Eagle Guardian: The War of 2010

The conclusion to this story is coming tomorrow.

Well at least Einstein is wrong for this universe, as it is now this quote “I do not know with what weapons World War IV will be fought, but World War V will be fought with sticks and stones”.

I was going to suggest the economic consequences and cultural depictions of the war, but you covered it in this update.

Two Hundred and Eight

The armistice signed in Vilnius didn’t cover the conflict still raging in Libya. Gaddafi was completely taken aback by the Russian decision to end the war like they did: admitting that they had been defeated. He had only expected Russian victory if not under Putin or even Bortnikov then Gerasimov. What he decried as a betrayal stunned him. He and his regime had bigger problems though. Even without the ending of combat operations against Russia, Libya was doomed in fighting the Coalition. What occurred in Vilnius sped things up. In the following days, though still keeping an eye on Russia less that all be an unexpected ruse, NATO transferred air assets to Italy and also occupied parts of Libya too. There was a switch of overall command for them from SACEUR to CENTCOM yet this was a war being fought by the Coalition, not just NATO. It would take longer to move troops and warships but their preparation for movement was underway. When it came to boots on the ground, knowing that American & European reinforcements were on their way meant that CENTCOM could do more now without having to worry about reserving strength. The Egyptians too were eager to get things finished.

The Tripoli offensive got going. Libya’s army – what was left after the Battle of Sirte – didn’t stand a chance. The French moved in from the south while the Egyptians, with American national guardsmen under operational command, made an attack from the east. Libya’s capital was entered on September 27th and declared clear two days later. A couple of Gaddafi’s sons were captured – dead or alive – in the final series of engagements but Saif and Khamis plus their father were missing. The younger Khamis, wanted for serious war crimes, turned up in Tunisia and would be handed over within weeks but where had Libya’s deposed leader and his eldest son gone? Everyone was looking for them. Breadcrumbs were followed and those led to possible exits into inland West Africa. There were several countries to where they could have gone to seek safety, taking stolen wealth with them too. For years, Libya had aided those nations. However, despite efforts to find shelter in them, there had been rejections of pleas for asylum. Gaddafi and his son would only bring those countries trouble. It was to Sudan where they both ended up and Sudan had no intention of handing either over to the Coalition or the international community.

Following the Libyan War, there was a strong Western military presence for the following months. Regime hold-outs were targeted and to were Islamists who tried to launch an insurgency against ‘crusaders’. This was dealt with harshly. Political will in Europe faded for a continued occupation and it was the same in the United States. The Egyptians would be in the new year leading an Arab League mission to secure Libya and build a new country here… reaping many rewards in the process too.

An offer by neighbouring countries and fellow Middle Eastern regimes to provide an Arab League peacekeeping mission to Syria was rejected by the new regime in Damascus. This was a polite refusal. The generals signed a withdrawal deal with Israel – the Americans departed as well – and in the process threw Hezbollah in Lebanon to the wolves: the full might of Israel doing as it wished there. Free Syria (the name was still being used) finished off the last of Assad loyalists and also ‘pacified’ the coastal regions where the Assads and their Alawites followers had once had their power base. Asma Assad – wife of the deceased Bashar – and her three young children were reported last seen at Latakia before they disappeared from the face of the earth: Bashar’s brother Maher, a ruthless general who’d led the Republican Guard in the final battles of the dying regime, was afterwards seen in Jordan and he would survive the loss of his family’s regime. There was an unofficial coalition which Free Syria did join though, one which included non-Coalition Middle Eastern nations plus some Western nations. American, French, Egyptian, Saudi and Gulf Arab forces fought against what became known as the Islamic State. This terrorist entity with ambitions of a Caliphate had risen in Iraq during the Third World War and sought to expand itself afterwards. Free Syria fought them exclusively on the ground in Syria, in Iraq it was several nations and in the skies it was a free-for-all. Through the rest of 2010, all of 2011 and into early 2012, this new war would be fought until a final battle in Mosul was won with Islamic State defeated.

Turkey had withdrawn from NATO but sought to re-align itself with the West after Russia’s defeat. The process started before Vilnius but accelerated afterwards. There were strong feelings involved though due to how Turkey was regarded by many as siding with Russia rather than taking a true neutral stance… but also walking away from its supposed allies too at their time of need. Things would change in mid-2011 when President Gül deposed Prime Minister Erdoğan and had him arrested. The charges concerned alleged domestic corruption and abuse of powers though that was just a smokescreen. The real issues were more complex and to do with ideology. Gül would then try to bring Turkey back to where it had been before. This wasn’t going to be easy: it could take a decade or more. Meanwhile, Turkey would join with the Egyptian-led invasion of Sudan in 2012. The regime of al-Bashir was brought down by Egyptian tanks in Khartoum following several years of disputes leading to armed conflict. America and the West weren’t directly involved – Egypt had other allies beyond Turkey – but did assist in several ways especially when it came to locating certain figures there. Gaddafi was finally caught with a return to Libya for ‘justice’ though his son remained a fugitive. Sudan, under Egyptian control, would see the southern half of the nation cleaved off into an independent nation while the rest would soon be economically & militarily tied to Egypt for the foreseeable future.


Europe had been ravaged by the Third World War. The conflict had been felt across the continent, even through neutral countries too. The post-war global recession hit hard. There were internal refugees from the east and there had been major disruption to trade among those in the western half who found this the lifeblood of their economies. Environmental concerns due to the nuclear explosions and possible contamination from radiation among sunken submarines was there too. War damage from air & missile attacks left unexploded ordnance alongside the physical destruction of war which likewise was continent-wide. This was worse in Poland and the Baltic States though the Russians had struck everywhere they could manage when possible. Defence budgets needed increasing to pay for replacement equipment & personnel while there was infrastructure costs on top of them. Political upheavals were seen in Eastern Europe first in the Baltics with new governments, then Poland as well before economic factors saw changes in the following years among ruling parties. The EU was hit with many challenges and it was that institution which many turned to. However, while the EU was needed to put Europe back together in the eyes of many, others recalled the utter failures of pan-European diplomacy to avert war – an unfair belief – and then there was the fact that it had been NATO and the Coalition which had triumphed in conflict. Finland and Sweden, EU members but not in the EU, were angry at how their partners ‘hadn’t stopped’ the Americans from denotations nuclear weapons so close to their countries and leaving them exposed to radiation. Disputes raged on the need for further integration of military forces within the EU when NATO had shown its true worth.

Post-war, NATO announced the establishment of permanent bases in Poland, the Baltics and Belarus too. The latter country had a big UN presence for nation-building but the United States, Britain, Poland and others all had military forces there. In the Baltic States, other facilities opened to support a deployed garrison which was envisioned to stay for a long time to come. It was NATO which was at the forefront of the April 2011 naval stand-off with Russia. Before being forced from office, Erdoğan had allowed for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet (their only surviving naval surface fleet) to leave that inland sea and cross the Turkish Straits. These Russian warships headed for the Baltic and the Barents Sea. No naval restrictions had been placed on Russia with the Vilnius Agreement – a major error – and Gerasimov wanted those warships elsewhere. There weren’t that many vessels and their value was nothing more than symbolism in reality but this brought about internal European tensions on what to do here. The Russians went across the Med. and onwards. The navies & air forces of several nations stood ready to blow them out of the water; other countries were fearful that this would shut off deliveries of Russian oil & gas. It was 2010 all over again! The Danes were the ones who finally took the lead in this. They built a consensus to stop those ships with a blockade. Denmark remembered vividly what had happened the year before when Russia had ships in the Baltic. Danish warships joined by the Royal Navy, the Dutch, the Poles, the Norwegians and soon enough the Americans too stopped them with a physical blockade. The Russians went to the Kola Peninsula in the end, struggling to get there, and Moscow raged about NATO aggression. There was no shooting though, the oil & gas deliveries would continue and Copenhagen wouldn’t see Russian warships sailing past that war-ravaged city.

The changes in government make-ups first seen in Eastern Europe were then repeated in Western Europe. There were many factors at play and country-specific circumstances. However, many of the wartime leaders left office in 2011 and 2012. President Sarkozy survived (despite the damaging statements which came from Gaddafi in Khartoum about how he had previously bought the presidency for Sarkozy) but Chancellor Merkel didn’t. Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain also saw new leaders. It was a time of much change.


The British wartime government wouldn’t survive the post-war world either. The Cameron-Clegg coalition of Conservatives & Lib-Dems would fall apart in 2012 leading to a general election and Labour’s David Miliband entering Downing Street. The whole situation with this was messy. There were wartime tensions within government over casualties suffered with blame apportioned to poor decision-making and then post-war economic woes as well. The government had been intending to bring in the Fixed Term Parliament Act to stop unexpected general elections but this, and so much more, never came to pass. Emergency budgets were followed after the war and as part of the 2012 one, there would be another increase in military spending. Britain had a lot to replace in terms of lost equipment during the war. A dispute arose over how the MOD ‘protected’ its budget against costs incurred from wounded veterans. Those costs were passed onto the NHS and they were quite significant. Modern warfare saw casualties occur like every war yet advances in medicine meant that there were proportionally more survivors of their injuries. Horrible wounds, physical and mental, had been suffered to many and the MOD didn’t want to shoulder the costs of these when it needed new tanks, new aircraft, new ships and new bases (in the Baltic States). The Lib-Dems refused to accept this ‘attack on the NHS’. The Labour opposition – under Miliband who’d won the delayed party leadership election – took advantage and there was a political row which caused a public outcry. Alerted that the vote could go their way, even getting Conservative rebels as well as seeing the Lib-Dems split, Labour called a vote of no confidence. Many Conservatives abstained: they intended to see Cameron fall & replaced without a general election. After he lost that vote though, the PM went to the people. Clegg was knifed in the back by his own MPs (metaphorically) and the general election was a disaster for the two governing parties. Miliband won a majority, a small one but a majority none the less.

The political drama in 2012 came after several years of Britain hurting post-war. The outpouring of patriotism during the conflict fell away afterwards. There was still a little but not enough. The country had watched on the news several Royal Navy submarines coming home flying Jolly Rogers – shadows of the Falklands there – but then there were the (delayed) official releases of casualty figures. These had been effectively hidden from the general public during the war for the sake of public morale. The numbers of dead and injured were huge. So too was the scale of those ‘missing’. Some were sailors lost with ships & subs or aircrews while others were soldiers whose remains weren’t located on battlefields. However, there were POWs who never returned from Russia with their fates unknown but suspected to be a shallow grave somewhere in Siberia. Civilian deaths had occurred in Britain and once more there were missing with this too. The remains of a few people wouldn’t be found due to legitimate causes yet there were others. What had happened to them? The suspicion was – one later proved – that they had been killed on British soil by Russian espionage & commando activities when they stumbled across activities with their bodies disposed of. Why would the government cover this up? They did so because they were stupid and made an error there which shouldn’t have been done over wanting to maintain secrecy. When the fates of such people were revealed – with all remains still not located – this became a national scandal when it was ultimately avoidable. The nation watched transfixed on the news as the bodies of two (photogenic) young teens were recovered near an RAF base in East Anglia. Outrage and calls for ‘action against Russia’ were made despite this occurring several years beforehand and the whole story not known. There was also the issue of female POWs who did return to Britain. What happened to them was covered up in Whitehall at first as well. Part of that was for privacy concerns (they were sexual assault victims and that was the law), another reason was for military morale. It all came out in the end. This was an issue that the Americans too were facing with all of those horrible stories to be told so it was wider than Britain but that didn’t change the fact that the British public reacted negatively to having this hidden from them.

The London Olympics took place soon after Miliband assumed office. They took place at a time when Britain was said to be devoid of hope by media commentators. The games were a low-key affair with cost-cuttings made due to the terrible economic situation the country faced. The downcast face the country presented to itself and the world would eventually pick up but not until the next year, even beyond if truth be told. A victor of the Third World War, many people would saw that Britain looked like a loser of that conflict. There were other domestic issues rumbling too: Britain’s future within the EU and also desires north of the border for independence from Scotland. The future wasn’t looking that bright despite efforts to make it that way.


General Gerasimov fixed an election and made himself Russia’s legal president. He made significant changes to the constitution too, robbing the country of a lot of its real elements of democracy as the ongoing ‘emergency measures’ were now made permanent. There were protesters on the streets of Moscow – and elsewhere – and they were met by soldiers. After shots were fired, the people fled. The West didn’t see this on the television screens like they had before but what happened was known about. Like many things, the Vilnius Agreement didn’t mention anything about what Russia could do internally when it came to politics and law enforcement. Gerasimov put in-place a military dictatorship and no one could nor would do anything about it.

Talks went on for several years as to a final peace treaty to settle the end of the war. Vilnius had been an armistice, not a peace. However, due to the scale of what was agreed there plus when Biden and Gerasimov had personally agreed upon with the preceding ceasefire, bringing about that peace treaty was something that could be delayed in such circumstances. The delay went on and on. Russia honoured Vilnius in the majority of it, at least in public anyway. Moscow cancelled wartime deals with China over military technology transfers and also disestablished many of its bi-lateral and multi-national security partnerships. Gerasimov nationalized the country’s oil & gas industries to stick to the agreement to pay reparations through subsided sales of those hydrocarbons. Whereas before the oligarchs had raped Russia’s resources, now it was the turn of the military to do this. Russian tensions with China were dramatic at times and there was also that naval stand-off with Europe. However, in US-Russia relations on strategic matters, there was a summit – Biden and Gerasimov meeting face-to-face – on nuclear arms reductions which went well with real agreements made on the issue of such weapons.

There was fighting in the Caucasus and in Central Asia which Russia officially had no part of. Russian volunteers went to those conflicts though with many of these being veterans of the war against the Coalition. Throughout Central Asia, where the worst of this was, the regimes there among allies Russia had abandoned faced rebellions & insurgencies. The war which Russia had first dragged them into had seen their economies collapse and the fragile ethnic situations break. It was a right mess. Gerasimov worried over China intervening but this didn’t come to pass due to their own troubles at home. Meanwhile, while avoiding these wars, Russia was in several ways preparing for another possible war in the coming decade. Gerasimov set himself the task of rebuilding the Russian Armed Forces. The Vilnius Agreement had put military restrictions on Russian deployments to Kaliningrad (which Russia regained) and also abroad but nothing was said about what could happen in Russia proper. War damage was immense and the scale of the defeats massive but Gerasimov gave it a go. What a challenge he faced! He took it on though, believing that one day soon Russia would have to fight the West once again for current unforeseen circumstances. NATO watched from afar, sure that Russia wouldn’t be able to do it… not after all that had been done to them.


In the United States, there was a major intelligence shake-up postwar and also a push to replace elements of the armed forces lost in war. The latter didn’t just include new equipment – tanks, aircraft and ships (including a carrier to replace the one lost) – but also personnel. Significant losses of men and women had occurred. The mobilised Reserves & National Guard were kept in federal service for nine & six months respectively. There was a major recruitment effort made as well, especially among those who’d signed-up during the war. The United States would keep a military presence in Europe. The Eastern European garrisons established in the Baltic States and Poland were there to stay for good while those in Belarus and Romania, as well as Georgia in the Caucasus, were expected to be in place for a few years at least. For decades since the Soviet Union had fallen, the Americans had slowly been pulling out but now they returned in strength. Relations with Russia were still strained despite some good progress and the NATO countries in Eastern Europe wanted this presence. Russia had pulled what was left of its armies back but they could always return.

The United States faced recession like elsewhere in the West. A boom in military production couldn’t stop this. The global economy had been hit hard. There were efforts made to address this from the White House. Critics of Biden said he should go protectionist but he tried the opposite approach. The United States had long-standing economic & trading ties with Europe, East Asia and China. There was anger in Washington at Japan’s behaviour during the war with its neutrality and that turned to rage when misinformation – lies – came that Japan was reaping the rewards of the war in trade with America. The Biden approach to China brought even more controversy. China, another neutral, had been unofficially on Russia’s side during the war and was also seen as being behind North Korean attempts at ‘adventurism’ too. The US Ambassador to China resigned during those postwar talks, disagreeing with the White House. Biden needed trade with China though to help fix US domestic economic issues. He was in the middle of fighting dissent at home when unrest hit China. They were suffering from economic problems too, not helped by Russia going back on its word and all the wartime disruption. Chinese civilians rioted in several cities and the situation got a little crazy for several months during late 2011 especially. There were talks of the regime falling before China brought in the tanks to ‘restore order’. The trade talks were suspended amid the international outrage and the recession wasn’t going to end due to this. Biden’s enemies said this was a problem of his own making.

Whereas Britain had been rocked by revelations of wartime secrets coming from newspapers being leaked damaging information, the United States faced something worse. A website called Wikileaks, established long before the war, would see a flurry of activity and attention. Leaks of secrets were made to them and they published them globally. A huge amount of secret information was put out for all to see with nothing redacted. The ramifications were domestic and international. The head of that organisation, an Australian named Assange, was snatched by the CIA in a ‘black operation’ when accusations surfaced that some of this was coming from Russia too – which Gerasimov gave a refusal on – but this didn’t stop those leaks. It was Americans themselves, angry at their government for wartime and postwar activities, who wanted to share this with the world. America’s relations with allies in Europe but also those in the Middle East – who they were fighting Islamic State alongside – came under much strain.

The 2010 mid-term elections in the United States, coming only weeks after the war ended, were won handily by the Republicans. Biden’s Democrats took major losses. It was said that this was a long time coming following an Obama backlash but that president was long buried and Biden was in the White House. The Democrats were hit the following year by more revelations about those illegal donations from Russian oligarchs pre-war as well. The Republicans were on the march. They took it to Biden, accusing him of betraying America’s veterans and not fixing the economy. His other problems with China and also American inaction when it came to Sudan didn’t help. The president was asked repeatedly if he intended to run for the presidency in 2012. This was a question not answered by him nor his spokespeople. The situation wouldn’t be resolved with Biden unsure. Eventually, a couple of mid-ranking Democratic Party figures broke ranks with the president and announced that he was damaging the party: if he wasn’t going to run, they would. No big hitters jumped in straight away yet there was blood in the water and the sharks were circling. This went on and on. It damaged relations with allies and foes alike as Biden looked weak. His poll numbers were terrible and the negative aftereffects of the war kept on coming. In September 2011, he finally addressed the issue. He wouldn’t be running for election in fourteen months time.

His fine speech about instead intending to serve out Obama’s term and honouring the legacy of his slain friend was remembered by few. All attention went elsewhere onto who would run instead. Secretary of State Warner was one of the big-hitters who did declare but Vice President Kerry would confirm several days later that he would run for the presidency and the momentum fell behind him. Primaries took place the following year and Kerry won out. For the Republicans, Romney was an early favourite but then Huntsman entered the race. He was that ambassador who resigned from his post in Beijing, a Republican appointed there by Obama. Neither man excited the party base, especially the recent Tea Party movement that had started out opposed to Obama before turning on Biden’s wartime & postwar presidency. Huntsman beat Romney and it would be Kerry vs. Huntsman in November 2012. Pundits were at a loss to say who would win with both seen as having significant weaknesses with neither going to bring in high numbers of votes like Obama had done in 2008. An October Surprise came though. Osama bin Laden, #1 enemy of America even after the Third World War, was hunted down and killed while hiding in Pakistan. He’d been near forgotten about but the ‘victory’ won there – credited to Kerry when it was Biden who was responsible for all that happened – was seen by analysts as enough to push Kerry over the line. He won the White House with Biden due to leave office the following January.

In Russia they were building tanks; in America they were about to get their third president in less than three years.


The End

Wonder how Fukushima (after the Japanese earthquake of 2011) plays out TTL...

Speaking of which, I have an idea for a Eagle Guardian TL version of Hurricane Sandy that I'd like to PM you first, if that's OK...