Operation Red Dawn and the Siege of Europe

Changing Tactics

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Branson, had been discussing the casualties and the state of the war in Alaska with Eric Clarke (the Secretary of Defense) for close to half an hour before the start of the national security meeting with the President. Slowly, other members of the President’s national security team were filtering in with their aides in tow. They were reviewing their portions of the brief with their aides as they prepared for the grilling the President usually put his team through. Henry Stein was usually tough but fair in the meetings; he wanted unfiltered information about the situation on the ground. He typically did not get directly involved in the minutia of decisions, but he certainly wanted a clear picture of what was happening. Having served in the Second Iraq war and worked in the Department of Defense for many years before starting his own business, he had an adept understanding of the complexities involved in both fighting a war and the bureaucracy of managing one.

In the Oval Office, President Stein sat in his chair talking with his Chief of Staff, Michael Montgomery (or “Monty” as he was usually called). They had been talking about domestic priorities and issues with Jeff Rogers, the Senior White House Economic Advisor, and Secretary of Treasury, Joyce Gibbs, before the National Security meeting. Secretary Gibbs had been reviewing the state of the economy.

“As you know, Sir, the US has been experiencing exponential growth the past five years since you have taken office. The America First Corporation (AFC) has been a boon for the U.S.A. As millions of Americans have been hired for reconstruction and infrastructure jobs all over the nation, the country has begun to turn around.” Jeff reviewed various charts and metrics with more detailed information, and Henry couldn’t help but start to daydream during the explanation. The President had established AFC to become a sort of sovereign wealth fund for the country, allowing it to leverage the various resources on federal lands all across the country. The money being generated by AFC was being used to shore up Social Security and help fund other aspects of the federal government in addition to providing hundreds of thousands of jobs. AFC was the only company allowed to mine and drill on federal land. They also planted fruit and nut trees along federal freeways and highways all across the country. It beautified the highways across America and again provided tens of thousands of jobs and tens of millions of tons of food a month.

Monty brought his boss back to reality as he asserted, “The economic news is good, Mr. President. Despite the draft and the fighting in Alaska, the economy continues to remain strong.”

“The economy is doing well enough, but we are still not producing enough materials needed for the war. The fighting in Alaska is chewing through equipment at a faster rate than we can replace it. The Russians are picking up their offensive again in Europe and General Gardner wants to invade the IR,” responded the President with a sigh as he sank a little deeper in his chair.

Knowing that getting depressed about the situation was not going to make it any better, the President quickly readjusted to a better thinking posture, resolving himself to find a solution. “I believe we are starting to run late for the National Security briefing; let’s head down and see what they have for us. When we are done, I want to return back to this discussion and figure out how we can increase manufacturing.”

“Yes Mr. President,” they responded.

Henry stood up and began to walk towards the door.

Monty quickly followed the President out of the Oval Office and was thinking about that very question. The auto-industry had retooled their manufacturing plants months ago to crank out tanks and other armored vehicles at a record rate. The massive transition to additive manufacturing was starting to revolutionize the entire manufacturing sector. The U.S. could mass produce the materials needed to build a fighter drone in less than ten days. The goal was to get that number down to five. General Motors was working on being able to do the same thing with most of the component parts for the Pershing battle tanks and other infantry fighting vehicles. America just needed time to make the tools needed to win this war.

The President strode into the Situation Room, signaling for everyone to stay seated as he walked to the head of the table and sat down. As Monty took a seat next to him, he began, “Let’s talk domestic issues first if we can, then transition to the war.” As he spoke, the President looked towards Jorge Perez, the Director for Homeland Security. At meetings like this, the President would often “call an audible,” changing the order of the agenda; this forced everyone to be ready to give their portion of the briefing at any given time.

Jorge Perez had been the Director for Homeland Security since the President first formed his cabinet. He probably would have retired at the end of President Steins first term to slow down and take a job in the private sector, but the terrorist attacks had become a blight in the country, and then the war broke out, and he felt he could not leave his position at such a critical moment. “Mr. President, we have identified ninety-three additional foreign intelligence operatives across the country. Most of them worked for the Russians, with a few belonging to China. They were probably activated once the invasion began.” As Director Perez spoke, several slides were shown with images of the more valuable individuals that had been detained.

“Most of the detainees were in the process of committing some act of economic or military sabotage to our forces operating in Alaska or British Columbia. We are working with the FBI to obtain as much information from them as possible about their plans as well as the names of any other individuals they may be working with,” Perez said as he nodded towards FBI Director Jane Smart in acknowledgement.

Director Smart took her cue to continue. “As of right now, we have identified a couple of additional people they had contact with. The Trinity Program identified them, and we moved in as soon as the information was vetted. We have added several new names and search parameters to the program, so we should start to see some additional leads in the coming days.”

Switching topics, Jane continued, “As to the protesters, we are seeing an uptick in demonstrations against the war across a number of major cities and metropolitan areas. By and large they are peaceful; the individuals who do try to incite violence are quickly being identified and if they were not actively engaged in felony crimes, they are given a choice between jail time and serving in the military. With such a high percentage of young people in the military or working, we are not seeing as many people on the streets as we have in the past.”

The President thought for a moment before responding, “Thank you Jorge and Jane. I know these are trying times. I appreciate your efforts in continuing to maintain the peace and protecting the civilian populace. Let’s move on to the war updates then.”

General Branson took this as his cue to start his portion of the brief and brought up the holographic display of the Alaskan theater of operations. “Mr. President, the situation in Alaska continues to be precarious and fluid at the moment. The Chinese have fully secured the Aleutian Peninsula, and have begun construction of dozens of airfields as well as reconstruction of the various port facilities they’ve captured. We are now starting to see a steady stream of aircraft and drones being flown in from China to these new airfields and a proportional increase in the number of air sorties against our own forces. Our satellites have also spotted several large troop and equipment transports heading to Alaska, so it would appear their second wave of reinforcements is now in transit,” the General explained as he brought up images of the convoy.

“Our forces on Kodiak Island officially surrendered five hours ago. The commanding general and his forces held the island for two weeks, inflicting significant casualties-”

The President interrupted, asking, “-How many of our soldiers surrendered?”

“About 11,400 in all; the rest of the force was killed in action. We anticipate the prisoners being moved back to China in the near future,” Branson said.

“General, see if the Chinese would entertain a prisoner swap. We have nearly 209,000 Chinese prisoners from the Middle East; see if they are willing to swap prisoners at say, 5:1, but go no higher than 7:1. If we can get our soldiers back, I want to get them back,” the President directed.

“Yes, Mr. President,” Branson replied as he nodded towards one of his aides who made a note of the request. Next, the general brought up the images of Anchor Point, Homer and Seward. “Mr. President, as you can see, the Chinese have secured most of the Anchor Point Peninsula, but not before suffering heavy casualties. The 32^nd infantry was assigned to defend the beaches and the towns of Homer and Seward. We held the Chinese at the beach for nearly six hours before they finally broke through the first line of defense. It took them a full day to break through the second line of defense and three more days to break through the third line. They have been battling now for nearly ten days at our fourth line of defense.”

Eric Clarke, the Secretary of Defense, interjected at this point saying, “The Chinese are taking horrific casualties, yet they continue to steamroll through our force. We estimate the PLAN naval infantry, which led the invasion, have lost nearly 120,000 soldiers killed, wounded or missing in the last fifteen days. The PLA has landed about 130,000 soldiers on the Peninsula now and that number grows by 30,000 a day. On the Aleutian Peninsula they have landed nearly 350,000 soldiers, as well as a large portion of their armored forces.”

The President saw the concern on Eric’s face and could see the others in the room were troubled as well. “Everyone, we knew going into this that the Chinese would sacrifice tens of thousands of soldiers, maybe even hundreds of thousands, in order to gain a foothold in North America. Our plan has always been to make them bleed and sacrifice land for time. Nothing has changed. We all have to remember that now that the Chinese are fully committed in Alaska (and the Russians too for that matter), the logistical war is now going to come into play. The Russians and Chinese have a limited sealift capability. They can only move so many men and material to Alaska and their other fronts. This capability is going to become strained and as it does, that is when we are going to start to cripple them.” The President knew that the American Navy was going to have to shoulder the larger burden of stopping the Chinese.

Seeing as the topic had shifted to his area of expertise, Admiral Juliano, the Chief of Naval Operations, spoke up. “Sir, we believe we have identified the problem with our new torpedoes and they have been fixed. Our two Swordfish Underwater Drones (SUDs) have successfully maneuvered to our naval facility in Washington and are being refitted with the updated Hammerhead torpedoes. They will soon be back on their way to Alaska and the Chinese supply lines. Our intent is to use them to specifically go after the Chinese roll-on, roll-off transports and the larger commercial shipping container ships that they are using to transport fuel and munitions. Each sub can carry eight torpedoes, and we are confident these subs will start sinking ten to sixteen ships a month, maybe more.”

“When do the additional SUDs start to come on line, Admiral?” asked Monty.

“We will have a total of ten SUDs by the end of the year, and that number will triple the following year.”

The President changed the topic of conversation to ask, “So, what is the situation with the Russians in northern Alaska?”

General Branson brought up a new set of holographic images, displaying the Russian advances. “Like the Chinese, the Russians have advanced off of the beaches and are starting to move inland. We have pulled most of our troops back to their secondary defensive positions. As the Russians advance, they are going to encounter a series of fortified positions, blocking every major avenue into the heart of Alaska on their way towards Fairbanks. The Marines are keeping them busy in the artic portion of Alaska and will be heavily engaged in central Alaska.”

“Our ground operations are going as expected; the first several days were a bit rocky but as planned and predicted, things are turning out just as we thought they would with the exception to the air campaign. Our loss at Eielson hurt. We have fortunately kept the Chinese and Russian air assets from attacking the base while we rebuild the drone squadrons. We’ve also expanded drone operations at three different airbases in the U.S.; they will soon start to participate in a lot more air operations in Alaska.”

“We’ve flown in 350 additional fighter drones and another 130 F22s to Eielson. We have successfully regained control of the skies over central and arctic Alaska. We are building two new drone airbases at Whitehorse in the Yukon territory; these new bases will be solely drone bases, with the fighter pilots operating out of bases in the southern States. This will minimize the potential loss of our critical pilots.”

“All right, General Branson, we are starting to get a little deeper into the weeds than I would like to go at the moment. I’ll leave the rest of the details to you and your fellow generals. I just want to know that our strategic plan is still on track, and it appears that it is. How are things fairing in the Middle East with General Gardner and his forces?” asked the President.

“General Gardner’s forces have been consolidating all along the Israeli/Jordan border. They have successfully secured all of Lebanon and captured Damascus. Now they are starting to push out and secure the rest of Syria and plan on stopping near the Turkish border. The Israelis are ready to move on Amman and push the IR forces there back. Right now they are waiting for General Gardner and his staff to finalize the next offensive plan and occupation strategy. I’ve talked with General Gardner at length, and he believes Third Army and the nearly 800,000 IDF forces could capture Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq before the end of the year. The question is-do we want them to move forward with this offensive or hold in place?” asked General Branson.

“What are everyone’s thoughts on this?” asked the President, wanting to get a consensus.

Mike Williams, the President’s National Security Advisor, spoke first saying, “We need to finish the IR off. They started this war and are responsible for millions of civilians killed across the country. Not to mention the two nuclear devices in Baltimore and New York City. If we leave them alone, we only allow them time to rebuild their country with help from the Chinese, and they will once again be a problem for us. We need to crush them now while they are weak and getting weaker by the day.”

Jim Wise, the Secretary of State, added, “I agree with Mike. We need to finish our war with the IR. Before General Gardner and the Israelis attack, we could make one final offer to the IR leadership to surrender. I am not certain they would accept it, but if we can convince them to surrender, we could bring the war with them to an end much sooner without losing tens of thousands of additional soldiers.”

The Director of the CIA, Patrick Rubio, spoke next, “The IR is in complete disarray. They are trying to hold down the country as best they can right now, but with power knocked out across most of the republic and communications limited, they are starting to lose control of the country. They are maintaining most of their military force around Amman, which is keeping them from using valuable resources to restore control to the rest of the country. I believe if we were to offer them terms of surrender they can live with, we could get them to accept it.”

“What are the terms you suggest we offer them?” asked the President, his curiosity now peaked.

“They are in desperate need of food; we could offer them a few hundred tons of food a month for, say three years, while we work with them on demilitarizing their economy and country. They would be allowed to maintain a military force for defensive purposes, but we would remove their ability to wage war beyond their borders. We would also remove their nuclear weapons and other WMD capabilities as well as their ability to produce these types of weapons,” Director Rubio said.

“I believe if we approached some of the senior military commanders, we may be able to convince them to remove Mohammed Abbas, particularly if we offer them this deal and perhaps some cash on the side. It would be best if we could get the regime to implode from within via an internal coup; that would be better than continuing the war and losing more soldiers and equipment,” Rubio said as he sat back in his chair waiting for the counter-arguments to be made. It did not take long.

General Branson cleared his throat before speaking. “I have to disagree with Director Rubio. We need to so thoroughly crush the IR that they will never challenge us again or Israel. If we support a coup, all we swap out is a radical theocracy for a military junta that will re-arm and rebuild to challenge us again in another decade. No, we need to absolutely crush them and then remove their ability to wage war again,” Branson stated passionately as he surveyed the room.

The President looked at the faces of everyone at the table before speaking, “There is merit in both of your ideas and we should look at both options. General Branson, continue with the military option. Pound the tar out of them from the air and continue to do what you can to make their lives as miserable as possible. Director Rubio, put out some feelers and see if any of their senior military leadership may be open to a potential coup. I want to look at both options Gentlemen.”

“Let’s move on to Europe. Where do we stand?” asked the President, wanting to move the meeting forward.

General Branson changed the maps on the holograph display. The portions of Europe that were Allied territory were colored in light blue, and the area controlled by the Russians was a light red shade. At different points on the map there were designations for the various units that were fighting, as well as information about how they were doing in their most recent skirmishes.

“Mr. President, General Wade is looking to orchestrate one of the largest tank battles since World War II, just west of Berlin. His goal is to lure them in and deal a decisive blow, knocking them back to Poland or even the Ukraine.” Branson showed the plans for the upcoming battle as he talked.

He continued, “It’s a tricky battle as our forces do not have full air supremacy over the battlefield. Once the Russian army is fully committed, General Wade plans on using the bulk of his A10 Warthogs and Razorbacks to attack the enemy tank formations before committing all of his Pershings and M1A5 Abrams. While his forces are conducting a full frontal assault against the Russian lines, Field Marshal Schoen will lead his Panzer divisions in a massive attack against the Russian southern flank. The British and French armor units will attack the Russian northern flanks. If they are successful, they will have effectively destroyed the Russian armored forces in Europe.”

The President asked, “What happens if they are not successful? How will this affect our forces in Germany?”

Knowing this question was coming, General Branson brought up General Wade’s alternate scenario on the display. “Mr. President, as you can see here, our forces would be in a tough spot, and so would the rest of the Germans, French and British. We may end up losing most of Germany.”

“Yet General Wade believes this is the best course of action?” asked Mile Williams, the National Security Director.

“If our forces stay on defense, then they will be assaulted and be in a constant state of reacting to the Russians, rather than forcing the Russians to react to our attack. The Pershings are an incredible offensive weapon, but remaining still has made them sitting ducks against the MiG40s.” Branson showed some images of Pershings that had fallen prey to the attacks of the MiGs before he continued, “The General wants to get them into the war where they can do some good, rather than continue to lose a steady stream of them daily to high altitude bombing runs.”

The President knew his military commanders were chomping at the bit to go on the offensive. America had been attacked mercilessly the last nine months and had suffered some horrendous losses-not to mention the nuclear bombs detonating in New York and Baltimore. However, the military was stretched incredibly thin right now. With the new offensive happening in Alaska, it was going to be difficult to contain the Chinese there, let alone keep an offensive line in both the Middle East and Europe replenished with fuel, munitions, food, equipment and replacement troops. The country was still retooling for war, and it was going to take time to draft and train a several million-person military from scratch.

“General Branson, I understand the issue facing General Wade and his forces in Europe. I appreciate the effort that went into developing these plans and the effort that has been made to position forces for this trap. However, I want General Wade to keep his offensive on hold. He may conduct limited offensive operations as needed to keep the Russians from penetrating his lines, but nothing more. Right now, we cannot afford to take a chance on losing most of Germany. The EU countries need time to continue to mobilize their forces and the Germans need time to crank out their new battle tanks and other military vehicles. We simply do not have the resources available to support his offensive right now,” the President explained.

He continued, “With the operations going on in Alaska, nearly all of our new soldiers coming out of training and our equipment coming from the factory floors is going to General Black’s forces. That said, I do want General Gardner to continue with his offensive against the IR. Unless Director Rubio is able to work out some sort of deal with their military leadership, General Gardner should continue as planned and move to occupy the country. What additional forces do we have available to send him right now?” asked the President.

General Branson looked through his tablet and pulled up some information. “We have three divisions completing their final train-up and equipment loadouts. We were going to send them to General Black’s group in Alaska. One is a tank division while the other two are mechanized infantry divisions.”

“What forces will General Gardner need most right now for his offensive?” asked the President.

“Presently, he has the needed forces for his offensive; if we send him additional reinforcements, it will help him during the occupation. I recommend sending him the two mechanized infantry divisions. He has armor but he’ll need more infantry if he is to capture and hold territory,” Branson explained.

“Then redirect those two divisions to the Middle East and get that tank division to Alaska,” the President directed before continuing, “Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve kept everyone here long enough. Please execute your orders and be ready to provide an update tomorrow at the same time.”

With that, the meeting ended.

Dr. Travis Perino had a home in Baltimore before the nuclear attack. If he closed his eyes, he could still picture the beautiful view of the harbor during the summer (he would often walk there with his dog after a long shift). When the bomb was detonated, he had been on vacation in Jamaica, so he had survived, but his condo, his co-workers, his dog… everything was destroyed. It felt strange to him to not be able to go back and see it for himself; he understood that the radiation was dangerous and that “closure” was probably not the best reason for him to grab a HAZMAT suit and head to ground zero, but still, he wanted to mourn what was lost in a better way than watching news coverage of the event.

As a psychiatrist, Dr. Perino felt that he had something to offer to those that survived this horrible tragedy, so he left his tropical paradise on the first flight out and headed to Richmond, Virginia, which was one of the major hubs where the injured were being taken. Many were clearly in a state of shock, so overwhelmed by their experience that they couldn’t even function. In such cases, Travis would sit by the patient and calmly reorient them to where they were; he did have a way of speaking to people that would bring a sense of peace, and he didn’t rush any of the patients that were unable to speak. They would begin to recover with time and reassurance.

He worked with the nurses to lower the stimuli in the rooms for some of the more distressed patients; all of the beeping from IV machines, lights and general noise from so many people rushing about was quite distressing. Like many who enter a “caring” field, he poured himself out for those around him, never stopping to think about his own needs. It was only at the end of the day, when he was all alone in a hotel room and everything was quiet, that he would fall into a pool of his own grief.

Months later, he was still caring for those who had been affected by this terrible tragedy. He had stayed in Richmond to set up his own practice there; now those he was seeing were mostly dealing with the ongoing effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The signs were obvious: recurrent flashbacks or nightmares, insomnia, a heightened state of alertness/guarding, and triggering events that caused the person to go into “fight or flight” mode. His father had been a veteran of the second Iraq War, so he had seen it all firsthand. It was actually part of what had made him want to become a psychiatrist in the first place.

Back then, his Dad had been treated by doctors at the Department of Veterans Affairs, who basically just shoved him full of pills and sent him on his merry way. However, those medications were not without their side effects, and his father would often complain of headaches or seem to space out in the distance, unable to focus on the people in front of him. Sometimes, the VA would mess up his medication shipment and he wouldn’t get his pills in time; those medicines aren’t meant to be stopped cold turkey, and his father would lash out like someone who is a mean alcoholic. One day his mother had enough of the whole thing, and the two of them split.

Dr. Perino wanted to be a different kind of doctor. Yes, psychiatrists can prescribe drugs to help heal the mind, and he did, but he would also work with his patients on other forms of therapy as well; eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) was probably the most useful treatment, but he also did cognitive behavioral therapy, taught coping strategies, and would generally do whatever it took to help get the patient back into a normal life again.

Listening to all of these stories of horrific experiences around Baltimore was taxing, however, and Travis had to do a lot of work with himself at the end of the day to let go of everything he had heard so that he would not hold on to it and carry it like a stone around his neck. He hadn’t always been a runner, but he took it up to help himself de-stress. When the breeze was blowing and there was a steady swish of his feet, he could almost entirely block out all of the tragic things that he had heard about. Otherwise, he usually had to have on some music or television shows of some kind to drown out the scripts of the truly awful things he heard from the survivors.

He almost hated to admit it, but he was glad that the U.S. had responded with all of those nuclear weapons. While he knew cognitively that resentment is like drinking poison and hoping that the other person will get hurt, he was truly angry over this unprovoked attack that had shattered the lives of so many. When he heard another story of a mother who lost her child in the blast while she went to work ten miles away, he wanted the IR to pay for their sins.

At the University of South Florida in Tampa, Dr. Rosanna Weisz had served a relatively quiet and happy life, finally achieving tenure as a humanities and history professor. The university had a greater need for teaching history classes, but it was really the humanities that made her excited to get up in the morning; she loved to pour over books about art history, poetry, and philosophy. She was a simple creature in many ways, finding great happiness in a good cup of coffee, an intellectual conversation or an impressionist painting. Two years ago she had lived out her ultimate dream when she was able to visit Claude Monet’s gardens in France and then backpack through Europe, taking pictures of many of the sites and historical places she had taught about for so many years.

Despite being a history professor, she had more or less stayed out of politics. She did vote, but she was not especially loyal to one party over the other, and she usually made her choices mostly on the basis of personal merit instead of how they aligned to a strict set of ideological standards. However, this war was changing her day by day.

Dr. Weisz had been utterly horrified when Baltimore and New York had been bombed; she immediately donated money to some relief funds and helped organize a blood drive at USF. She wished that she could do more, but she was not trained in any sort of first aid or counseling of any kind, and her skills in French and Latin weren’t going to be especially handy for this situation. She wasn’t exactly a part of any specific religion, but she considered herself to be spiritual, and believed in a higher power (even if she couldn’t quite agree that God was the deity described in the Bible); in her own way, she would pray for all those who were suffering.

When the United States retaliated against the Islamic Republic with nuclear weapons, she was not surprised; however, the scale of the response was beyond anything that she could have imagined. Rosanna was crushed at the sheer loss of human life, and the immense suffering that had become a plague on this planet. She did not believe that evil should beget evil. She began to think of all of the families on the other side of the world that had been crushed by the actions of the U.S. government, and though she was not often the type to cry, she set her head down on her desk and used up a few tissues with her tears.

As she composed herself and pulled her hair back out of her face, she saw an inspirational quote from Gandhi that she kept on her desk, “Be the change that you want to see.” She thought to herself, “What change do I want to bring? ” In that moment, she realized that she needed to work to prevent any future such tragedies from occurring in the world. She wanted to work to create policies that would garner more peace for the nation and the rest of the planet. Dr. Weisz did something in that moment that she had never done before, and decided to become more than just a casual participant in politics. She set to work on plans for a political movement towards peace.

For months now, this meek, normally quiet professor had been working in her downtime to organize marches and demonstrations. A friend of hers helped her to set up a website, and suddenly her thoughts were starting to gain some publicity and some traction. She was very careful to make sure that all of her events were peaceful and civil. Anything else would have defeated the purpose of her efforts. She always started any speech with the same line, “I want to thank you for being here today; I am very grateful to live in a country where we can love our nation and still disagree with our leadership.”