


            The New World Order - Revolution, Fragmentation and Chaos


            by Christopher Bradley Leyte
            The following is a storyline for a series of scenarios designed for 
            the Harpoon Classic/Harpoon 97 naval warfare simulation. The story 
            is fictional, of course.
            On 17 January 1991, as had been warned would happen for many months 
            previous, the US and its Coalition allies launched Operation Desert 
            Storm - the military operation to forcibly remove Iraqi forces from 
            Kuwait. The war was bloody - for both sides. No sooner had Coalition 
            aircraft begun pounding targets, Iraqi armored columns drove deep 
            into Saudi Arabia. Many smaller Saudi towns and industrial areas 
            along the northern Gulf coast were overrun, as were several 
            forward-based detachments of Coalition ground forces. Captured 
            Coalition soldiers were promptly interrogated and then shot by 
            firing squads on Iraqi state-run TV. Combined with this blitz by 
            Iraqi ground forces came waves of attacks by aircraft and a flurry 
            of Scud missiles. Both the air launched attack and tactical 
            ballistic missile bombardment were largely comprised of chemical 
            weapons payloads, delivered against Saudi population centers and 
            Coalition staging areas. Although Coalition troops were largely 
            prepared for this contingency, the civilian population was not. 
            Deaths by nerve and mustard gas poisoning mounted by the hundreds. 
            The Iraqi spearhead soon bogged down and was eventually cut off and 
            destroyed, but the effect on morale and political will was immediate 
            and devastating. Coalition airpower continued to pound enemy targets 
            in and around occupied Kuwait, but a ground assault was out of the 
            question. The politicians simply did not have the stomach for it - 
            every body bag that came home to the States was another vote lost. 
            Iraqi forces were eventually rooted out, of course, but only after 
            several long months of exhausting - and expensive - bombardment. 
            When it was over, around the middle of July 1991, all of Kuwait and 
            much of Iraq and Saudi Arabia lay in ruins. And the stress and 
            strain of this bitter war had caused a long, thin crack in the NATO 
            alliance.
            Meanwhile, the Soviet Union watched and waited. Its maskirovka 
            operations had been in effect for many years, and now a new phase of 
            the plan was beginning. The greed of the Iraqi dictator had allowed 
            him to be easily manipulated into a puppet of the Soviet machine, 
            and now the strengths and weaknesses of the NATO alliance had been 
            exposed for all to see.
            In September 1991, the Soviet Union seemingly "collapsed". Glasnost 
            was victorious, and the timing was perfect. The end of the Cold War 
            presented a huge opportunity for the US to withdraw from its 
            commitments in Western Europe and elsewhere in the world. The 
            withdrawal officially began in January 1992. The cost savings would 
            be truly massive, money that could be channeled into social welfare 
            and domestic economy-building measures that made politicians 
            everywhere tremble with delight. The only large-scale military 
            expenditure that necessitated immediate implementation was the final 
            phase of the Star Wars project. Huge sums of money had already been 
            expended in advancing the project this far, and with the dangers of 
            nuclear proliferation rife throughout the New World Order, it made 
            sense to complete it. The defensive network called Spiderweb reached 
            its initial operational capability in June 1992, its development 
            having been accelerated by funding gained from projected savings in 
            overseas basing.
            Nearly two years of blissful peace followed. Sure, there were a few 
            minor conflicts throughout the world, but these were relatively 
            unimportant events on the whole - mere "peacekeeping" efforts 
            participated in by NATO and former Warsaw Pact members alike.

            The Americans continued to withdraw into a shell of isolationism, a 
            stance spurred on by the increased stature of the European 
            Community. The Russian maskirovka continued, and with the help of 
            funding from the West and a successful transformation into a 
            capitalist economy spurred by the exploitation of massive oil 
            deposits in the Siberian Arctic, the Commonwealth of Independent 
            States (CIS) thrived.

            In December 1993, the New World Order came to a screeching, grinding 
            halt. The capitalists in the Russian Duma were voted out by a 
            previously unknown, powerful political group known to have ties to 
            the former Communist movement. These were not communists nor 
            capitalists, but a new breed - a force bent on achieving nothing 
            short of global domination. Within weeks, nearly identical political 
            power shifts occurred in nearly all of the former Soviet republics, 
            and in all former Warsaw Pact nations with the exception of Germany, 
            Hungary and Romania. On 1 January 1994, by proclamation from Moscow, 
            the former Soviet republics coalesced and rejoined into the New 
            Soviet Confederation (NSC). The Western world had been too stunned 
            by events in the previous month to truly understand what was 
            happening until it was too late. It was now very painfully clear.

            East Germany had always been an unknown for the USSR, an unreliable 
            ally, and so the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 had partly been 
            an engineered product of the maskirovka. The reunification of 
            Germany was a two-edged sword, but the maskirovka seized upon the 
            opportunity to liberally seed the new nation, and eventually all 
            members of the European Community, with deep-cover moles. 

            Hungary and Romania, however, were considered crucial to the overall 
            success of the plan, and with tremendous political pressure exerted 
            from Moscow, these nations were effectively annexed early in Spring 
            1994.

            Campaign 1 - Casus Belli: Reason for War

            The only former Soviet republics who had spurned the NSC were the 
            Baltic states of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. Their transition 
            into true democracy had been much more rapid than in the other 
            republics, and economic affiliation with the Scandinavian nations 
            had fueled very strong economic growth. Now, with the horror of the 
            NSC and the maskirovka unfolding at their back door, the Baltic 
            states were in terror. On 14 June 1994, sensing a wrinkle in the 
            master plan, the NSC moved quickly to crush the non-comitants. NATO 
            responded. It had no other choice. It was quite obvious that Germany 
            and the low countries would be next.

            The defeat of NATO at the hands of the NSC was a difficult pill to 
            swallow. Not only were the Baltic states lost, but the 
            already-strained Alliance was nearing the breaking point. US 
            interest in the war effort had been noticeably lacking, the horrors 
            of the 1991 Gulf War, the sheer expense of REFORGER and a lack of 
            prepostioned equipment being a obstacle to their full participation. 
            The crack in the Alliance widened yet again.

            Campaign 2 - The Cyprus Affair

            In Spring 1995 Greek Cyprus took delivery of SA-10 "Grumble" SAM 
            systems purchased from the NSC. Turkey had been threatening for 
            months to attack the island if the deal went through. When it made 
            good on this promise in May 1995, NATO was deeply embarrassed. The 
            Turkish invasion had been completely unexpected. Also unexpected was 
            the huge NSC counterattack in early June 1995. Unprepared for this 
            contingency, the Turkish Armed Forces were crushed. Meanwhile, the 
            NSC had likewise not expected NATO to respond, especially given 
            Turkey's unilateral action and the fact that the NSC had repelled 
            the Alliance in the Baltic conflict a year earlier. By late June 
            1995, with the arrival of a US CVBG and after an amphibious landing, 
            NSC forces had been driven out of Turkey.

            Though Turkey had been liberated and Cyprus restored to as normal a 
            peacetime state as it had been for many years, the damage done to 
            the NATO alliance was permanent and deep. Although it remained a 
            member of the Alliance (largely because of its strategic geographic 
            position), Turkey's hopes of ever joining the European Union were 
            dashed. There continued to be much debate and backroom argument 
            about the roles played by various NATO members, and their 
            contribution to the Alliance as a whole. Bitterness and political 
            in-fighting between the major European NATO members became 
            especially pronounced.

            Campaign 3 - The Algerian Conflict

            Algeria had been a hotbed of violence for many years, but all-out 
            civil war broke out in July 1994. This was followed by the 
            establishment of a new fundamentalist Islamic government in Algeria 
            - the classic "rogue state". Algerian military units began to harass 
            Western ship traffic in the Mediterranean in March 1995. On 27 
            August 1995 a civilian airliner carrying French and Italian 
            diplomats was hijacked, and the terrorists were given sanctuary in 
            Algeria. After a Coalition force mounted a rescue mission to extract 
            the hostages, the Algerians and Libyans became overtly hostile. The 
            rescue evolved into an operation to dismantle an enemy capability to 
            produce weapons of mass destruction. The Algerian conflict heavily 
            damaged relations between the West and Middle Eastern nations.

            Campaign 4 - The War with UBAN

            The assassination of longtime dictator Saddam Hussein in September 
            1995 was immediately followed by an occupation of Iraq by Iran and 
            the declaration of the United Brotherhood of Arab-Persian Nations 
            (UBAN), a military-political conglomerate comprised of Iran, Iraq, 
            Yemen, Syria, Libya and Egypt. When the Gulf Cooperation Council 
            (GCC) nations refused to join, they were attacked. NATO and the NSC 
            eventually joined the fray, on opposing sides.

            Campaign 5 - The Iberian Conflict

            Increased terrorism activity throughout Europe in 1995-96 (much of 
            it believed to be sponsored by UBAN) intensified the political 
            problems of the region. Terrorism was especially acute in Spain, 
            where a renewed campaign by Basque separatists gave way to a brutal 
            crackdown by a new hardline government in Madrid. In August 1996 
            Spanish troops pursued suspected Basque terrorists over the border 
            into France, whom had been accused of harboring the separatists. 
            France did not take kindly to violations of its territorial 
            integrity, and the Iberian peninsula quickly burst into flame. The 
            fog of war knows no boundaries, of course, and when French forces 
            mistakenly destroyed a Portuguese fishing boat, Portugal joined the 
            Spanish cause. When it was all over, France would never again fully 
            trust its European neighbors.

            Campaign 6 - The Kashmir Catastrophe

            In May 1998 the problems in Europe became vastly overshadowed by a 
            far more horrible spectre arising out of the Indian subcontinent. 
            Pakistan and India, whom at had been at each other's throats for 
            decades, exchanged tit-for-tat nuclear weapons tests and declared 
            themselves new nuclear powers. The effect of these developments was 
            immediate and catastrophic. Tensions between the two nations 
            spiraled upward, and in August 1998, yet another border conflict 
            broke out in the Kashmir region. This time, however, the combatants 
            both had nuclear weapons, and their enmity for one another exceeded 
            their respect for mutually assured destruction. An exchange of 
            nuclear-tipped tactical ballistic missiles was followed by a major 
            attack on Pakistan by the NSC using chemical weapons. Pakistan was 
            utterly destroyed. Anticipating a US response, the crazed NSC 
            leadership went ahead with the unthinkable - a preemptive nuclear 
            strike on the United States of America. Rather than respond in kind 
            and endanger the very survival of the world, the American President 
            chose to rely on the Spiderweb defence system. It failed miserably - 
            the entirety of the US ICBM arsenal was wiped out in the first wave. 
            The NSC followed up with strikes against major cities and industrial 
            centers, using "clean" neutron warheads wherever possible. The US 
            did eventually strike back, though much less powerfully, using its 
            surviving SSBNs and bomber fleet to lay waste to a few critical NSC 
            targets (though these often turned out to be empty ICBM fields).

            That was the ultimate end of the Cold War, not in a bloodless 
            victory by the West, but in the rad-blasted scorchfest of a million 
            Suns. The USA was no more. The end of the 20th century and the start 
            of the new millennium came quietly. There were few celebrations - 
            there wasn't much to be happy about during the brutal nuclear winter 
            that persisted from Autumn 1998 to Spring 2001.

            The EU emerged from the aftermath of the planet's first nuclear war 
            as the new world leader. It did have a rival, however, in the NSC. 
            It had survived more or less intact, the country's massive geography 
            having served to absorb the American strikes. With the return of 
            relatively normal climactic conditions in Spring 2001 came a new 
            balance of power.

            Campaign 7 - Peacekeeping in Bangladesh

            The stress and strain of problems with radioactive fallout and a 
            fractured economy in Bangladesh led to civil war in that country in 
            Spring 2001. After a UN decontamination team was massacred, the EU 
            was forced to respond to the emerging crisis. The intervention by 
            the EU spoiled plans by India to annex its neighbor. The EU 
            intervention force was eventually forced to withdraw.

            Campaign 8 - The Atlantic Resource Conflict

            The revival of the world economy in 2001 was plagued by strife and 
            conflict over natural resources. One of the more unusual, and 
            disturbing, examples of this was a brief but nasty confrontation 
            between Canada and Spain on the Grand Banks in June 2001. These two 
            had clashed before in the same region over fishing rights, but it 
            had never before come to blows. The prize this time was not only 
            fish but also oil. The Atlantic Resources Conflict was the final 
            nail in NATO's coffin. The alliance completely dissolved shortly 
            thereafter.

            Campaign 9 - The Third Gulf War

            A lesser conflict, often called the Third Gulf War, broke out in 
            December 2001 when Yemeni forces invaded territory they claimed had 
            been abandoned by Saudi Arabia. Again the West was called upon to 
            liberate the war-torn Gulf.

            Campaign 10 - The Suez Confrontation

            In early 2002, the extremist pro-UBAN government in Egypt was 
            overthrown and the country returned to its prior moderate 
            pro-Western stance. This development enraged Libya and Syria, whom, 
            although political members of UBAN, had escaped destruction by being 
            geographically distant from the Persian Gulf conflict. They attacked 
            their former comrade in February 2002 in an attempt to seize control 
            of the Suez and revitalize UBAN.

            Campaign 11 - The Indian Ocean Conflict

            The third and final act of the last great war saw the rebirth of an 
            alliance between the nuclear perpetrators - the NSC and India. The 
            discovery of vast mineral deposits in the Bay of Bengal in Spring 
            2002, which could have been a foundation of economic recovery for an 
            impoverished, irradiated region, was instead the catalyst of war. 
            Hand in hand with the establishment of a new "partnership" between 
            the NSC and India came a unilateral declaration by the latter that 
            it was extending its EEZ to 500 nm. The new boundary, of course, 
            encompassed the newly discovered mineral deposits.

            To assist in the effort to dislodge the NSC/Indian stranglehold on 
            the region, Saudi Arabia secretly allowed the staging of EU forces 
            out of its territory. For this it was severely punished. The NSC 
            obliterated Riyadh with a single nuclear device that detonated high 
            in the air above the city. When EU forces sunk the Soviet carrier 
            Admiral Gorshkov, the NSC hit the city of Marseilles, France, with a 
            nuclear strike and threatened to do the same to several other EU 
            population centers. With the NSC and India having shown their 
            willingness to return to their previous planet-killing ways, the EU 
            determined that the nuclear threat posed by this unholy alliance had 
            to be removed once and for all. Former US forces, having fled to 
            Australia in 1998 and now attached to the EU, would assist in the 
            operation.

            Campaign 12 - The Channel War

            Renewed nuclear conflict caused tremendously negative result on the 
            global economy, albeit the climactic effects were much less dramatic 
            than in 1998. The problems associated with a fractured economy 
            equated to political stress and strain between EU members, most 
            notably between the UK and France. Economic difficulty did not 
            appear to be the only problem, however. The French had argued 
            against the use of nuclear weapons against the NSC, fearing further 
            reprisals in the wake of the Marseilles disaster. In any event, 
            France withdrew from EU membership in late 2002. By the Spring of 
            2003, the two nations were battling each other with economic 
            embargoes, and each stepped onto the slippery slope to war once 
more.

            Please forward any comments, suggestions or criticism to:
            Brad Leyte
             
             

        

 




      