Update: 2054
Peaceful Events
The Treaty of Richmond partitioned the defeated Canadians between CWOH, the Atlantic Kingdom, and Quebec (and Texas, if one counts a tiny slice of land just south of the Milk River). Predictably, celebrations and commemorations broke out across the United Americas, but some writers argued that a dangerous precedent had been set—democracies had been part and parcel to the elimination of an entire state. Such warnings were nowhere near the most sensationalist stories to come from Richmond. The Caribbean used its monetary compensation for the war to go and purchase a bit of news that upstaged the affairs of the continent, while Texas’ primary reward—annexing parts of Montana and Dakota from CWOH and the Atlantic Kingdom—was made scandalous by Queen Victoria’s decree to evacuate all people and buildings out of AK land slated for Texas. The time frame provided by the Treaty of Richmond only allowed for the most important constructions to be ripped out of the ground, but when Texans came to raise a flag over Sioux Falls, they found a ghost town.
Quebec, under the loopy Prime Minister Jacques Sangle, declared itself the only remaining Canada (with a certain degree of credibility, given that Ottawa now took orders from French-speakers) and focused on improving highways and parks. The first of these endeavors was rather more…productive than the second, but in any event the economic boom brought about by Sangle’s annexations was enough to substantially improve the wealth of the country.
(+1 Quebecois ASP)
The Atlantic Kingdom lost no time in the indoctrination of her new lands, with Queen Victoria decreeing that the Holo Nets would be the only legal source of information for her new subjects. The Canadian soldiers who surrendered in Montreal were shuffled off to Re-Education Camps, and the first ones to come out didn’t seem to retain their full range of emotions. A few rebellions rose up as Atlantic soldiers moved to occupy the north, but the upstarts were put down with extreme prejudice, and resistance ceased.
Texas’ trucks now run on some mysterious local fuel, possibly corn-based, and the reduced overhead costs have primed the economic pump.
The CWOH Commonwealth secured its annexations from former Canada quite handily, using the army for a few months of reconstruction and mop-up efforts before demobilizing, conducting a new census, and offering its millions of new citizens freedom of movement and agrarian loans. In other circumstances, this gamble might not have paid off, but Canadian and CWOH cultures were close enough that the former was eager to cooperate with Sacramento’s benevolent programs. Even some of the officers who had surrendered Vancouver gave statements about how much they were looking forward to voting for the first time.
(+1 CWOH ASP)
El Jefe’s Liberty Party, already in power, is becoming increasingly popular.
(+Mexican approval rating)
Per the provisions of the Treaty of Marseilles, the Republic of the Caribbean purchased all of France’s Atlantic and Pacific islands. Havana’s government reorganized itself amidst great fanfare as the Confederation of United World Archipelagos, giving each of its eighteen states two voices in the senate. This did provoke some complaints—e.g. why did Hispaniola get the same number of senators as the Cook Islands, though it had almost a thousand times the population, and why did Cape Verde get any representation at all, given that it was part of the USACS—but the decentralized nature of the new nation rendered peerage issues largely irrelevant, and most of the states carved out of the French colonies looked to the big Caribbean islands for guidance anyways. Defense and economics, the main issues under the purview of Havana, were handled with great skill in the Confederation’s early days, and its new common currency, combined with a flood of spending aimed at ensuring each state’s access to clean drinking water and a first-world infrastructure, provided for a reorganization of international trade in the World Archipelagoes’ favor.
(+1 Archipelagic ASP)
Patagonia pulled back its troops from the Brazilian border, seeing as the Marxist rebellion was (mostly) over.
(See Military Events)
The USACS made a deal with the government of South Africa, whereby it pulled back to the relatively stable areas around the Cape and let Syndicalist Africa deal with (and annex) the rest. Immediately, the Kélen Toumani started counting his chickens, initiating the Organized Revitalization of Grain Yieldableness to turn the new lands in agricultural powerhouses. His security measures—treat the willing new subjects well to ensure their cooperation, while bombing the rebellious Zulu with nalpam and worse—estimated the predisposition of the majority just fine, but utterly failed when it came to dealing with the heirs of Shaka.
(+1 USACS ASP)
(See Military Events)
Diplomats now report that the USACS is stoning captured Chinese in Bamako’s coliseum. If USACS propaganda is to be believed, Chinese terrorists are blowing up flagrantly civilian targets in retribution. However, Syndicalist Africa seems to be really chugging along with its rail system of late.
(+1 USACS ASP)
In the speech that officially annexed the Hijaz, Egypt’s president declared, “Peoples should not suffer due to the senselessness of their leaders.” With this oddly conciliatory statement, he went about approving funds to refurbish Mecca and the surrounding countryside, all in the twin names of prosperity and pilgrims. The rail line from Jeddah to Mecca was greatly expanded, and ten times more people made the Hajj than had in the last peacetime year.
(+1 Egyptian ASP)
The Cyber Renaissance continued in the United Kingdom with a wave of nanotechnology, as companies rolled out more efficient solar panels, faster microprocessors, and more effective desalination filters than ever before. Maglev trains have become Britain’s public transportation of choice.
(+1 point invested in UK ASP growth)
Conde, the former French PM who had been demoted to a mere minister of the cabinet back when Napoleon IX assumed the premiership, was unwilling to participate in the Regency Council’s push for some brand of liberation theology while he still had the influence to do something about it. When rumors of a coup d’etat against the hated colony-sellers and social policy entrepreneurs in the Regency Council started floating around Paris, Conde ingratiated himself with the Republicans and helped finalize plans for the January Putsch. In the event, there were some problems with mercenaries playing both sides, but when the tricolour was flown from barricades for the first time in a hundred years (and word got out that Police Chief Le Pen was indecisive), the people flowed out onto the streets, overran Versailles, and distributed underage Napoleon X’s finest silver to those who shouted the loudest that they needed it. The young monarch himself fled to Bordeaux, where the Monarchists were more entrenched, but his government was so hated and reviled as incompetent that its attempts to drum up an army met with decidedly meager results. And so the civil war commenced.
(See Military Events)
According to Consul Nico Romano, the Roman Republic is finished with its economic growth project, and now it is time to “further the security and prosperity of the Roman people and the people of the world.”
In concluding the Russo-Baltic War, the Treaty of Helsinki was supposed to have been the LIARS’ dismemberment of Russia, but it was only partially enacted. Firstly, the proposed Soviet Socialist Republic of Kazakhstan simply failed to come into being—Russian authorities arrested the eager would-be leaders without provoking world communist outcry. Secondly, the Second Empire of Japan had been ceded Moscow’s Far East, but fearing peril on the continent, Imperial Japanese soldiers simply did not arrive to claim the prize. Russians remained in administration of the parts not held by China. New LIARS member Ukraine and the Balt Confederacy did see the officialization of extensive gains (and, in the case of the later, the evacuation of Russian super-troopers from St. Petersburg), but most Russian-majority areas remained Russian, and, most importantly for the nation’s hedonistic leadership, their power in the rump remained unthreatened. Even if the Far East would eventually have to be given up, Siberian ports provided some access to the larger world, and Ukraine was willing to allow Russian trade down the Don in the name of shared prosperity. Further, there was even some potential for territorial growth in the form of lands carved out of China.
(See Military Events)
Upturned by fighting against the terrorist Lehi, Israel’s Socialist Party suffered a major defeat in the 2054 elections, with ex-Likudama member Isaac Livni taking the premiership under the banner of Yisrael Beiteinu. Livni’s inauguration speech left a great deal open to the imagination, especially when he declared “a new dawn for all Middle Eastern peoples.” Those words, say the analysts, could foretell anything from war against to total cooperation with Iran.
Iran integrated its conquered Arabian territories, patching up war damage and reaping the benefits of a larger tax base. The nation as a whole celebrated victorious jihad with a national holiday (which was not, praise be Allah, followed by any declarations of free separatist elections). While Mecca and Medina were not in Shiraz’s hands, they were ruled by Muslims, and the Christian majority in the Hijaz was Egypt’s problem now. Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei went on Hajj via the regained dominions of Islam, stopping at the tomb of Ali and praising the Shia of Iraq for their support before visiting al-Masjid al-Nabawi and circling the Kaaba. His own popularity has skyrocketed, as thousands of decommissioned jihadis return to their families with stories from Iran’s greatest victory in a thousand years. Mercifully for Khamenei, public awareness of the reverses on the Indian front has been limited.
(-14 Iranian irregular divisions, +Iranian approval rating, +1 Iranian ASP)
The Chinese bureaucracy, per a long standing tradition, gave the Fourth Assembly of Military Talent power to run the government for the duration of the military crisis. Sabotage has begun to take its toll on the suspended republic’s industrial complex, but whatever group is breaking railroads and bombing factories has a way to go before they can hurt the country on a truly massive scale.
In reoccupied Honshu, Japanese patriotic fervor redoubled as the Citizens’ Guard of the Proletariat attempted to universalize basic combat training. Rage against the Chinanders (and their purported Australia-Hungarian allies) propelled more Japanese than were probably healthy for the economy to commit themselves to full-time home defense, but on the bright side, there were more than enough volunteers to man ‘The Great Sea Wall of Japan,’ a line of defenses constructed largely from abandoned Chinese materiel that covered the entire western breadth of the island.
(+20 Japanese irregular divisions, +Japanese approval rating)
Military Events
As Inca expeditionary forces returned home, Brazil managed to recapture the last of the Marxists’ coastal enclaves. However, Rio’s army has proved utterly unsuitable to flush the rebel guerillas out of the Amazon. There are stories of networks of camps deep within the jungle, and assistance is clearly being provided to the various communist undergrounds in the cities. Brazil’s war has become an insurgency, one that is most likely going to drag on for years.
(-3 Brazilian divisions, -1 Brazilian group)
USACS strategy against the Zulu was essentially containment mixed with total war, but the Kélen Toumani erred by not devoting nearly enough troops to dam the rivers and light the huts on fire. For one thing, the Zulu had more than just huts, they had Durban, and for another, Durban was a port, which allowed for a whole host of do-gooders to run in a steady stream of supplies. By the end of the year, threadbare USACS forces had largely pulled back from Natal, which had set up something that could almost be described as a functioning government.
(-1 USACS division)
The Monarchist army benefited from a clear chain of command, not the sense of desperation prevalent among remaining officers. The Republicans in Paris were already talking about elections, they had affirmed commitment to the Neo-European Union, winning London and Rome’s neutrality in the proceedings, while, by and by, the people were on their side, which made the very best the Monarchists could hope for a police state. There were some halfhearted battles near the center of the hexagon, and then Chevenment himself (who had decided at the last moment not to take charge of Le Pen’s police in Paris, and had spent several weeks unreachable) contacted both sides and negotiated an end to the fighting. Napoleon X and his father were allowed to flee to Rome, but the Monarchists would turn over their weapons and commit themselves to the Second Republic. Perhaps Chevenment gambled that he would prosper in the upcoming vote as a hero, but he sank from the public consciousness almost as quickly as he had emerged to save the day, leaving Conde as the only respectable candidate that stood in the way of the demagogue Jacques Briand getting the presidency. The died-in-the-wool Republican won; President Briand’s first orders were to nationalize the Catholic Church’s land holdings and repeal the Regency Council’s bans on abortion and divorce. In one great leap, Paris has modified from the most reactionary to the most revolutionary of the Neo-European capitals. True, the unrest mixed with the loss of the last of the colonies has wounded the French economy to a degree, but the nation is newly dynamized, eager to test itself on the grand arena of world politics.
(-4 French divisions, +French approval rating, -1 French ASP)
Israel’s ongoing war against the Lehi insurgency claimed its first major military casualties this year. A unit operating in the Sinai was wiped out through what seems to be a deal forged in hell—Islamist-Lehi cooperation.
(-1 Israeli division)
The Iranian navy planted the flag at Bahrain, greeted by an acquiescent populace. Capturing Socotra did not go nearly as well, as Iran’s tiny dispatchment was eradicated by the Indian Admiralty in its quest to find a forward base. In the remainder of the year, the Arabian Sea was slowly secured as an Indian lake, with the December shelling of Muscat especially poignant. Iranian airpower was elsewhere, its squadrons were outnumbered, and the USACS had divested itself of the Indian War in favor of saving closer allies.
(-11 Iranian squadrons, -4 Indian squadrons)
As the USACS evacuated from mainland India early in the year, Madras’ armies rushed at Iran’s half-completed fortifications in the Punjab, intent on, if the words of one Indian general held true, “dragging Khamenei all the way from Shiraz to the Ganges in the dust of a horse-drawn cart.” That the boast was probably an overstatement was lost on few but the Indians themselves, who flocked to register for conscription. By years’ end, India had nearly half a million human shields to protect her professional armies, and the Supreme Leader’s forces were solidly on the back foot, dismayed that they needed to face such tough opponents after breezing to success in jihad. Didn’t the Indians know that the Revolutionary Army had conquered Arabia? The answer was simple—the Indians knew and weren’t fazed. War was their crucible, they faced hated Muslims, and the informal accord with USACS had given them a real chance at victory. Indian soldiers wintered in Afghanistan, and it was all Iranian high command could do to prevent a march to the sea and the complete encirclement of their positions on the left bank of the Indus.
(-14 Iranian divisions, -2 Iranian groups, -6 Indian divisions, +50 Indian irregular divisions, -8 Indian irregular divisions, -2 Indian groups)
The Tibetan people liberated their homeland, overthrowing Chinese skeleton garrisons with little difficulty and little impact on the larger Sino-Japanese-Siamese War. The Uyghurs remain nominally loyal to the Fourth Assembly of Military Talent, but the local Chinese government in Urumqi does not have much faith in lasting another year.
The aforementioned Treaty of Helsinki was quite kind to Russia because of the LIARS’ need to travel through the country in order to hit China from the north, but German preoccupation with momentum was almost the undoing of the whole front. Instead of using the reasonably outfitted Russian rail system to cross Siberia, the Germans (along with some Ukrainians and Balts) decided to airlift over a quarter million soldiers somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.000 kilometers, in order to land in, of all places, Mongolia. The major towns were dutifully captured, and the USACS raiders in Manchuria headed west and linked up with their allies, but soon fuel supplies started wearing thin, and then food started running out. The airlift had effectively increased the population of Mongolia by more than ten percent, and all the newcomers were, in the agricultural sense, idle. This issue was compounded by standing directives to burn farmland, which not only turned the locals against the invaders, but also eliminated any chance of the soldiers finding some way to become self-sufficient. Further airlifts of supplies (and, belatedly, some use of the Russian rail system) have prevented a mass die-off, but, to put it simply, attrition is a killer. The Chinese would have had a great victory in the north if they could have spared some divisions.
(-3 German divisions, -1 USACS division, -1 Balt division, -1 Ukrainian division)
Siam, new center of what has become known as the Asia-Pacific War, is ground zero for a technological meltdown.
(See Spotlight)
(-19 Siamese divisions, -1 Siamese squadron, -3 Siamese groups, -Siamese approval rating, -2 Siamese ASP, -2 USACS divisions, -2 USACS squadrons, -2 USACS groups, -14 Chinese divisions, -3 Chinese squadrons, -11 Chinese groups, +2 Chinese banked spending points)
January saw the Chinese pull back from Luzon and Kyushu. Communications were as finicky as ever—there was a joke making the rounds in the officer corps that any incoming call had a 50% of being Japanese propaganda and a 40% shot of being false orders—but the Chinese came up with codes enough to compensate. The last major convoy leaving Kyushu was wiped out in a combined Japanese-USACS air attack that scored the Emperor some measure of revenge for the war’s open, but for the most part the Chinese retreated in good order. Their real problems came in the dénouement, as the Japanese swiftly reoccupied their two islands and, after a reasonably hard-fought battle against a Chinese screening flotilla, began a rampage in the Yellow Sea, fire-bombing every port in range, making the words ‘napalm,’ ‘sarin,’ and ‘white phosphorous’ as common usage as the pronouns, and, against a near-total lack of Chinese resistance, (due to the Fourth Assembly’s huge onslaught on Siam) landing in ports like Tianjin, Jinzhou, and Luda and, finally, instead of advancing on Beijing, massacring civilians at the beginning of each new day the Chinese failed to surrender. Rumors of these goings on have, needless to say, terrified a great many people.
(-1 Japanese division, -2 Japanese squadrons, -1 Japanese group, -1 USACS group, -3 Chinese divisions, -6 Chinese squadrons, -2 Chinese groups, -Chinese approval rating, -1 Chinese ASP)
