Eagle Guardian: The War of 2010

Fifty–Eight

The British Government had a National Security Council though this Cabinet Office committee was something new (only established back in May) and couldn’t realistically be equated to its across-the-ocean counterpart in Washington. There was a secure briefing room below Whitehall similar to the Situation Room under the White House yet there was no real public consciousness – brought about by fictional portrayals in literature or on the screen – that Britain had a similar government organisation to the one that the United States had. Throughout the early summer, the National Security Council had been meeting on various occasions and each time below ground in Cabinet Office Briefing Room A: COBRA was the favoured shorthand term rather than the official one for these gatherings. Attendees varied and the meetings took place at short notice where ongoing events were reacted to. The idea was that with access to a wealth of information and all meeting together in a secure environment, the highest matters of state business when it came to national security could be discussed among those present.

The National Security Council / COBRA met straight after the shooting incident on the streets above and those present were there throughout the majority of the war’s first day. Politicians, officials and military personnel were called in from across the country. Things were rather chaotic.


In the immediate aftermath of the incoming news that war had started, information flooded into COBRA. Obama’s death was confirmed, news came that Russian attacks had been made in multiple locations aboard and then there were reports of military activity which commenced against Britain directly. With the latter, first there were the cruise missile strikes from distant bombers. RAF Marham was one of three airbases inside the UK targeted by missiles with the other two striking American-operated facilities. Some of those missiles were on target, others went off course and a few more were engaged by US Army units launching interceptor missiles in the form of Patriots. Those missiles hit broke into fragments and such parts of the missile bodies fell to the ground to join those off-target in creating civilian casualties. From Gloucestershire and Norfolk there came uncomfortable news on this matter. Another airbase, RAF Kinloss up in Scotland, had been raided Russian commandos. They’d killed people and blown up aircraft with several of their number then held-up inside a building on-site and surrounded. Those in London heard reports that they had taken hostages to use as human shields. That armed stand-off there wouldn’t last long before it ended and with it came further loss of life. To add to this, word came that there were more Spetsnaz whom had been engaged elsewhere, this time at the Chicksands military facility in Bedfordshire: two of their number had been shot dead before making an attack with the rest sought. Alas, it quickly became clear that there was an error here. Two people were dead but they were innocent British civilians caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was looking like there had been no Russian commando team at all and instead an overreaction from British military personnel there… Non-fatal incidents nationwide were reported too. A significant attack made by cyber means had commenced against the UK. It had affected parts of the nation’s telephone network and also several British banks: with those, cashpoints throughout the country belonging to several commercial organisations weren’t working. The power grid was unaffected by a failed attack that certainly had been tried to knock that out. From over in mainland Europe, there were similar reports when it came to telecommunications and power being hit in such a manner with things far worse in terms of phone & internet connections in Germany than here in Britain while in Belgium there were regional power outages. This all could have been a lot worse here at home and the news was that these attempts to do damage via such means – more than could be done with explosives – were still ongoing.

British forces overseas were at war. There was a Russian military offensive underway through the Baltic States and Poland as what was looking like Moscow’s main effort yet attacks had occurred elsewhere in places that British forces were deployed including Norway. Up in Latvia, where the British Army was heading-up that mixed NATO deterrent force on the ground, deterrence there had failed. Communications with them were lost but other reports said that they were in the way of hundreds of Russian tanks – was this 2010 or 1980? – pouring over the border towards them. RAF aircraft over on the Continent were engaged in NATO-commanded wartime operations from the get-go where operational control of them was arranged via allied cooperation. British Army units in Poland (in larger numbers than in Latvia) were again under NATO supervision. They’d faced air & missile attack, COBRA learnt, and were being pulled back from forward exposed positions in response. British diplomatic facilities in Latvia and Lithuania were silent with no contact available though a connection was made with the embassy in Tallinn. The Estonian capital was under missile attack and the ambassador there reported gunfire in the streets outside, possibility originating from the port area as a starting point. On the line came the defence attaché there too: he said that American and Estonia troops were between Tallinn and the Russian border and he was expecting that… he never finished what he was saying. Communications with Tallinn were cut off and couldn’t be re-established despite everything tried. Denmark and its capital city Copenhagen soon became a subject of concern. First reports of Russian Spetsnaz at the seaport there, possibility the airport too, were corrected to the news that the Russians had hundreds of marines all over the city. The confirmation came from NATO and Danish sources before contact was made with the British Embassy there. Similar to Tallinn, what the ambassador and his senior people could say didn’t last long before the line went dead but COBRA was informed that there were many British nationals in Copenhagen: far more than there were known to be in the Baltic States. Many were at the embassy and seeking safety while all around them, the city was at war where civilian casualties were reported to be extraordinarily high. From the Netherlands there were reports of gunfire on the streets of The Hague at the outbreak of war in what sounded like a mirror of the attempt to kill ministers there like had been done in London and this was repeated in reports out of Belgium too. There though, it wasn’t just Brussels where Russian commandos had showed up but also at the SHAPE military complex as well: that situation was one where conflicting reports of the scale of activity and whether it was all over or ongoing kept on arriving. It took several hours for it to be confirmed that those who attacked the place were pinned down with hostages yet spread out into several groups. No immediate resolution came with this and the stand-off there continued for the time being.

All of this in the first couple of hours. It was going to be a long day indeed.


There was a career diplomat who functioned as the country’s National Security Adviser and he was supported by a secretariat. They manned the phones and delivered news – which was meant to be processed first to eliminate rumours reaching the decision-makers – while the NSA himself supported those attendees. There were many people called in. Seven Cabinet ministers and the prime minister were at COBRA. Two more Cabinet members were elsewhere, both at the PJHQ Northwood base north of London less a Russian strike (commandos, a bomb or a nuclear attack) eliminate the nation’s leadership. The Chief if the Defence Staff wasn’t far away, just over the road at the MOD’s own below ground bunker. The heads of MI-5 and MI-6 each came to COBRA. There was an invitation made by the prime minister where he had the Leader of the Opposition and a trio of her shadow cabinet members – each of them only months ago government ministers themselves – show up with the Mayor of London also making an appearance. Add to these people the various others in the form of those not holding high-ranking positions, COBRA was a busy place. The actual room after what that was named was one of several under the Cabinet Office and they were all put into use. Up above them, Whitehall remained an armed camp. There were soldiers and policemen inside buildings and outside, all where that Russian commando team had struck in the early hours. Casualties were recovered and even that live prisoner. There’d been further alerts where a false sighting of another armed man – more Spetsnaz; were they everywhere? – had been reported. Helicopters were in the sky, armoured vehicles were on the streets and armed soldiers swept offices throughout the length of Whitehall & further out too. The body of the slain defence secretary was taken away as were the others. The security cordon kept the curious back and this so-called safe zone was extended during the day encompassing an area which included Whitehall at the centre while stretching down past the Houses of Parliament, over to Buckingham Palace, through St. James’ and across Trafalgar Square back to the Thames. It was a Saturday and there had been increased security for a week beforehand so this wasn’t that difficult to do yet it was a big effort. Some would say that this was all a bit late: the damage had already been done.

Liam Fox was dead. There were several junior ministers under him at the Ministry of Defence, including prominent among them the Lib-Dem Nick Harvey as Armed Forces Minister. Harvey was soon in London – coming from his distant constituency to land in a helicopter at Horse Guards Parade – but David Cameron nor those with him at COBRA wished to have him step up and replace Fox. Harvey just wasn’t the man for that job. There were others considered and Cameron wanted a replacement made as soon as possible, preferably today. He himself selected someone and had the staff put a call through to that candidate at the same time as the prime minister was on-hold waiting for another call to be put through where he could talk to now-President Biden. Soon enough, David Davis showed up. Davis was Cameron’s 2005 rival for the party leadership though had served in his shadow cabinet afterward. He’d left in 2008 yet only this year, Cameron had asked him to return to join his new government. Davis had politely refused. The two of them had met in the preceding weeks before today where Davis had been among a group of cross-party backbenchers seeing Cameron over the issue of civil liberties due to the pre-war crisis with Russia. He came to COBRA today and Cameron asked him to take over from their deceased colleague Fox. Cameron gave an assurance on Davis’ pet issue over civil liberties and also asked him to serve his country at a time like this. Davis agreed. This wasn’t the United States where parliamentary approval or anything like that was needed: Davis was already a Privy Councillor and with haste he was in the job. The prime minister regarded him as the best man for the job and no strong vocalised objection came from the others present.

There were many ministers at COBRA. Nick Clegg, William Hague, Theresa May, Ken Clarke, Chris Huhne, Phillip Hammond and Dominic Grieve were there from the Cabinet (George Osborne and Vince Cable were those sent to Northwood) alongside several junior ministers present too. Their reactions to all of the incoming news which they received alongside Cameron was something that it was a good idea that the public didn’t see. If they had, national morale would have been gravely shaken. There were so many things to discuss and many decisions to be made. It wasn’t just military matters but also related domestic concerns. Among the latter was the decision taken to have Grieve, the Attorney General, head up an urgent investigation into how the shooting in London and the assassination of Fox had been able to occur. The security breach was something of the most serious nature. The Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS), the Justice Secretary – Clarke – and the Director General of MI-5 had all been in dispute over who was responsible and who should take charge of looking in what happened. Grieve was selected as a compromise on this. When Harman was present, she as the leader of the opposition – pending the delayed outcome of the Labour Party leadership election –, was asked if several Labour people would join a national government. It was agreed that her and four others would all do so with formalities needing sorting out there but, most-importantly, this being made public for the sake of national unity on a political front. Everyone present knew that this was going to cause controversy in time and there was no mistake there. In direct military-related matters, other decisions were made. Air Marshal Stirrup, the CDS, was instructed to make sure that everything was thrown at getting the Royal Navy’s third Vanguard-class submarine, one laden with Trident missiles, to sea to join the two others which were already out: who knew if Russia was soon to follow up its conventional attack with a nuclear one? A third submarine would give Britain more ‘deterrent options’ on that point. From where the Chief of the General Staff – Stirrup’s subordinate as head of the British Army – was at Northwood, newly-installed Davis spoke to him direct and told General Richards he wanted the 3rd Mechanised Division to ‘speed up’ its ongoing deployment to get to Poland as soon as possible. Offers of help within the NATO framework to allies in immediate need were made by COBRA. A proposition for British SAS troops to be sent to address the SHAPE situation was decided upon yet events were already moving at pace there with the French already providing naval special forces from Commando Jaubert to end the stand-off there: if they couldn’t resolve the situation tonight, then it would be tomorrow. Latvia was another issue which came up. Communications were still out with both the NATO Brigade in the field and also Riga too, yet the ambassador was in contact by the early afternoon. He was with several other diplomats from various representations of NATO countries (neither the Americans nor the French though) who had left Riga alongside part of the Latvian government. In effect, they were on the run and moving towards the Baltic coastline in an area infested with Russian commandos on the ground and their jets in the sky. The Latvian president came on the line. He asked for help and that was one which was decided to be given. A special operation was something that would resolve that matter.

Then there was Copenhagen.

This was a decision which took some time to agree to. There were those who worried it would turn out to be a disaster. Held ready as an immediate standby for rapid intervention within NATO’s operational area was the British Army’s 16th Air Assault Brigade. They’d been reinforced and held at the highest state of alert while under command of CJTF-East. They were still British soldiers though. The Russians were all over the Danish capital and British civilians, as well as Danes and other Europeans, were right in the firing line. The brigade could get there fast and knew the ground – well… Denmark anyway – from recent NATO exercises. They were pulled from direct NATO operational control and re-tasked on a UK national-level to support the Danes. Orders were cut and off they went to the Baltic. It was madness, several COBRA attendees said, to do so with such haste. Where was the pre-deployment reconnaissance of opposing forces? How many Danish speakers were there among their number? Were they ready to fight in a battle over urban terrain? However, SACEUR was in agreement where Stavridis oversaw the command arrangements and had support arranged. British troops were fighting around Copenhagen later that day. They would take losses in combat but weren’t slaughtered as some feared they might. However, what happened with this played into a wider chain of events concerning the position of SACEUR doing what he did on the war’s first day. There would be a different kind of controversy, so much of it related to American politics, to come. After those sent to Copenhagen to join the battle did so, and much later in the day, worrying other news came from the Baltic. COBRA was informed that two Royal Navy warships had been hit and sunk in engagements with the Russian Navy: both HMS Kent and HMS Montrose were reported to be those lost. This was corrected soon afterwards to it just being the Kent… ‘just’ meaning that still many, many lives were lost. It came at a time when discussions were being had concerning other elements of the Royal Navy.

One of those Labour appointees to the national government was the retired admiral Lord Alan West. In the Brown government, he’d been a junior minister for the security & counter-terrorism brief at the Home Office. May had her own junior minister in that role now – Lady Neville-Jones – and wasn’t about to have West back at the Home Office. Cameron and Harman had agreed to West serving as armed forces minister (it wasn’t Harvey’s day; he was suddenly made a minister for ‘home defence’). With Davis’ agreement, West recommended to COBRA that the semi-retired aircraft carrier HMS Invincible be brought back into service. She was at Portsmouth where she’d been for five years. The experts had said she’d take eighteen months to return to service but West said that this could be cut to six months with everything ‘including the kitchen sink’ thrown at that effort to cut the time by a third. West was thinking ahead and considering the long-term implications of replacements for battle damaged ships in war. Others at COBRA heard only ‘six months’ and they started to comprehend what that period of time, maybe even longer, would mean to spend as a country at war.

These weren’t happy thoughts.

As a writer, I like this idea very much that you could imagine what I wrote in terms of a helicopter sitting there. Last summer, I went through London when travelling and missed my train. I had several hours to the next one and walked down Whitehall on a Sunday morning. I was looking then at the places where I had gunmen shooting from in the story, long before this story was even conceived.
In an update coming this week, Forcon is going to address the issue with the US Gov.

Worldwide, I'd imagine that many many people are fearful of nuclear attack. Four nuclear-armed states are at war. I'd thing that many will have self-evacuated. There would have been panic, crimes, price rises, hording and despair in places. Official control of news only goes so far and people will panic and flee. Others, like I would, would just resign to the fact that if it came it would come and there's nothing to be done (that's just me though).
The British Gov would have sent out a leaflet - yes, sounds silly but it's been done in recent years with other issues - to every household telling people what to do. They'd have information out there though the media. There might even be an official or unofficial 'keep calm and carry on' thing; its a dated slogan from WW2 which saw a use for commercial reasons 2011-2013. On the television and in the newspapers, there would be sensible information put out. I'd expect many people to follow it but others would panic. Some people would too thrive at this time selling 'nuclear war survival packs' to the gullible.  

My 37th birthday was on Thursday 5th August.
I was working on the back end and content management systems for Johnston Pressin Peterborough.

Things that this will prevent:
Town Assault 5 Airsoft game hosted at Copehill Down FIBUA training village.
I began playing Ice Hockey in October 2010 so that's off.
Given the ages and relative fitness levels, British Ice Hockey, from the English National League and Scottish National League, through the English Premier League and Northern Premier League, and a large chunk of the Elite league are likely to sign up, (and probably be accepted very quickly), so I can see all of the hockey leagues cancelling their seasons.

At 37 and having been discharged on a P3L7 grading, (below entry standard), 19 years previously, I probably won't be called up, but would head to the London Road barracks, 5th Btn Royal Anglian Rgt, (TA), to see if there's a route in, (I was that stupid), or if there's a requirement to back file admin roles.

I wonder about places like Peterborough that have large Central European communities. People round here aren't the brightest and I can see some idiots trying to attack the Lithuanian restaurant on Lincoln Road and coming off far worse. Same with any Poles, they'd stop walking around on their own incase some of the local knuckle draggers try to "get revenge for our dead boys", on Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians, Czechs or Estonians who probably hate Russians more than they do and will be VERY insulted, (to the point of violence), if anyone calls them Russian.

If anything, I feel that the war will have the opposite effect.
All Baltic and Polish immigrants will have ties back home and will be the staunchest supporters of British intervention to liberate their homelands.
Expect them to front PR efforts, raise millions of pounds and ask to form either separate units or to be able to enlist in the military.
Extremly powerful bonds of shared struggles will be built. Blood will be thicker than water.

The consequences for community cohesion in the UK post war will be immense. Especially if Eastern Europeans support the war effort more than other minorities.
There will be a renewed sense of confidence in the UK and in British martial spirit. The PARA charge in Copenhagen will become the stuff of legends.
Brexit is unlikely to happen TTL as the UK will have led NATO efforts in Eastern Europe and Eastern Europeans will be brothers in arms.
As liberation and a possible occupation of Russia takes place. Expect thousands of war brides to come back to the UK too.

I was 33 with 4 year old boys at home. Drove to work on Aquidneck Island every day over the Jamestown and Claiborne Pell bridges into Newport past the Newport Naval base home to the Naval War College/ NUWC.

First weekend of August 2010. Finishing up summer classes at a local community college so I could go back to a four-year school. Was 21 at the time, turned 22 later in the month. Would have affected me on a deeply personal level, especially with the assasination of Obama, whom I admire deeply. Didnt want to get political with that one.

I don’t know if I would have signed up for military service at that point. Would have been probably turned down due to health issues: very flat feet, immune deficiency from a young age, etc. But could have probably passed basic training.

Internet insanity is something I aim to add  in tonight's update. In the Kremlin they'll be watching youtube footage and congratulating themselves on their own brilliance.