Director Rubio from the CIA asserted, “Our intelligence assets agree with this assessment as well. A lot of the hardliners that would have opposed this have either been bought off or killed by the IR. When asked, the average Iranian citizen believes a merger with the IR would benefit them, which means there will probably be little in the way of popular resistance to such a move.”
The President sat back in his chair and thought for a second. “What about our allies — Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, and Oman?” asked the President.
“As of right now, they are not merging into the Islamic Republic; however, we are fairly certain that the IR will at some point make a move to occupy them and bring them into the fold…. Our big question we have to ask is, ‘What do we want to do about it?’ What will be our position?” asked Eric Clarke, the Secretary of Defense.
President Stein replied quickly. “That is a good question gentleman, and one that I feel we need to figure out and soon. General Branson, do you feel our military forces would be adequate to defend our allies?”
“Sir, the with the relocation of the 5th fleet to Israel, and with no viable bases in the region, there is little we could do unless we were to deploy all of our carrier fleets and an invasion force to secure additional ports and airbases once the campaign would start. That said, our military forces have been seriously depleted over the last decade; we frankly do not have the military strength to get involved. We also lost our airbases in Turkey,” General Branson replied, sitting back in the chair with a sigh.
“Eric, I know you have only been the Secretary of Defense for a year now and I am going to be asking a lot of you. Right now we have a small budget surplus and have begun reducing our national debt; I want to start putting more money back into the defense budget. We have, what — six carrier battle groups right now and about 12 Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs) and another six more support brigades?”
“Yes, Mr. President. The Army stands at about 230,000 active duty troops. The Air Force is down to 160,000, the Navy is at 210,000 and the Marines are at 62,000… shells of what they used to be. We have moved most of our combat power into the National Guard and Reserve units because of funding issues,” replied Eric Clarke, the Secretary of Defense.
Eric Clarke had previously been the CEO of General Electric until the President asked him to take over as the Secretary of Defense (with the specific intent of modernizing the military while finding ways to reduce the military bureaucracy and waste). The US military was becoming outdated compared to the other global superpowers; technology had changed so much since the introduction of drones, exoskeleton combat suits and railguns. “Gentlemen, given the intelligence and the events of the last twelve months, I think we need to do a rapid rebuild of our military. Yesterday, Mike was briefing us about the increase in the Chinese military, particularly in their ability to now project power beyond just their territorial waters; they have fielded three new supercarriers and two small support carriers.”
“In the past two years, Russia has increased defense spending by over 400 % with their oil wealth. Russia, like the US, has been seeing their own resurgence in their economy; they are modernizing and growing their military at a rapid rate, and so are the Chinese. We cannot allow the United States to fall behind or be caught off guard.” The President had been worried about the ability of the American military to protect the country since receiving his first Presidential briefing after taking office. The last twenty years had seen a real decline in the military while many other countries had been increasing their own capabilities.
Eric could see the President was concerned and knew he had doubts about the military. “Mr. President, our military force is small but our capabilities are great. Our JF35 and F22 aircraft are still unrivaled in the air and our satellite and laser defenses are far above any other nation,” said Eric, trying to reassure his boss.
“Eric, all that means is we can keep a possible enemy from our shores; it does not mean the US has the ability to project any serious force abroad or protect our allies if needed. We need to not just spend money on defense, but spend money on the right type of military force.”
“What are you suggesting?” asked Mike.
“I believe we should move from six carrier battle groups to nine. I also want us to move from 12 BCTs to 26 and increase our mobile laser battery battalions and add additional Anti-Ballistic Missile Lasers (ABMLs) and airborne laser systems. I also want an increase in our cyber offensive and defensive capabilities. The wars that may be coming are wars that are going to be fought and won with the ability to neutralize an opponent’s ability to communicate globally and dominate the skies. We must make sure that America is able to meet that challenge.”
“That’s an ambitious goal, Mr. President, and also a very costly one. We would have to more than double the current defense spending, and it would take time to build up these forces,” Eric said while tapping away at his tablet.
Henry knew if anyone could turn the military around, it would be Eric. He was a master at turnarounds in the business world, and reforming the DOD was going to be critical to transforming the military into the 21st century fighting force it needed to become. “Gentlemen, I will speak with the leaders in the Congress and the Senate; after this last election, we now firmly control both houses, so I do not foresee a problem with increasing the defense budget. I also want these defense contractors held accountable for their programs. No more cost overruns and no spending billions of dollars for them to develop the weapon systems they think we need. We will give them the requirements and then we will let them show us what they can do to meet those requirements.”
“Sir, if you want to increase the budget, you certainly won’t get any disagreement from me. I’ll do my best to see that we meet your goals as soon as possible. I’d like to expand our drone program to include drone attack aircraft and light drone tanks. They are far less costly than manned aircraft and heavy tanks and a whole lot faster to produce in the quantities needed,” said Eric.
“All right, with that settled, let’s move on to Russia. Mike, we’ll come back to the Middle East problem later. Can you please present us the situation in Russia?”
“Yes, Sir. As we all know, the situation on the Russian borders has been deteriorating rapidly and it is our firm assessment that the Russians will probably escalate the situation in the Caucuses and probably along some of the ‘Stan’ countries as well,” said Mike.
“What do we anticipate the EU will say about this, or about the new Islamic Republic absorbing more African countries?” asked the President.
“As of right now, the EU will most likely put their forces on a high state of alert; the EU’s main concern is if the Russians decide to go further than their absorption of East Ukraine. As for the Islamic Republic, once they begin their unification process, they will be quite busy merging their military and government forces. Presently our military assessment is that the Russians will most likely look to absorb their formal satellite states and continue to retool their military before they would consider making a move against the EU, if they choose to. Right now, the EU is Russia’s second largest trading partner next to the Chinese; so despite tensions being high, we believe trade will keep the tension from escalating further,” Mike said.
The President postulated, “Eric, I believe this further reinforces our need to begin a build-up of our forces. We are going to need to be able to project power if we are to have any say in preventing any of these countries from escalating their conflicts and their expansionist ideas. Of particular concern are some of the water ways in Asia and the Suez Canal, where so much of the world’s shipping passes through.”