“That’s a fair question,” responded Petrov. He leaned forward in his chair. “While the West is building up their forces in Europe, significant challenges still need to be overcome if they are to remove my forces from Ukraine and the Baltic States. Even now, we’re starting to see the Americans buckle under the strain of fighting a multifront war. They had to sacrifice the Baltic States because they had to rush forces to Korea. Now they’re having to fight a much slower war of attrition in Korea because they cannot commit their entire military to that fight without conceding defeat in Europe. Likewise, they can’t commit to defeating my forces in Europe because they’re heavily engaged in Korea.”
Petrov paused for a second, letting some of that information settle before continuing, “Gentlemen, we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The Americans and the West are realizing that they’ve overextended themselves and are unable to respond to everything that is being thrown at them. If there were ever a time to remove the Americans from the world stage, it’s now, before they can fully retool their economy and rebuild their military. We must put them down for the count now, or we may never get another chance like this again.”
Overwhelmed
A steward brought in a fresh pot of coffee to the President’s war council, which had been hard at work in the Situation Room through most of the night. They had been sifting through the latest intelligence summary from the Bangkok Embassy on this secretive meeting that had been held in Xi’an. From what they had gathered, it wasn’t looking good for the Allies. Tom McMillan, the National Security Advisor, had spent an hour on the phone with the Bangkok station chief, going over what had transpired during Thai Prime Minister Nopparith’s secret meeting in China.
The Thais were very concerned about what had been transpiring in Southeast Asia. One by one, the People’s Liberation Army had acquired their neighbors, and they knew it was only a matter of time before the Chinese turned their attention on them. In addition to the enormous tourist value of Thailand, they also had rich, fertile farmland and a strong manufacturing base — all economic motivations for these other nations to try and control the country. When the Chinese government had requested the PM’s presence in Xi’an, Thai officials had reached out to the US embassy and asked for help. The station chief had suggested employing a very sophisticated and highly undetectable listening device, to be placed on the PM during the meeting so the information could be relayed back to the Allies.
As Tom McMillan skimmed through the transcript, he began to feel like a knot was forming in his stomach. Things were much worse than he had anticipated. If the new alliance were to be formed, he wasn’t sure how the Allies could ever win the war. “The boss is going to go through the roof when he learns about this,” he thought.
Admiral Peter Meyers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, had been trying to wait patiently for McMillan to say something, but he was getting a little impatient. “So, Tom, what are your thoughts on this ‘secret’ meeting?” he asked. He poured himself another cup of coffee, knowing that it was going to be a late night.
“It’s not good,” McMillan replied bluntly. “If these plans really do come to fruition, then this war is going to drag on for a lot longer than we initially thought… I mean, we just averted a disaster in Korea, and we finally solidified the front lines in Europe, but there’s only so much we can do with the resources we have.”
Admiral Meyers took a swig of his coffee to give him a second to calculate his response. “The boss isn’t going to like this. We’re going to need to go ahead and expand the military a lot more than we already have. Whether we like it or not, the war is spreading. Not only that, but we’re also tearing through our war stocks of equipment and our reserve forces faster than we can replace them.”
McMillan sighed. “The President isn’t going to want to hear that, Peter,” he said in frustration. “He’s going to tell you that you asked for a five-million-man army and he’s given you that. If you try to go back now and ask for more troops, he’s going to take a lot of heat in the press and with Congress.”
“That may be so, but it doesn’t change the reality on the ground,” Meyers asserted. He held up the transcript. “If even half of this is true, we’re toast. How in the heck are we supposed to defeat China, Indonesia, and India if they mobilize their populations and declare total, all-out war on us? Add the Iranians to the picture, and now we have the Middle East to consider. We haven’t even talked about our current forces still operating in Afghanistan — those poor guys have been almost completely neglected since the start of the war. We need to get our forces out of Afghanistan now, before they become trapped there.”
Before they could continue their conversation, Jim Castle, the Secretary of Defense, walked into the room with a couple of his aides. Judging by the scowl on his face, he wasn’t happy. Jim was probably the most dominant person in the President’s cabinet. Since the outbreak of the war, his prominence in the White House and media had only increased, and so had his influence with the President.
Holding his own copy of the transcript, he slapped it down on the table and bellowed, “This better be fiction I’m reading!” He fixed each of them with a steely gaze, waiting for them to explain the transcript.
McMillan held up a hand in protest. “Perhaps you should sit down, Mr. Secretary. This is the unvarnished intelligence we just obtained from the Thailand station chief. We’re still sifting through it ourselves, and our staffs are still working through the implications of this.”
Secretary Castle looked past McMillan to Jedediah “JP” Perth, the Director of the CIA, who had been sitting against the back wall of the room, talking quietly with one of his analysts. “Is this the big news out of China you mentioned was headed our way a couple of days ago?” Castle demanded.
JP just nodded. “I’d hoped it wouldn’t be quite this bad. We’re pinging all our sources in the affected countries, trying to determine if this is really happening, or if these nations were just agreeing to this out of fear of military retaliation if they said no. I’m hoping for the latter, because if that’s the case, then we may be able to work around this development and turn it to our advantage,” he offered.
Sighing deeply as he took his seat, Castle replied, “We need to all get on the same page with this when the President arrives. He’s going to want answers, not more questions.”
The group sat there silently for a few minutes, thinking about that. This Xi’an accord was not something they had anticipated. The casualties from the war and the loss of equipment were far beyond what the country had experienced for many generations, hitting the country like a punch to the gut. During this last major battle in Korea, nearly sixteen thousand Americans had been killed in only two weeks of combat. The viciousness of the battles was horrific. In this GoPro generation of soldiers, raw combat footage was constantly being uploaded to social media, despite the attempts by the defense department to keep soldiers from doing it. Those videos were having a terrible impact on the psyche of the country.
A couple of minutes later, President Patrick Gates and his Chief of Staff, Retired Army General Liam Greeson, walked into the room. Everyone stood, silently waiting for the President to signal for them to take a seat. Gates stood at the head of the table for a second, surveying the faces of his war council. It was pretty obvious that no one was feeling especially optimistic.