I don't suppose it would ever occur to you, Unni, that Anglia's permitting the FSC to set its foreign policy, to the extent it does, is not in principle different from any state of the TU allowing the TU to set foreign policy? You cannot logically, in principle, complain about a state giving a portion of its sovereignty to another entity and then insist that it should give it to you instead.
But then, logic is not your strong suit, is it?
"What's done is done, Unni. No sense crying over it or wishing to undo it. What concerns me more is the FSC's next step."
"You really think they won't be content with knocking out Pashtia, Martin?" The commissioner looked rather horrified.
"I am certain they won't," Robinson answered. "When you have a rogue state running free there is no limit to the damage it can do."
Wiglan agreed, her head nodding slowly, sadly and silently. "And they simply refuse to take us as their equal, either," she added.
"Unni, I am not sure that the FSC considers even the UE to be quite their equal."
And there's another repetitive thought to give me indigestion; three hundred highly militarized million of the FSC lording it over half a billion sheep on Earth and the fifty million in Class Three or higher reduced to penury or worse.
While Unni knew it was likely true that the FSC held even the UE in contempt, she was sickened to hear a major figure from the mighty UE admit to it openly. She gave a gasp of horror, her hand flying to her mouth of its own accord.
"That's… that's terrible. How can they…"
"They can because they have us stymied, Commissioner. We can't do anything to them because they would do the same or worse right back to us. I'd be willing to sacrifice my fleet and, of course, myself in the cause of peace but when I consider the environmental damage…" He meant, of course, "nuclear winter." It's amazing how the local progressives can accept the concepts of humanocentric planetary warming and nuclear winter at the same time.
They should see that, even if true, the one is the cure for the other. Oh, well, not my job to educate them.
"Oh, my brave and selfless High Admiral, I know you would," Wiglan nearly swooned.
Robinson made a minor show of looking very brave and very selfless.
"This is especially bad," Robinson continued, "in that I am certain that the FSC intends once again to attack Sumer. I do so hope, Unni, that you and right thinking people like you will be able to keep the Tauran Union's hands clean in this filthy business."
"Many will participate no matter what the TU says," Wiglan muttered. And I feel so terrible about it, too.
"Then, Unni, you must do whatever it takes, not just you but your colleagues as well, to ensure that such participation is minimal and that whatever there may be along those lines turns out to be more albatross than ally."
High Admiral's Conference Room, UEPF Spirit of Freedom, Earth Date 5 January, 2514
"All told, Admiral Robinson, the FSC can muster nearly twentyfour divisions' worth of troops. That's counting their militia organizations, which are considerably better trained, organized and led than the usual militia down below, their Regular Army and the Federated States Marine Corps."
Robinson regarded his strategic intelligence officer, a Class Two named Henkin, bleakly. All of Earth could not muster half of that, and those would be underequipped and badly trained. His own few battalions' worth of security troops hardly counted on that scale.
Seeing the admiral's bleak look, the strategic intelligence analyst hastened to add, "But not all of those are useable, few can be logistically supported in the theater of war you believe the Federated States is contemplating, and almost forty percent are part time militia, not particularly suitable for either a short and intense war or a long drawn-out, low-intensity one."
"That hardly matters, Henkin," answered the fleet's tactical intelligence officer, Commander Spiro, as he tapped a pen on the table. "The Sumeris are rotten, even more rotten-and far less well equipped-than they were the last time. Four divisions of FSC troops-five, tops-plus maybe one from Anglia, would be more than enough to knock them over. I think they could do it with three, myself."
"I don't disagree about needing only three or four divisions for a successful invasion," Henkin admitted. "We could quibble over the number but why bother? It is afterwards that they'll need more troops, not just to wreck and defeat a fairly worthless army but to control a fairly numerous people. And there is where they'll have problems. Those roughly twenty-four divisions you mentioned are the equivalent of fifteen regular and nine militia. The fifteen regular can be counted on to sustain at most five divisions fighting. The militia's nine might give one division's worth, or perhaps one and a half, on continuous deployment. That's a total of six to six and a half useable divisions. Of those, one will continue to be needed in Pashtia. And Spiro, Admiral… five will not be enough."
"So you think, then, that the FSC will not invade, Henkin?" Robinson asked.
Henkin's face was set and sure. "They have the same data I do, Admiral. Perhaps they have better data. I don't see how they would unless they somehow felt they absolutely had to. Yes, I say this even though a lodgment in Sumer gives them access to major oil fields in every direction. The risk is simply too great."
"I wonder what would make them feel they absolutely had to," wondered the Admiral, idly.
Atlantis Base, Earth Date 17 May, 2514
"It's the only way I can see, Unni, to prevent this war. The FSC must be convinced that the Republic of Sumer has nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Otherwise, the Federals are certain to invade."
"But do they have those weapons, Martin?"
"My people think they might," Robinson answered, truthfully. Indeed, the Republic of Sumer might also have time travel and the fountain of youth, though both seemed about as unlikely. There was no reason to burden the commissioner with doubts, however, or none that the high admiral could see.
"They might," he repeated, "and the dangers of letting that particular genie out of the bottle are too great not to do everything in our power to prevent even what 'might' happen."
"I see that," Wiglan agreed, though she really didn't. "But what can I do? I'm just the commissioner for culture; I'm not in one of the military or intelligence branches of the TU."
"You know many people who are in those branches though, don't you, Unni? You have access to them, and through them to national intelligence services."
"Yes," she agreed. "I know them… at least slightly, I do. You understand that we in the… softer services have as little to do with the military and intelligence as possible."
"Yes, Unni," Robinson answered, "and that is, normally, proper. But in this one case-"
"I'll do it," she burst out. "For you and peace and the eventual creation of true global governance, I'll do it."
Excursus
From Baen's Encyclopedia of New and Old Earth, Old Earth Edition of 2497 (442 AC)
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