Turning to look at Monty, the President directed, “Monty, arrange for a special science briefing with the Professor to bring us up to speed on some of the new technologies they have been working on. Let’s see if we can do this sometime next week. Also, gentlemen, this meeting that you will be invited to will be “eye’s only.” No aides, no notes and no recording devices,” the President said secretively.
A chorus of “Yes Sir” could be heard as the President turned back to General Branson. He wanted to continue with the briefing. “Gentlemen, we have limited resources right now; we need to figure out how we are going to defend Alaska and British Columbia. If the Chinese are able to establish a base of operations and a foothold there, they will flood troops and material in by the millions, positioning them to invade the rest of the country. We need to buy time until we can produce more military equipment and get more recruits through training” the President directed.
General Branson pulled up some maps of some different areas in Alaska and began to address the group, saying, “We may need to give ground to buy more time. We can plan on putting up one blistering attack and try to prevent the initial landings, but if they are successful then we will need to pull our forces back and try to turn this into an asymmetrical war of attrition. We are building multiple layers to our defensive lines throughout Alaska and British Columbia, but as you know, the blizzards have been hampering this effort a lot.”
“One good note — we have the training facilities up and running, turning out a hundred thousand soldiers a month for the South American Expeditionary Force. We anticipate having this force ready for deployment as its own Army by the end of summer. If the situation warrants it, then we can use them in Alaska instead of Europe,” General Branson said, sounding very optimistic about their chances in Alaska and the overall war effort.
“We still need to make a decision on Europe. Do we continue with our offensive in the spring or do we continue a defensive action and focus on Alaska?” asked the Secretary of Defense.
The President knew a decision about Europe and the Middle East needed to be made, so he took charge. “I want General Wade to hold off on his offensive. Tell him to hold in place. This will give the EU more time to grow their military and their military manufacturing capability. Use everything that we have to hold Germany and keep the Russians at bay. If General Wade believes he needs to launch a limited offensive to do that then he may, but unless the entire Russian front falls apart, he is to hold Germany and not get sucked into Eastern Europe. Tell General Gardner he is to proceed with his offensive. I want the IR knocked out of the war so we can focus on these other theaters. Once his heavy combat operations are done and it moves to an occupation, we can look to move some of his heavier armor units to Europe and bolster our forces there.”
Everyone in the room rose as the President stood up to leave the room, and quickly began putting into motion the plans they had just discussed.
Operation Red Dawn
The National Control Defense Center (NCDC) facility was just down the road from Red Square. The NCDC was a massive edifice that replaced the older Ministry of Defense building in the mid-2020s. This center could control all military activities around the globe and run the entire economy and country if need be. Once the world powers agreed to keep the war conventional, President Fradkov began to spend more and more time at the NCDC. The facility boasted a nuclear shelter in the basement, and was connected to a number of other critical locations throughout the city via underground tunnels as well.
The war for Russia in Europe and the Middle East was going about as well as they had hoped for up to this point. Russia had secured all of its former satellite countries, and was devastating the EU. The Americans may have stopped them at the German border, but that would change with the coming summer offensive. In the meantime, the MiG40s were causing havoc among the Allied air forces. The only thing preventing Russia from having full control of the skies was the limited inventory of MiG40s available.
The allies were slowly figuring out how to track and identify the new MiGs, which had led to several of them being shot down. For the moment, Russia controlled the high altitude fight (everything above 15,000 feet). Below that level, the Doppler radars the Americans had would guide the laser defense systems or railguns in the area to their location. Fortunately, the MiG could also carry six guided bombs, enabling them to attack Allied laser and railgun systems from a high altitude. If the radars on the lasers or railguns could detect the bomb fast enough, they could engage and destroy it; however, the percentage of successful hits was typically around 30 %, still making the effort to attack them more than worth it.
President Mikhail Fradkov walked into the War Room in the basement of the Kremlin to discuss the war effort, the summer offensive and the Alaskan invasion: Operation Red Dawn. “Generals, please be seated. We have a lot to discuss, so let’s get to it. How are the invasion plans going with the Chinese?”
General Gerasimov, the head of the Russian military began his brief. “We have eight additional troop carriers and two roll-on roll-off transports at our port in Vladivostok. We have 1,800 Main Battle Tanks (MBT) and 2,400 light drone tanks in port ready to go. The plan calls for the Chinese to conduct a massive missile and air attack for several hours before the invasion starts, in order to pound the American positions a bit before the landings.”
“We have 300,000 troops ready to go when the Chinese are ready to move. Operation Red Dawn should start on May Day, 1 May. The Chinese plan on invading at nine different locations along the Alaskan coast, which will draw away most of the American air force. We believe we should have the upper half of Alaska secured by the end of summer, before most of it becomes impassable due to the weather. We will also be inserting several thousand Spetsnaz units throughout Alaska to attack their airfields, supply depots and critical communication nodes throughout central and northern Alaska.” The General spoke with an air of confidence that bordered on arrogance as several images of airfields and communication targets were shown.
With Operation Red Dawn starting to draw more resources away from the European theater, Sergei Puchkov, the Minister of Defense, needed to determine what they wanted to do in the Middle East. So he boldly interrupted the discussion, “—Generals, Mr. President, we need to discuss our strategy in the Middle East. Intelligence indicates the Americans are going to start a new offensive shortly, and prior to that happening we need to determine our strategy. Are we going to send more reinforcements and launch a counter offensive or are we going to withdraw our forces and use them somewhere else?”
President Fradkov had initially wanted to destroy the Americans and Israelis, but that had been proving harder to achieve than they had originally thought. The Middle East was starting to turn into a meat grinder and the question was — how much longer did Russia want to continue to fight in it? If the Americans had not committed so many troops to defending Israel, Russia never would have committed so many troops to the Middle East. At this point, the fight was forcing the Americans to have to battle on more fronts than they were effectively able to do.
“Generals, the fight in the Middle East is a fight we need to stay committed to as it ties down immense amounts of American resources. These are assets they cannot commit to Europe, or soon to our operations in Alaska. We will reinforce the 2nd Shock Army as appropriate. Is that understood?” questioned the President.