Operation Red Dawn and the Siege of Europe

Russian Reset

President Fradkov was sitting in his office, reviewing the tentative proposal that Premier Zhang Jinping had sent over. It was audacious. India had agreed to join, and so had Indonesia, now that they had abandoned the Islamic Republic. Fradkov mused, “I like the concept and idea, but do I believe I could get my countrymen to go along with it? Besides, I rule this country-why would I want to yield any of that control to a governing council?”

Sergei Puchkov, the Minister of Defense, interrupted his thoughts. “Mr. President, I presume that is the Pan Asian Alliance proposal you are reading?”

“It is. I am not one hundred percent sure this would benefit us in the fashion we would like. I do not like ceding our control to a ruling council, even if we would have three members on it,” Fradkov responded as he took a sip of his coffee.

Puchkov thought about that for a moment before answering, “True, but there are some benefits. The pooling of resources and manpower would aid us significantly, particularly in this war.”

Fradkov angrily jumped in, “Speaking of the war, what is going on in Alaska? Why have we not fully secured our sector yet?”

“The war is progressing, but resources are limited in Alaska. We only have so many air and ground units we can employ. Originally, we thought we would not need our entire force, or even our reserves; however, after several months of hard combat, we had to send the rest of our forces forward. Right now, we are going up against the American Marines, who have established a series of firebases and reinforced forts at key points throughout northern and central Alaska. We are having to fight them either one at a time or in small groups-in either case, it has slowed our advance down to nearly a crawl,” Puchkov said as he brought up a number of images and maps on his tablet for the President to view.

Examining the maps, Fradkov asked, “So what can we do to move this along? The Chinese are landing hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and if we are not able to secure our objectives, they will secure them on their own and keep all of the gains.” Fradkov did not want to yield any more to the Chinese than necessary.

General Gerasimov, the head of the Russian Military, interjected, “If you would like us to make Alaska the primary front, then we should halt our forces in Europe and focus our resources on Alaska. I could have our objectives secured before Spring if I could divert forces from Europe to the East.”

“How are things going in Europe right now? Are we at a good stopping point where we could shift resources to Alaska?” inquired Fradkov. He was not wanting to lose his gains in Europe, but he was clearly looking for a way to do more in Alaska.

General Gerasimov opened his tablet up and brought up the map section. The holographic image appeared on the table and he began to go over the details of the European front. “First, let me review the ground operations, then the naval operations. We have captured the key objectives to keep NATO off balance: Leipzig, Berlin, and Hamburg. As it is, the EU countries are training a much larger army, and are currently converting their manufacturing over to war-time production. As we all know, this takes time, which is something they do not have. I can switch our priority to Alaska, but prior to doing that, I would like to launch one more major offensive in Europe-not to capture ground, but to destroy as much military equipment as possible by intentionally slugging it out with NATO (as opposed to looking for weak points in their lines to exploit). In destroying more of their materials, we would further slow down the timeframe of when they could launch a counter-offensive.”

“As long as our additive manufacturing can continue to keep up with the losses, you are cleared to continue,” replied the President. He coughed the cough of a lifetime smoker before continuing, “What about our naval operations?”

“The naval focus continues to be on the North Atlantic and interdicting the NATO supply ships from North and South America. The navy just received the first twelve underwater drone submarines; they are nearly identical in capabilities to the American SUDs. We also have twenty-two more attack submarines coming online over the next two months. We are slowly starting to strangle Europe as we continue to deplete the NATO navies and supply vessels,” responded Puchkov confidently.

The President smiled slightly before replying, “Excellent. Then I want our focus to shift from Europe to Alaska. If we are able to help the Chinese apply enough pressure to the Americans, we can get them to buckle, and once that happens, they will pull their troops back from Europe. Then the Europeans will truly be on their own and we’ll be able to finish them off.” President Fradkov spoke with a certain giddiness that only comes from assured victory.