“Excellent, then please move forward with your plan, Jim.” The President smiled for the first time during the meeting.
Stein wanted to know what the situation was with the rest of Israel and with their government, and asked Secretary Wise to bring them up to speed, along with General Gardner.
Secretary Wise spoke first. “The Israeli government is still working out of Tel Aviv; they actually never left, and continued to stay put even during some of the heavier fighting taking place outside the city itself. They are still evacuating people from the country that are not part of the reserves to Cyprus and Italy.”
“Of note, several pro-Israeli paramilitary camps have sprung up in the US and Europe. In Europe, nearly 25,000 people have signed up to join these groups and receive military training before heading to Israel to help fight. Similarly, in the US, there have been an overwhelming number of people wanting to volunteer to go fight in Israel. Close to 200,000 have volunteered at these camps so far. Right now DHS is keeping them under a close watch, but is not actively saying they cannot support Israel in this manner.”
Before this conversation could go further the President interjected, “—Jorge, I want these groups left alone. If American Christians or American Jews would like to join these groups and fight for Israel, then please let them do so. I do want a full registration of who they are and when they leave, but no action is to be taken against them. Israel is a strong ally of ours, and if people wish to come to their aid, then they are free to do so. I would like to encourage them to join the military if they want to fight, but I will not have the government stand in the way of them joining Israel if they so choose. Is that understood by everyone?”
“Yes, Mr. President,” came the response, in unison.
“However, we will let the Israelis worry about how they are going to move them to Israel; that is something we will not divert our military efforts from to help,” the President added.
Changing gears again, the President asked, “General Gardner, what is the status of the Israeli army?”
General Gardner’s holograph appeared again and spoke, “They are still fighting. Once their entire reserve force was called up, their numbers swelled to over 600,000. They lost nearly 260,000 in the Jordan Valley and the fight for Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. We have most of their forces deployed now in Southern Israel on our right flank and in the center against Amman. The only Israeli units in the North in any serious numbers are several armor brigades. We want to crush the Russian armor units first, and then redeploy our armor units to the South to handle the Chinese. With the IR not looking like they are going to get really serious right now, it relieves a lot of pressure on our center.”
“With the additional reinforcements I’ve been receiving, my force now stands at 560,000. I still have 460 Pershing tanks and another 1,454 M1A5 tanks. I’m facing 4,500 Russian tanks and another 4,000 Chinese tanks, so the odds are a bit long but I think we can hold. Our equipment is better,” he added with confidence.
“General Gardner, do your forces have everything you need to defeat the Russian and Chinese army groups?” asked General Branson.
“Yes sir. We have everything necessary to hold Israel. If you want me to defeat them, I am going to need close to double the number of troops. As the Air Force is able to wrestle control from them, the situation will turn out a little better. Our big concern is making sure our supply lines are not cut off. The Russian Navy is going to start to run havoc on our shipping lanes if they break out of the Bosporus and the Aegean Sea. Before the Russians move into Istanbul, I want to drop an airborne brigade to secure the straights and then fill it to the brim with sea mines.”
Stein liked the idea of sending an airborne unit in to secure Istanbul. If they could secure it and mine the straights, they could bottleneck the Russian Black Sea Fleet before they would be able to break out and do some real damage. “I agree, General Gardner. Have a brigade secure the city and drop as many mines as we can spare into the straights. Let’s see if the Greeks will send some troops in and help us secure these targets,” the President ordered.
During the following three days, the battle lines in Europe and the Middle East changed dramatically. The Russians had secured most of Romania and laid siege to Bucharest. They captured the majority of Hungary, and were preparing to invade the Balkans. The Poles and Germans continued to hold the Russians around Warsaw, forcing a bloody house-to-house fight in the outskirts of the city. General Schoen was proving to be a worthy adversary for General Putin; the suburbs around Warsaw were being heavily destroyed as German and Polish soldiers fought for each house and block of the city. The Russian offensive had ground to a halt for the time being while they continued to advance around the city and try to cut it off.
With Istanbul being a virtual ghost town after the neutron bomb attack, US Forces and 30,000 Greek soldiers quickly secured the city before the Russians or the IR were able to get any serious forces there. Within 24 hours, the Allies were in complete control of Istanbul and began to heavily mine the straights. Dozens of railgun systems were also strategically placed in and around the city and the waterways. Unfortunately for the Americans, while the loss of Istanbul did hurt the Russians, the Reds already controlled several large ports on the Black Sea, so the defeat did not cripple their operations in the Middle East.
After moving in and securing Istanbul, the Greek soldiers began to clear the city of the dead. Every house and street was littered with dead bodies that were well into the decomposition state. The Greeks began to dig mass graves outside the perimeter to bury the dead. The soldiers tried to identify people as best they could. The ones that could be named were being given separate graves; the ones that couldn’t be were lumped into mass grave sites. It was a terrible job, but something that had to be done before disease began to run rampant throughout the city. 45,000 additional Greek soldiers arrived in Istanbul to assist in both establishing new defenses for the city and the clearing of the millions of dead bodies.
Greece also initiated a massive draft, and moved to arm roughly 500,000 men and women. They were going to receive roughly two weeks of basic training — just enough to learn how to shoot, identify rank and engage in basic infantry tactics — before they would be sent to shore up defenses in Turkey and their border with Macedonia and Albania. Serbia also began to arm tens of thousands of their civilians in an effort to defend their border with Hungary and Romania as the Russians continued to advance towards them.
As the Reds continued to move their army group through Syria and Lebanon, they eventually ran into the American Third Army. General Gardner’s troops were tired but they were battle tested and ready when the Russians arrived. Despite being outnumbered, the American Pershing tanks proved their weight in gold. The Reds controlled the high altitude air war, while the Americans controlled the lower altitude fight. This was both a blessing and a curse for the Americans; they were able to provide better ground support than the Russians, but the MiG40 was still able to drop precision bombs from high altitude, hitting critical targets and remaining largely immune to allied air defense systems for the time being. They managed to destroy a number Pershings, turning the ground war into a war of attrition rather than the fast moving mobile tank war Gardner had hoped for.
With the situation being bogged down in the North with the Russians, the Chinese launched their invasion of Southern Israel. Despite the heavy losses the Israelis had sustained, they were holding the line. The Chinese had not fought a serious foreign army thus far, so their troops were simply ill-prepared to fight a determined and battle-tested foreign army like the IDF.