“Our forces in the EU continue to stay in a state of high alert. The bases are also receiving additional security from the EU, so we are confident they are as secured as they can be,” said General Branson.
“Well, I’m glad the EU is finally doing something to protect our people and buildings from their unruly mob,” said the President.
“We have moved close to 300,000 troops to Italy and Germany. Our biggest challenge is getting those troops into Israel. We do not have full air supremacy over Israel. We’ve had to focus on using only military cargo aircraft to bring in reinforcements — it has slowed down the number of reinforcements we can send each day. Nine civilian aircraft were shot down over the past four days, trying to break through; no pilot is willing to take the chance now,” said General Rice, the Air Force Chief of Staff.
“General Rice, how many troops a day are we sending into Israel right now?” asked the President.
“We are flying in 13,000 reinforcements a day. I would also like to add that we have lost sixteen C17s and four C5s; roughly 4,000 troops were killed. We just are not able to get enough reinforcements to the front,” said Rice.
“V Corps just arrived at the port of Ashdod; they are offloading their equipment as we speak. They have been under a lot of artillery and rocket fire, slowing the offloading of equipment. The equipment and troops that are offloaded are immediately being moved to General Gardner’s Command,” explained Admiral Juliano, reading from his tablet.
General Gardner broke in to add, “As these troops are becoming available, I am filtering them into the frontline where they are needed. It will still take several days to unload their equipment. I’m feeding most of the Corps into the frontline as infantry for the time being.”
“Mr. President, I know you are aware of how dire the situation is here in Israel. If we are not able to get more reinforcements to Israel within the next 24 to 36 hours, I am not confident we are going to be able to hold onto Northern Israel and Tel Aviv. If we lose Tel Aviv, the Army will have to pull back to Be’er Sheva and Gaza,” said General Gardner with a worried yet tough look on his face.
“General Wade, what is your opinion on the situation?” asked the President.
“I have to agree with General Gardner, Mr. President. If we continue to try and hold Northern Israel and Tel Aviv without reinforcements, General Gardner’s force may be cut off from the rest of Israel and surrounded. Then it would only be a matter of time until they are wiped out,” said General Wade with a solemn expression.
“General Rice, what else can the Air Force do to improve the situation?” asked President Stein.
“Mr. President, we are in a tough position. The IR continues to move hundreds of thousands of troops to Israel. They have already lost over 300,000 troops and more keep coming. Presently, there are 540,000 IR troops fighting in Israel; the IDF has taken some horrific casualties too. The IDF have lost 154,000 troops; on our side, 31,235 soldiers and 18,432 sailors have given their lives in sacrifice to our country.”
“I know the losses are terrible, General Wade. What is the solution? How are you going to get more troops into Israel and stop the continued IR reinforcements?”
“The USS Intrepid battle group has arrived on station and we’ve moved another 600 fighter drones to Europe; most of them are now in Cypress. We are going to make a massive air assault that we believe will finally give us air superiority. I’ve ordered our strategic bombers to Europe as well; once we have air superiority, our bombers will begin attacking their reinforcements and supply lines. Of note is our cruise missile stockpile — it’s down to 37 % — I’ve ordered 12,000 additional cruise missiles to Europe, but it will drop our strategic reserves down to 28 %,” said General Rice.
“I’ve been in discussion with our cruise missile suppliers; they are now working 24/7 on producing more cruise missiles. They are even adding several new production lines to increase their production capacity,” said the SecDef, trying to ease concerns over the possibility of a munitions shortage.
“That is a whole other issue, getting the economy on a war footing. We knew a war was coming, but I do not believe we thought we would lose this many troops and equipment so fast. We are only eight days into the war and we are already running low on ordnance, infantry vehicles, tanks, aircraft and naval ships,” the President said with a bit of concern.
“Mr. President, there is still another issue we need to discuss. As you know, the country has been experiencing an incredible amount of cyber-attacks against the DOD and private industry. Some of the attacks have been going after the critical infrastructure, which is concerning,” said Mike Williams, the National Security Advisor.
“This is also becoming an issue for the DOD as well; we are starting to see equipment requests and orders for personnel being generated that are bogus. We have to divert manpower to address the issues from the cyber-attacks, which is hurting us in other areas,” said Eric Clarke, the Secretary of Defense.
“Where are these attacks emanating from?” asked Stein.
“We have tracked them to various organizations and groups within China. Most of them have some connection with the PLA,” said LTG Rick Scott, the Director of the DIA.
“Is this a potential precursor for something or are they trying to just take advantage of the situation?” asked the President with trepidation in his voice.
General Rick Scott’s parents had lived in China while working for an American company. General Scott had become fluent in the language and studied at the University of Beijing before obtaining his Master Degree from Yale through the Army ROTC program. General Scott believed the true threat to the US was Russia and the Islamic Republic, not China. This strong belief that China’s interests lie not with attacking the US but in stealing technology was blinding his perspective.
“From the DIA’s perspective, it does appear they may be up to something. The challenge with the Chinese is that over the past two years they have been conducting land and naval exercises in and around Taiwan and the South China Sea. These exercises have always been preceded by an increase in cyber-attacks, making it difficult for us to determine if this time there may be something more to the equation. The first few times, we certainly thought something was amiss; after four more exercises, we assumed it was part of their training drill,” General Scott said with an air of confidence.
“Mr. President, the problem I have with this assessment is that this time around they have more than doubled their number of ships and troops as part of this exercise. The more alarming part is that a PLAN Naval Task Force is conducting their exercise between Taiwan and Guam. My concern is that if this is not an exercise, but a prepositioning of forces, we could be hit pretty hard. We are in a weak position in the Pacific right now; if there were ever a time to invade Taiwan and assert dominion over the Pacific, this would be it,” asserted Admiral Lewis Juliano, the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO).
“The DIA has evaluated that as well, and we believe they are posturing. The Chinese economy has been growing immensely the last three years. Our repayment of our debt has left them flush with cash and our economic recovery has increased demand for their products. Our analysts do not believe the Chinese would be willing to throw away the American market by attacking our base on Guam or anywhere else.”
“They may take a risk and go for Taiwan, and if they do, there is little we can do to stop them. However, we believe that would be the extent of it,” General Scott insisted.
“Admiral, if we wanted to shift additional assets to the Pacific, what do we have available?” asked the President.
“Sir, we just pulled our third aircraft carrier from the Pacific and most of our naval assets are engaged in Indonesia. The most we could bring to bear would be eight additional submarines and two fighter drone squadrons. We have, at most, two battalions of Marines at Camp Pendleton we could move to Guam, but that is it,” explained Admiral Juliano.