Soviet Domination - A Red Dawn story

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December 1984: Florida

‘Florida, a dagger pointed at the heart of Cuba.’

The historical analogy – Korea being seen as that dagger with regard to the ambitions of the Japanese Empire – was rather hyperbolic yet it had been one used by Raúl Castro to urge his brother to strike northwards against Florida ahead of the opening of the war. That didn’t just mean air attacks nor even the landing made at Key West by Cuban paratroopers, but a bigger assault against the mainland. Fidel Castro hadn’t been convinced of that need for Cuba to send its armies into Florida and the Soviets would have none of that either: they wanted Cuban troops in California, Texas and also the Caribbean islands to the east. Plans underway for a big Cuban landing – opposed completely by the Soviets – were called off and instead only the Key West operation (which included the neighbouring Boca Chica Key) took place. However, Raúl was able to get his brother to agree to commando raiding operations to be made. These had begun back in September and were still ongoing throughout December. Along both the eastern and western coasts of the Florida Peninsula, special forces attacks took place. These were coastal operations which rarely ventured far inland and the progress of them far up each coast remained limited. There were no operations past the Tampa Bay – Cape Canaveral line, especially not up along the Florida Panhandle. The Cubans didn’t have his easy. Their commandos were opposed by the Americans who fought on their own ground against this intention to destroy infrastructure throughout the Sunshine State. Soviet naval Spetsnaz joined the fight in the weeks before the end of the year adding to the series of clashes taking place along the shorelines of Florida.

Florida national guardsmen (including some of the state’s own Green Berets) with the 53rd Infantry Brigade and the 83rd Troop Command were stationed up the eastern side of the peninsula as well as internally. The former had their area of operations from Key Largo at the very top of the Florida Keys all the way past Miami and up to Cape Canaveral; the latter was a non-combat command organisation response for inland support yet included many small armed detachments on patrol including former national guardsmen who’d volunteered to return to wartime service. Up along all of the western coastline, from the Everglades to the Florida Panhandle, was the 2nd Marine Division with thousands of US Marines positioned there. Since the beginning of the war, they had been here rather than seeing action elsewhere as the Marine Corps as a whole would have wished to have seen done with them. The US Marines should really have been in the Caribbean. However, they remained in Florida until newly-raised forces of the ARUS (the Army of the United States included two marine divisions, one being raised at Parris Island in South Carolina) could replace them next year. The national guardsmen and the US Marines all saw action. Their clashes with the Cubans, and also smaller numbers of Soviets, were near daily. The majority were accidents where the two opposing sides ran into each other rather than purposeful engagements. There were only so many places where the raiding forces could show up along the coastline to strike and the defenders were positioned nearby on patrol as well as in static guard positions too. Shootouts took place with great frequency. The Americans, especially the US Marines, had on-hand what the Cubans didn’t have to influence the fights which took place in their favour: external fire support. The Cubans arrived by either speedboats or mini-subs but neither of those carried the weaponry of combat aircraft, armed helicopters, coastal patrol boats and additionally artillery that the Americans had at their disposal. Many incoming raiding parties were detected on their approach and if not attacked before they landed, then straight afterwards. The Cubans were running out of men. Very few of those sent in the raiding teams – as small as half a dozen men; as large as up to forty – were coming back. Those who did return were sent back again, joined by lower-grade men on newer missions. As expected, this saw even more losses occur. Initial Soviet hesitancy to go anywhere near the Florida mission changed when they saw how many good-quality American forces were tied up facing the Cubans. They knew too that the US Marines would have been better used in the Caribbean but they were in Florida and with the introduction of a smaller number of their own men, they could tie up greater numbers of opponents. Therefore, part of the 17th Naval Spetsnaz Brigade tasked for Gulf of Mexico operations along the coasts of Texas (in defence) and Louisiana (on the attack) was sent to Florida as well to exploit this opportunity.

Homestead AFB, MacDill AFB and Patrick AFB – a trio of airbases across the southern half of the Peninsula – were where those aircraft in the skies over Florida but also out into the Florida Straits were flying from when the US Air Force supported those on the ground. They were joined by US Marine aircraft who operated from Homestead and several civilian sites now under military control. Each was the focus of attempts to get raiding forces into them with the Cubans making a big attack on Patrick early in the month and the Soviets showing up off MacDill (inside Tampa Bay and not easy to reach from the open sea) a couple of weeks later. Aircraft were lost on the ground in these and there were casualties among American forces especially with the strike on MacDill. The commando threat was something always there yet the main focus for those involved in the air war when it came to Florida was hostile action in the air coming from Cuba. There were more aircraft based up in the Florida Panhandle at both Eglin AFB and Tyndall AFB too. As had been the case just before the war, aircraft coming out of Cuba were engaged before they could reach Florida if possible… otherwise in the skies above. A new threat showed up come December, a different type of Soviet aircraft than had been met before. These were Sukhoi-27S Flankers. US intelligence knew that the Soviet Air Defence Forces had rushed the -27P interceptor version into service to protect the Soviet homeland yet the appearance of the -27S fighter version in Cuba came as a surprise. These aircraft were quite something. They still needed work-up time before they could do all that was foreseen with such an aircraft and the Flanker wasn’t widely available due to production issues. Nonetheless, the Soviets hoped that they would be a game-changer in the skies over the Florida Straits, engaging and overcoming American F-15s. Eagles and Flankers met in combat. The Soviets came off worse from the clashes yet not overly decisively so if an opinion of an impartial judge could have been given on the several fights which occurred. There were no impartial judges about. The F-15s, aided by AWACS support too, shot down several of the Soviet fighters and chased others away while taking a few losses of their own. Over in Cuba, the Soviets only saw failure occur when fewer aircraft returned than had gone out and the kill claims of F-15s which came from the surviving pilots didn’t sound convincing enough. The Flankers were held back from any more offensive missions forward for the time being until more would be sent and different arrangements made for their use in battle.

Those clashes with the Flankers saw a couple of F-15s come down over the bottom of Florida when damaged aircraft based much further to the north tried to make emergency landings at the southern airbases. Pilots ejected if possible, facing the elements rather than end up smeared on the ground as part of an air-wreck. Try as they might to avoid so, there were aircrews who came down in the Everglades. Cuban and Soviet pilots in other fights had ended up here with a couple of them rescued though many more left all alone as those who were saved had been located due to their good fortune and not a deliberate effort to do so. With the US Air Force pilots, HH-3 rescue helicopters, Jolly Green Giants, went looking for them and pulled a few out. Others would join the unfortunate fates of enemy pilots who’d ended up there facing the elements and the wildlife. Elsewhere across Florida, where enemy aircrews came down or commandos part of raiding teams ended up on their own & running for their lives, they faced a different kind of danger than what was in the Everglades. All across the Sunshine State were men in uniform with guns. The Florida State Guard, inactive before the war since being stood down back in 1947, was re-established with the stroke of a pen from Governor Bob Graham within hours of the current war starting. Thousands of men joined up including a significant number of Cuban-Americans too when it became clear that despite pressure exerted, the US Government wasn’t going to build an army solely of Cuban exiles. Those who were unable to join the National Guard or the ARUS then entered service with the State Guard. Uniforms weren’t so uniform and the weaponry available was a wide mix – ‘bring your own’ it often was – but the numbers were rather impressive. Organisation and communications links improved pretty fast. By December, the State Guard was over fifteen thousand strong: bigger than the Florida National Guard and just short of the 2nd Marine Division numbers-wise. They too became involved in shooting incidents with commando raiders coming from the sea though, unfortunately, there were a couple of friendly-fire incidents with their fellow Floridians too when other State Guard troops and national guardsmen as well were shot at. There was a lot of eagerness to fight, sometimes too much.

In the northern part of Florida, there was much military activity away from the frontlines of the conflict with the Soviet’s unsinkable aircraft carrier which was Cuba. On the Atlantic-facing northeastern corner, Mayport naval base near Jacksonville was seeing major use by the US Navy along with the nearby naval air facilities as well. US Navy security forces, expanded greatly since before the war (and not highly-rated by the other armed services) conducted security patrols though without an active commando threat. They were preparing themselves for one, a wise move considering how the Soviets were conducting silent reconnaissance ready to begin actions here come next year. Over in the Florida Panhandle, to the northwest, the US Navy had several air facilities there as well near to the US Air Force bases at Eglin and Tyndall. NAS Pensacola and NAS Whiting Field were pre-war training bases now with expanded operations ongoing. When the Soviet Airborne had landed in South Texas at the beginning of the conflict, they had used the many US Navy training sites around Corpus Christi as airheads: this was joined by the Cubans taking NAS Key West, another major training site for the US Navy’s aviation assets. The aircraft and personnel there in Texas and also the Florida Keys had all been lost in the sudden assaults thus making Pensacola and Whiting Field (plus several outlying relief strips) even more busy than they would have been with full American national mobilisation ongoing. While aircrews conducted their training ready to serve aboard carriers, there was a carrier offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. The USS Lexington, remembered by the Japanese as the ‘Blue Ghost’ for her World War Two service, remained caught inside what was considered hostile territory. The training carrier had a small air wing and had been conducting limited offshore air operations though staying close to the coastline. Several near misses had come and her luck could only last so long. The Soviets were aiming to get her soon enough though sinking the Blue Ghost was, as the Japanese had discovered in the last war she fought in, meant finding her first. Keeping the Lexington in the fight forever was something recognised as impossible by the US Navy when in the Gulf of Mexico. She needed to escape or be lost. If an escape was made, there was a lot that the carrier would do in the wider war rather than playing hide-and-seek in the Gulf of Mexico and waiting for the Soviets to put her on the bottom. An opportunity came to make that escape and the US Navy took it. Towards the end of the month, the US Air Force was planning to make a major strike against Cuba and being rather secretive about it because they were using their ‘invisible’ aircraft to do this: the few F-117 Nighthawks that were in service. Cuban mainland targets were on the list to be bombed as well as the Cuban fighters flying from Key West too. Only by getting to Chuck Robb himself could the US Navy get the US Air Force to agree to coordinate their raid with the escape of the Blue Ghost. The defence secretary would not stand by and allow the interservice rivalry which had crippled the early war effort to continue and this was an opportunity he himself took to stamp on that when it still, after all this time, saw the two service not actively subverting each other’s war efforts but refusing to cooperate fully. When the stealth aircraft went into action over Cuba and dropped bombs on Key West too, the Lexington made a run for it. The carrier raced down the western side of the Florida Peninsula and through the Florida Straits before going around the bottom and up the eastern side. The Soviets had no idea it happened until one of their scouting teams near Mayport spotted the Blue Ghost coming into port there. Even if those men had missed its arrival, there came an announcement the next day from New York boasting of what had happened, even claiming that the Lexington had attacked Cuba on the way. It was a rare admission by the US Navy of what its carriers were up to in this war and part of a big propaganda move, with the added lie about the supposed attacks made on Cuba during the escape. This only added to the intent by the Soviets to strike at Mayport as soon as they could. They dispatched more men to join the scout team, ready to give the Americans a taste of their own propaganda when the Lexington was – like others in port – to be attacked as soon as possible and blown up in port once the men were there. The plan was to do this in January.

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December 1984: New York

While he hadn’t been about to admit it, John Glenn was convinced back in September that Ted Kennedy was about to lose the election. He would no longer be vice president as his own political career would be over alongside Kennedy’s. Then everything changed that fateful Monday when the war started like it did. Kennedy was dead in Washington and he narrowly survived nuclear assassination himself while in Kansas City followed by his sudden ascension to the presidency. Last month he won election to the office of the presidency, voted in on the National Union ticket, though, once again saying nothing openly, he didn’t anticipate that he’d stay in office past the end of this elected term. His presidency wouldn’t be about economic nor social matters, focusing on what most Americans would always regard as the most important things. Instead, he’d be a wartime president: during it and hopefully through the post-victory recovery.

As a wartime president, Glenn spent the overwhelming majority of his time involved in the conduct of that war. Almost everything ongoing in the country was related to the conflict being fought on American soil and overseas too. This kept Glenn busy and going abroad for the usual peacetime presidential visits wasn’t something on the cards. Through the end of September, into October and then during November too, Glenn didn’t leave the mainland United States. He was either at Mount Weather, Raven Rock, The Greenbrier and only occasionally in New York. When not on the ground, he was airborne with many sudden flights taken when alerts came in over the Soviet nuclear posture threw evacuation procedures into overdrive. This occurred rather frequency, annoying him yet it wasn’t something that could be ignored: not after September 17th. In December, two foreign visits were planned for Glenn, both of them to take place in secrecy. He went to Ottawa first and met with Prime Minister Mulroney to discuss even further military cooperation between the two nations who were fighting the Soviets together. After the Canada visit, Glenn was due to go across the North Atlantic to Britain and meet there with several European leaders (prime ministers from the UK, Ireland, Portugal and Spain) who were gathering in the English countryside at Chequers for a major summit. Glenn didn’t go though. There was ongoing military activity on and above the ocean, intensifying despite the terrible weather. The flight was always going to be dangerous and a military escort like no other beforehand was planned for Air Force One consisting of US Air Force F-15s flying from Newfoundland, US Navy F-14s operating from the USS America midway across the North Atlantic and RAF fighters flying from Ireland. The America was needed elsewhere and the latest satellite pictures coming from Iceland showed Soviet MiG-31 interceptors there along with what appeared to be air-to-air tankers on the ground. There was the possibility that the Soviets might know of Glenn’s trip, or even if they didn’t, those MiGs might get ‘lucky’. In the age of modern communications, was there really a need for Glenn to go all the way to Britain? Such was the question asked. Both yes and no would be the response to that. The European leaders had their meeting regardless – with an unofficial attendee being the French foreign minister – and then afterwards Prime Minister Thatcher flew Concorde from Gloucestershire’s RAF Fairford to McGuire AFB in New Jersey to meet with Glenn in New York. Concorde flew alone without a fighter escort, unhindered by Soviet activity going both ways.

When up in Ottawa, Glenn had been informed that President Herzog Flores was in New York and stamping his feet while demanding to see him. The last leader of the Monterrey Government had come across from San Francisco in a rage. He was waiting for Glenn’s return and was angered when he was denied knowledge of where Glenn was or when he would come back. Glenn met him in his own time. Mexico’s legitimate president had cooled off and his outbursts were gone yet he wasn’t in a good mood after what he saw as being messed around when it came to Glenn ‘avoiding him’ after ‘humiliating him and Mexico’. This all concerned the recent trip by Vice President Baker to Tijuana where transfer of diplomatic recognition was removed from Herzog Flores to the Baja Council. At the UN here in New York, other countries recognised him and his administration (a shrinking number of followers indeed) as the legal representatives of Mexico but now the United States was recognising those in Tijuana! Glenn listened to all that was said and then told Herzog Flores that that was the way things were: relations between the United States and Mexico were now only to be conducted with Tijuana. He urged his visitor to go to Baja California and offer his services there because he, unfortunately, could do no more for him. Herzog Flores tried his best, reminding Glenn of ‘all the work’ being done to create an army of Mexicans on US soil to fight for the Allied cause by this was hyperbole. Nothing had really occurred apart from the Mexican president dreaming big. POWs who’d served in the army of Revolutionary Mexico were going nowhere and there was already a transfer of Mexican nationals from pre-war refugee camps going to Tijuana where they could be organised as an army there: Herzog Flores’ hard work was all in his head as real action was already being taken. He departed despondent while Glenn moved on to others matters of far more importance.

This hardened attitude of Glenn’s in how Mexico’s various self-declared leaders would be dealt with matched other actions taken place with regards to foreign countries in the Western Hemisphere. The United States acted against the neutral nations of both Ecuador and Venezuela, each a former ally who were now providing oil to support the Soviet-led war in North America. They had been coerced, bullied and threatened into doing so but that didn’t matter to the United States because that fuel they provided was all fuel that the Soviets didn’t have to ship across the North Atlantic and it kept tanks and aircraft in action. Ecuador got rougher treatment than Venezuela. US Navy ships, joined by a few Chilean vessels as well, operated openly in a raid against oil tankers going north from Ecuador towards Nicaragua, Guatemala and Revolutionary Mexico with four of them sunk and another half dozen either turning back or not leaving Ecuador when the hostile warships made their intentions known by sinking the others. None of these were Ecuadorian-flagged ships but no tankers would leave the country afterwards for some time even when the Americans and Chileans were gone. There were mines laid near to Ecuador’s ports, one which sunk a cargo ship. Ecuador had no means to deal with what were soon discovered to be extensive minefields laid by a submarine or two covertly while the attacks on oil tankers were happening overtly. Outside Venezuela, there was another US Navy submarine active and laying more minefields: ‘smart’ mines too, which would target only certain types of ships. Two tankers were struck, both of them supposedly vessels registered in the neutral Costa Rica though in reality Cuban operated. Venezuela’s president complained directly to Glenn. The American president acted innocent, saying that it was ‘unfortunate’ that such events had occurred but he didn’t know what had happened. This stood in direct contrast to his response to Ecuadorian anger where Glenn had warned them of further responses if they kept on aiding America’s allies. With Venezuela though, the attitude taken of ‘it could have been anyone who did this’ was used. Glenn urged his counterpart down in Caracas to reassert its sovereignty and act as a true neutral should when it came to belligerent nations at war, therefore not supplying them with material aid. The American aim was to wait to see what Venezuela would do afterwards, expecting events to play out in the new year. Glenn was hoping Venezuela would extradite itself from the entanglement it was in there… otherwise stronger action would be taken.


Following on from all of this, Glenn met with his War Council (what would in peacetime be the National Security Council) in the middle of the month to discuss in detail the ongoing war at home and the direction that the fight was to take through 1985. He was updated on the military situation at the front, the overall civilian issue on both sides of the frontlines and the progress of the building of the Army of the United States. There wasn’t much good news nor was Glenn best pleased at what he was told on the plans for next year.

The frontlines were holding and the Soviet offensive movement forward had been firmly brought to a stop. American counteroffensive capability remained shot through though as everything had been thrown at stopping the invasion from getting any further than it had done. The stalemate where the bad weather was bad continued mostly where the weather was better too. Some successful action had been taken by US forces – Baja California being the highlight of that – yet these were not war-winning moves. Intelligence information on the enemy’s state of their forces showed that they were just as worn out as United States forces were yet they were expecting the arrival of significant reinforcements. There was information that a major command change had come over in occupied territory and reorganisations were ongoing ready to renew the attack. The ARUS (there were some sniggers when that acronym was pronounced as one world; sounds which Glenn wasn’t so amused by) was taking far longer than possible to build in the design and time-frame envisioned. Production issues with equipment needed to fully-equip the planned force were still ongoing. There was excellent training going on yet at the same time, things were taking longer with certain elements of that there too. A solution was asked for by the president. Chuck Robb had one, a controversial one. The defence secretary wanted to see a staged entry of ARUS forces into combat come next year. Rather than all of the massive force being made available at once, parts of it would enter the fight at a time. Full effort would be thrown at getting the parts showing promise ready sooner instead of waiting for everything to be completed. The vice president and also Glenn’s national security adviser weren’t so sure: the Joint Chiefs were behind Robb’s proposal. This would mean bringing about a third of the huge overall ARUS into play by the middle, maybe the end of February. Waiting for everyone to be ready at once, a widespread of efforts fairly made, would mean there would be no new forces available until the end of March, maybe even April. Such a wait was unacceptable, considering what else Glenn and his War Council discussed, that being the number of casualties among civilians so far in this conflict: those who’d already lost their lives and those who were due to. The numbers of the dead already were increasing every day yet they were anticipated to increase behind the lines into 1985. The effects of hunger, disease and lack of any form of medical care being given to American civilians in occupied territory were really going to come into play. Such things would kill more Americans than any collateral damage during the fighting or even the firing squads of occupiers against suspected partisans. Millions upon millions more deaths were certain to occur. The only way to avoid that was to go and liberate American territory as soon as possible.

What the new defence secretary wanted to do with the ARUS was given permission. Extensive plans would begin for major offensives starting before the end of February with those joining existing forces though before then there would be limited attacks made by those already in the fight. Some of the supply effort which was now being directed towards building ARUS forces projected to not be ready for many months would be turned to standing forces to allow this to happen. Howard Baker’s concerns over the low numbers of new forces being brought into action come the end of February were addressed though and it was decided that with a real push, a third of the ARUS being made ready early would instead be half, even with the additional supply & equipment support for standing forces made. Robb went along with this despite knowing the difficulties yet aware of the victory achieved in getting presidential approval not to wait for the whole force to be ready. He had been seriously concerned that doing so could see the war lost because ongoing events elsewhere – the North Atlantic in particular – caused worry that by then the Soviets might be able to force a victory of their own on American soil.

The director of the new National Intelligence & Security Service organisation was at that New York meeting with the War Council though he left as soon as possible once it was completed to fly down to Warrenton in northern Virginia. This CIA site was the centre of their operations as they were undergoing the process of being subsumed by NISS, a process which was still being opposed by the CIA albeit unsuccessfully. He went there because at Warrenton was a Soviet KGB defector being questioned there. He was a full colonel whom the CIA had in their custody yet he was willing and cooperative when it came to talking. They had given him the codename Workman. Workman told the CIA that the defector that the DIA had, the prize which they had in the form of Peppermint, that supposed general from the GRU, was a false defector. He was a liar. He was sent over to trick the Americans in a long-term strategic move. He said he could prove it too. With Peppermint and Workman, the Americans had on their hands another Golitsyn–Nosenko situation all over again.

Difficult as 'divided Europe' will consist in three type of nation,  the EEC (till now the only big economy and industrial area not touched by war), nations that will have no other choice to lean on her for humanitarian help and economic recovery and this include the UK (whatever their feeling about NATO break up are) and nations that will sell their firstborn to become part of her...especially if there is a serious meltdown of the Soviet bloc, so no and big part of Africa and the Middle East will look at Bruxelles (Paris) as the power of reference.
India is still untouched and once the gun will be silent will start to carve his sphere of influence on former china, south east asia and the indian subcontinent naturally.
The arab world will be a mess if the Soviet start to off type like Gheddafi and Saddam, especially if some non entity take their place and suddenly the soviet support evaporate; probably some serious civil war in many nations, still i doubt that the USA will have the power projection capacity and the will to do something about it.
In South America, the usual historical grievance against the USA has been exacerbated by the war time behaviour, so any soft power Washington had by now is gone and the road is open for many Chavez like figure and the US military capacity will be severely diminished for sometime due to the reconstruction necessity, so even hard power will be limited and we will see a new arms race in the continent as a mean to be protected by the big guy of the north


So no, 1945/50 will be the heyday of the US world power and will not be gained again for sometime

Yes i know that you don't like the EU due to reason and you seem to desire being relegated to the dustbin of history, but let's be realistic:

The Uk: the war has been costly and had pretty much devastated her economy, the EEC is the biggest economic patner and at the moment also the only one that will loan the funds necessary for the economic recovery; the fact that she can give her part of the money to the common budget is a given...frankly is much much much more probable that the Tatcher will go hat in hand to Bruxelles for ask fund to rebuild Great Britain and she will probably found also the US president and the Canadian Prime Minister in the waiting room.
Ireland: the EEC is not a military alliance (for now) and so the rest of the group don't have any commitment towards Ireland, so there no foul in her not being military supported by them and no...people in Ireland don't want to go back to the good old time they were an economic colony of the UK (whatever bond the common war experience had created).
Spain: Neither in NATO or EEC (as Greece), economy already geared towards european integration and in need of postwar assistance that at the moment only the EEC can provide
Portugal and Norway: In NATO, probably some grumbling about commitment and some more esitation to join, same situation of Spain.

Not considering that at the moment the EEC is more or less the only thing that is keeping the what remain of the world commerce going and providing humanitarian, intelligence, logistic and financial help to all that nations plus the USA and Canada, and this smooth a lot of things...not considering the various British, Irish, Iberic and even american and canadian refugee that are at the moment guest of the EEC nations.

Rump NATO can't offer that much security, postwar they will be forced to demilitarize quickly to keep their economy and their military in general will be a shadow of before the war, expecially in term of power projection (RN and RAF had taken a severe beating and are struggling to defend the home island) and the rest of Est European nation will gravitate in any case around the EEC economies due to the situation and the sheer size of the EEC economy