by Adam Yoshida
“In order to minimize the governmental involvement in the lives of the people, the Founders created a system of checks and balances. This system was meant, by its design, to be slow, deliberate, and ponderous. That’s just how it ought to be: government only really works - at least on a large scale - by despotic means. These are sometimes necessary, such as in the fighting of wars or in the maintenance of public order, but they are never justified and are not a sustainable means for ensuring the daily uplift of the people.”
“But somewhere along the lines we got all of this mixed up. People came along who didn’t believe what the Founders believed: they thought that humankind was perfectible and that all of the ills and flaws of life might be corrected by governmental action. They continued to believe this even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. They came to believe that the Constitution, rather than being the truest guardian of our liberties, was the greatest impediment on the road to their utopia and so they set about systematically attempting to undo everything that the Founders did. They sought to extend the reach of the state to all corners of American life. And then, because they believed that they were the soldiers of some program of utopian uplift, they began to regard all opposition to their designs and fundamentally illegitimate and, indeed, evil and so they began to turn the oppressive force of the state against those whom they deemed to be their enemies.”
“Therefore, in order to restore our government to its proper place, we must ensure that the meaning of the Constitution is plain, clear, and agreed-upon by all. As the states under the sway of the so-called government in Washington begin to return to the fold, we must make the restoration of their proper and full representation in the Congress and their place in the rest of our national life conditional upon the acceptance of the Constitution as intended.”
“In particular, we must amend the Constitution to permit the states and the Congress to rationalize our voting systems to ensure that we have a high-quality electorate. We must forbid - now and forever - the creation of taxes and rates that discriminate based upon wealth. We must prevent the judiciary and the executive from usurping the powers of the legislative branch. We must forbid the legislative branch from encroaching upon the authority of the states.”
U.S. Central Command Forward Headquarters, Jerusalem
“General Mackenzie,” insisted Vice Admiral Quentin Layton, the commander of the naval elements attached to Central Command, “I have to tell you that, given the present situation, the plan that has been advanced here is wholly impractical from a naval point of view and I believe that, were it to be executed, it would be nothing short of wholly disastrous.”
“This is late in the day to be raising these objections, Admiral,” said General Dylan Mackenzie quietly.
“Yes, it is, General. But the change reflects the underlying reality upon the ground. Would you rather we did not change and simple said que sara sara?”
“Explain,” said Augustus King, sitting off to the side of the room.
Admiral Layton removed a tablet from his briefcase and set it down upon the table.
“These,” he said as he queued up the photo application, “are pictures of Russian Tu-22M Backfire bombers. These were taken this morning in the Crimea. And those are Kh-22 anti-ship missiles being loaded onto those pylons.”
“Well,” said Mackenzie, “the Russians have always had that capability.”
“Yes, but they haven’t previously been actively preparing to use it. And that is what I see here.”
“Why would the Russians want to come into the war?”
“Why would the rest of Europe, General? Because they’ve gotten a good deal to do so, or because they’re afraid of what’s going to happen, in terms of global political affairs, if we win. The Russians change the basic calculation. It was a bad enough prospect to have to force our way through the Mediterranean in the face of just the opposition of the European navies and air forces. Now, however, we face the real possibility of having to fight our way across an enclosed space in the face of determined opposition from the Russian Navy and Air Force as well. Not only, might I add, General would we have to have our combat units fight their way through - that I’m confident that we could do - but we’d have to have our amphibious ships, packed with American soldiers, fight their way through as well. I don’t know about you, but that’s just not a chance that I want to take.”
“We don’t even know that the Russians are coming in,” said Mackenzie defensively.
“We have to assume that they are, I think,” said Layton, “between the rumors running wild across the entire world and the movements of their forces that we’ve seen. I mean, it would be incredibly reckless and irresponsible to do otherwise.”
“What’s the alternative, though?” said Mackenzie with a sigh.
“Go around,” said Layton simply.
“That’s a significantly longer trip. And, potentially, if you want to talk about the Russian aspect - it means that we might have to fight Russian submarines all the way between here and the Atlantic Coast,” noted Mackenzie.
“Submarines I can deal with. Aircraft I can deal with. Maximum numbers of both close to their bases of supply - that’s what makes this incredibly challenging and that, quite frankly, is what pushes this beyond my capacity to reasonably deal with given the tools at hand.”
“If we go around,” noted Mackenzie, “that will throw off the entire timing of our proposed operations.”
“I’m aware of that, General,” said Admiral Layton, “I am acutely aware of it. But the price for pushing our way through the entire damned Med in the face of enemy opposition could be tens of thousands of American lives. Is throwing off the timetable worth risking that?”
“Can’t there be some middle ground?” asked General King.
“Such as?” asked Layton.
“Well, I’m no naval expert, so tell me if this is totally fucking crazy… But if I understand this - and I read your entire briefing document in advance - the largest problem is moving all of those fully-loaded amphibious ships through such a tightly enclosed space. The Navy can fight its way through, but its going to take losses - and losses among ships packed to the gills with American soldiers, yes?”
“That would be basically correct,” said Layton, narrowing his eyes and looking straight at King.
“How much longer would going around - either looping around Africa or going all the way across the Pacific - take?” asked Mackenzie.
“Two weeks for the former, about a month for the latter,” said Layton.
“That’s an awfully long time,” said Mackenzie.
“We could push our way through if we had to, though,” said King, “couldn’t we?”
“The Navy can fight its way through any damned thing,” said Layton, “but how much do you want to lose?”
“Damnit,” said Mackenzie, “we’ve already been delayed long enough in assembling the forces while the situation at home continues to deteriorate. But, fine - I don’t see an alternative to going around here. I’ll get in touch with the President and let him know. I’m afraid he won’t be pleased.”
Temporary Seat of the Government of the United States, Colorado Springs, Colorado
“Well, fuck,” said the Acting President simply as Secretary Preston completed his presentation.
“Yes sir,” said the Defense Secretary, “that’s pretty much all that can be said.”
“They want to go all the way around Africa?” asked Rickover.
“That’s the best possible route that they have available,” said Preston.
“And you concur in this?”
“I do, Mr. President. If the Russians are going to come on into this thing then the last place that we want to put most of our fleet is in a tight and enclosed space like the Mediterranean. Hell, if I were the Europeans under that scenario I’d just get the fucking Russians to put every single available land-based missile in Gibraltar. No way we can escape their range as we attempt to transit
the straits.”
“Well, given these projections,” the Acting President lifted up his tablet and then set it down hard on the table, “I don’t see how we can possibly order CENTCOM to attempt to force the area.”
“If the Russians are in fact going to come in,” said the Secretary of State, “I’d think that we’d have seen some sign of it by now.”
“Yes, Mr. Secretary, I would have thought that we would have,” said Rickover as he shot the Secretary an icy glare, “but these Russian mobilizations seem to have caught us wholly by surprise and the Russian President is refusing to answer my calls since the Russian Government does not recognize the legitimacy of our government.”
“Perhaps we should consider threatening the Russians,” offered Secretary Preston, “and inform them that if they choose to engage us in one theatre of war, we will not restrict ourselves to combat in just that particular area.”
“I don’t want to make threats that we can’t back up,” said Rickover.
“Who says that we can’t back them up?” replied Preston.
“Half of the fleet is bottled up in the Med and the other half is stuck at Hawaii for lack of fuel and munitions. The Air Force is badly depleted,” said Rickover.
“We have other weapons,” said the Secretary.
“No, I don’t think that we can or should go there,” said Rickover.
“I’m just saying…” said Preston.
“And why wouldn’t the Russians pass whatever we say right back along to the Loyalists? And what happens then? The political and diplomatic risks involved in playing the nuclear card are just too high,” said Rickover.
“Well, we need to do something,” said Lieutenant General Xavier Monroe, speaking up for the first time after a long pause, “because we’ve got 150,000 soldiers out West preparing to go and the entire plan for them depends, in large part, on the ability of the CENTCOM forces sailing across the Atlantic to keep the rest of the enemy’s forces fixed in place. If that’s out, a lot of the rest of the planning for Vera Cruz becomes invalid.”
“We could put more of the Southern Command into field,” suggested Secretary Simpson, “threaten Washington, maybe.”
“Most of the Southern Command is raw as ground beef at a supermarket,” said General Monroe, “and they’d be facing the most professional forces that the Loyalists have. The mix of professional soldiers who’ve remained with the Loyalists and the European forces.”
“Plus,” added Secretary Preston, “we’ve got almost all of our air support and our worthwhile artillery allocated to Vera Cruz. We had to strip equipment out of those Southern units and use it to re-supply the Army of the Colorado.”
“Well, then what? We’ve got a whole damned army waiting to go,” said Monroe.
“Well,” said Secretary Preston, “there is one possible alternative.”
“Don’t leave us hanging there, Mr. Secretary,” replied the Acting President as he stretched his hands out widely, “please elaborate.”
“Well,” said the Secretary as he stood up and walked around the fringe of the room, “as you know, our operational capacity in the intelligence field was badly eroded by the effects of the Great Mutiny. Most of the Federal bureaucracy went with the Loyalists and that that, of course, compromised most of our covert operations officers.”
“I’m aware, Mr. Secretary,” said the Acting President.
“Since that point, we’ve been working to reconstitute our intelligence systems. Signals intelligence, of course, remains weak - with the apparatus being too compromised on both sides to be of use. But we’ve had some pretty substantial success within DOD, specifically within the Joint Special Operations Command, at developing a new independent capacity for covert action.”
“Now, in some major cities - particularly New York City - JSOC has had some pretty major success in terms of organizing operators. If the goal is to tie up as many troops as possible on the East Coast in order to prevent them from launching an offensive against our own eastern frontier… Well, we could utilize that capacity.”
“Do we seriously have the ability to move against the Washington government with enough strength to disrupt them?” asked Rickover.
“With the right kind of support,” answered Preston.
45th St. and 5th Ave. Manhattan
Roman Moore and Mack Dallas walked quietly amidst the small crowd of noonday shoppers. Even war and depression were not fully enough to bring New York City to a halt.
“Command,” explained Dallas, “believes that the elements within the government that we’ve identified are preparing to make their big move.”
“Hmmm…” replied Moore, “that makes sense, given what we’ve seen. They’ve certainly been preparing themselves, gathering forces and what have you. Even if we have managed to put quite a dent into those particular efforts.”
“Well,” said Dallas, “command wants us to intervene.”
“Why?” said Moore, taking a bite of his donut as he spoke.
“I mean, if the Loyalists want to get themselves into a civil war within the civil war, I say more power to them.”
“That’s not the view being taken by command. They think that we can draw off a significant number of Loyalist soldiers,” said Dallas simply.
“What does command want us to do?” asked Moore.
“When the progressive terrorists rise up, they want us to make our big move,” said Dallas.
“That’s fucking crazy. That’s some bridge-too-far shit right there, sir.”
“They’ll be sending us some help,” replied Dallas, “in the form of a couple of A-Teams and a light battalion worth of Marines.”
“How the fuck are they going to get Marines into New York City?”
“Pack them into a couple of Ohio-class SSGNs, basically or something nuts like that,” said Dallas.
“That’s fucking crazy,” said Moore.
“Isn’t it?” offered Dallas with a smile
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A Vast Image
Élysée Palace, Paris, France
The latest round of rioting in Paris had proven to be particularly severe. The Muslims of the inner cities and the supporters of the Front national, which had more or less identical reasons for feeling aggrieved, had each launched street demonstrations demanding that the government act to create more jobs and to provide aid for the millions whose economic circumstances had been dramatically reduced as a result of the global depression that had followed first the cataclysmic events in the Middle East and then the American Civil War.
But what, really, could the government do? President Joseph Cuvier reflected as he read the latest reports of the confused situation on the street.
After all, he thought, the state actually has less money than any of that miserable lot has in their own pockets.
The President sighed and chided himself slightly. He had gotten into politics to help the unfortunate - like all of those out on the streets this evening - and yet the inexorable logic of statecraft had now made him an oppressor. Not that he could see any way to do anything different: surrounding the streets to the rule of a mob would be a cruel and unjustifiable act, whatever justice there might be in the cause of that mob.
Of course, the rival groups had, in spite of their mutual suffering, proven quite incapable of making common cause with one another. As a result they had, after a few days of fouling their own nests, decided to turn upon one another. Within twenty-four hours the death count had skyrocketed into the hundreds.
“Monsieur le President,” reported the Interior Minister, “the fighting shows no signs of abating. Three members of the police were killed this morning. Deaths among the rioters are unknown, but must be much higher still.”
“Damn,” replied the President, “I was hoping that this thing would burn itself out.”
“Reasonable,” said the Interior Minister, “but I don’t think that is what is going to happen here.”
“Very well,” said the President, �
�then you have my authorization to deploy soldiers in order to bring events back under control.”
The Interior Minister snapped to attention, saluted, and then left the room.
The President paused for a moment and then turned to his secretary.
“Would you please call Prime Minister Blunt for me?” he asked.
3rd Battalion, Arizona State Guard, 10 Miles East of Yuma
“Take them at a run,” Governor Robert Schmidt ordered as the men of the Third Battalion, Arizona State Guard, approached the Loyalist soldiers who had dared to cross the Arizona border.
“Governor,” the Secretary of Defense had told him not half an hour earlier, “we have major forces on the way. We recommend that you wait for them.”
“With all due respect, Mr. Secretary,” the Governor had replied, “it isn’t your state that is being subjected to invasion. Furthermore, the forces of the Arizona State Guard are not subject to Federalization.”
“I have lawyers who would debate you on that point, Governor,” Secretary Preston had replied, “the laws around the general militia being what they are.”
“Then get a fucking court order,” the Governor had replied before hanging up the phone.
His plan, reflected the Governor, wasn’t nearly as crazy as the Defense Secretary thought that it was. The Loyalist offensive into Arizona appeared, based upon the minimal aerial surveillance that had been possible, to consist entirely of Army of the United States troops. That meant that they were largely light infantry armed with individual weapons, much as the soldiers of the Arizona State Guard were. It was easy enough to guess at their purpose - to disrupt the offensive that the Colorado government was painfully in the process of launching.
To be sure, given that he possessed fewer than 10,000 Arizona State Guard soldiers - and fewer than two thousand of them were with him now - the Governor had little chance of stopping the two Divisions of the Army of the United States. But he was certain that he could disrupt them.
