room.