by James Rosone
However, despite the last bit of bad news, Mohammed was impressed with Talal. He was a real mover and shaker and could get things done. Some things were understandably still a little out of reach.
“In a way, that was to be expected Talal. We may be able to approach the military alliance later on.”
The two men strategized on tactics of espionage in order to support their foreign goals. With the proper information, anything could be accomplished.
*******
2037 and 2038 saw tremendous growth in the US and a rebound of the economy, though numerous world governments and financial institutions were still angry about the new gold-backed NAD. The $45 trillion dollar US debt had just been reduced to $9 trillion NAD; however, it would still take a while to pay off. American First Corporation was starting to post profits near $60 billion a year and was growing fast, which was starting to offset a portion of the budget deficits. The change in currency also forced many other countries to back their currencies with gold or silver in order to have any chance of recovering from the Great Global Depression and the debt crisis.
With the world’s reserve currency revalued, numerous governments around the world were forced to do the same. The US had remonetized its debt at the expense of its debtors, affecting virtually every other major government. This caused an increased strain between central governments and various financial institutions that had, up to this point, heavily influenced the lending and holding of government debts. The US/China relationship had already been shaky since their incorporation of Mongolia in 2034 at the height of the Great Global Depression. Now the revaluation of the debt owed to China further stretched the already tense situation.
Despite the enormous challenges facing the US, there was an energetic sense in the air as people across America began to feel like things were finally turning around. Roads were being paved, bridges repaired, schools fixed and modernized, and tens of thousands of miles of high speed rail were being laid. People had jobs, and though they weren’t the highest paying jobs, they had a way to put money in their pockets again. People slowly began to spend extra cash, and demand for consumer products started to pick up across the country.
The tariffs on US firms importing products back into the US to sell tax-free finally forced US firms to repatriate their manufacturing back to America. Of course, the nationalization of American assets and facilities in China also forced a lot of US firms to cut their losses abroad. The Chinese government had seized nearly $375 billion NAD from US corporations in an attempt to collect on the US debt the Treasury Department had just remonetized.
During the first two years of President Stein’s time in office, America had increased its oil production by over 100% and brought the price of oil down dramatically, to below $150 a barrel. All ten refineries were under reconstruction and expected to be finished over the next four years. Sixty new natural gas plants and twenty nuclear power plants were under construction as well. The decommissioning of the dirtiest power plants was also well under way.
Five new solar farms (covering 20,000 acres of land each) had been built in the southwest, lowering the price of energy. The refinement of ethanol from corn, sugarcane, potatoes, rice and wheat had increased to 3 million barrels a day and was on pace to hit 8 million barrels a day within the next three years as more arable land was being sown.
Despite the global economy improving, the situation in Russia was continuing to become unstable near their borders. The secessionist movements in Chechnya and Dagestan, along with the continued unrest in the “Stan” countries, were causing immense civil unrest across the various federated provinces. China’s never-ending thirst for natural gas and oil, along with the free trade with Russia, was one of the few bright spots for Russia. Several high speed rail networks had been built linking western Russia with greater China, and were starting to pay dividends for both countries as trade and economic activity increased. Of course, the issues between Western Ukraine and Russia were also causing their own complications.
The Russian President, Viktor Zubkov, was using the civil unrest as an excuse to strengthen his control on the country and continue his modernization of the military. Military technology had changed a lot over the last 20 years; the use of unmanned aerial drones as fighters and ground attack drones had moved from science fiction to a new reality in modern warfare. Many countries had caught up to the US in drone technology. The use of drones had even made its way into light armored vehicles and tanks, changing the way future wars would be fought forever.
Western Ukraine had joined NATO, and believed that this membership would allow them to get away with being more provocative with the Russians after their absorption of East Ukraine. Leveraging NATO as a shield, Western Ukraine began to syphon off natural gas and fuel shipments being sent to the rest of Europe. The situation was starting to spiral out of control as this action started to decrease the profits of Gazprom, and thus, the Russian Federation.
NATO, as an organization, had continued to decline in relevance and capability throughout the 2010s and into the 2020s. In the early 2030s, during the de Blasio administration, America continued to maintain the NATO headquarters in Brussels but had scaled down the military presence in Europe. By the mid-2030s, the US maintained less than 10,000 military personnel on continental Europe. NATO had become more of a European peacekeeping force than a real defensive deterrent against future Russian or Islamic Republic aggression.
Russia, on the other hand, continued to rebuild its military and began positioning more forces along their Ukrainian border and their secessionist provinces. Insurgent groups in the Caucuses were operating out of the Republic of Georgia and Azerbaijan, making it more difficult to conduct counter insurgency operations without involving either of those countries.
*******
June 2038
Washington, DC
Oval Office, White House
“Mr. President, Secretary Wise just arrived,” announced Julie Wells, the President’s personal secretary. Ms. Wells was in a rather unique position since she had also been the previous President’s personal secretary. A new president typically would bring his own secretary into the White House; President Stein had chosen to keep Julie because she was likeable and very proficient at her job (in spite of her not voting for him).
“Excellent, Julie. Please have him brought in as soon as possible and inform the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the National Security Advisor as well. Please have coffee brought in too…. this is going to be a long meeting.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
The Secretary of State (a man who had been the head of the Kennedy School of International Studies at Harvard and had previously been an Ambassador to the European Union) walked in to the room. President Stein walked over and warmly shook his hand. “Jim, it’s good to see you again. Please, come sit down; I understand we have a lot to talk about today.”
Mr. Wise did not mince words and cut to the point. “Unfortunately, Mr. President, we only have bad news and more bad news to talk about.”
As soon as he finished his sentence, the National Security Advisor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the Secretary of Defense walked in and solemnly took their seats around the coffee table.
The President took his cue from their countenances and decided to skip any further niceties and get straight to business. “Gentlemen, we’ve called this meeting because it appears that situations in Russia may be getting worse, and the news coming from Iran and the Islamic Republic is not much better.”
“Mr. President,” interjected the National Security Advisor Mike Williams, “—Sir, the situation in the Middle East…I believe it is a bit more pressing; our latest intelligence indicates that there is going to be a major announcement coming out of the Islamic Republic in the next couple of days…an announcement that will most certainly change the way we will have to deal with the Middle East.”
“What now?” thought the President.
“Mike, please go ahead and tell
us what your sources have discovered; I have a feeling I know what it is, but the others should know.” Mike did not know the President personally before his term in office; he had retired from the DIA Human Intelligence branch as a senior collector specializing in Middle East affairs. However, the two men had quickly formed a bond, and sometimes it was almost as if Stein could literally read Mike’s mind.
“Yes, Mr. President,” responded Mike. “As you all know, there has been some talk about a possible unification of additional Middle Eastern and North African countries into the Caliphate, the Islamic Republic. Unfortunately, these rumors appear to be true, and in the next couple of weeks we expect an announcement is going to be made with the countries of North and South Sudan, Mauritania, Mali and Somalia all joining the IR. It would also appear that the IR, backed by their Russian and Chinese friends, is going to make a play for Iran.” Grumbling could be heard from the other officials as they began to digest this information.
Mike cleared his throat and said, “The situation gets worse. The countries of Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and to our dismay, Indonesia, will all likely become a part of this new Caliphate.”
The President interjected, “Mike, can you please explain how the IR is going to acquire Iran, since they are a mostly Shia country?”
Mike pulled out his tablet and zoomed into an area of Iran annotated with markings indicating oil and gas fields. “The Chinese are going to acquire a 100 year lease on these oil and natural gas fields in exchange for their help with the coup. The Russians are going to gain the port of Bandar Abbas to establish a new naval and airbase. The Chinese will also gain the port of Chabahar, giving them an additional forward naval and airbase.”
“To ensure the military does not actively resist, the Russians, Chinese and IR are paying nearly $20 billion in bribes all across the government to key individuals, especially within the IRGC. Their goal is to make this coup and take over as bloodlessly as possible, and it looks like it will succeed,” said Mike, clearly in awe of the complexity and reality of the deal.
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 tan
ks 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.”
