Peter Nealen's Blog, page 21

Couple of Things

First of all, thank you to everyone who has bought Escalation so far.  I hope you’re enjoying it, and hope that it scratches the itch that some people expressed after I brought the American Praetorians series to an end.

That said, if you have finished it, and have enjoyed it, would you mind going on Amazon and posting a review?  While I’m not sure I buy some of the claims being made online about the efficacy of reviews in the Amazon algorithm (and Amazon is never, ever going to confirm or deny them, anyway), reviews do provide a sort of “social proof” for those who are still undecided about buying a book.  How much, is anyone’s guess, but it can’t hurt.

Now, some may have noticed that the American Praetorians short, Drawing the Line, is no longer on Amazon.  This is by design.  Whereas it was being offered for $0.99 on Amazon, it can now be obtained free of charge, by hitting that little image over at the top of the sidebar (or just clicking this link).  The only catch is that it is available for those who sign up for the newsletter.  (I promise not to send more than one newsletter a month, unless something really, really big comes up.)

Now, I’ve moved Drawing the Line to a newsletter draw for a reason.  It’s becoming harder and harder to get the word out to you, the fans, that I’ve got new books out.  Facebook throttles everything.  Amazon Marketing Services has gotten less and less effective over the last six to nine months, as the market has gotten more and more saturated.  And that same market saturation makes visibility more difficult, as well.  So, the solution is more of a direct contact between me, the author, and you, the reader.  The newsletter is one of the best ways to accomplish that.  So, if you haven’t read Drawing the Line before, or even if you have, go ahead and sign up.  It will help ensure that you do get the word when I’ve got stuff happening, instead of letting it get lost in the noise.

The post Couple of Things appeared first on American Praetorians.

Couple of Things

[image error]

First of all, thank you to everyone who has bought Escalation so far.  I hope you’re enjoying it, and hope that it scratches the itch that some people expressed after I brought the American Praetorians series to an end.

That said, if you have finished it, and have enjoyed it, would you mind going on Amazon and posting a review?  While I’m not sure I buy some of the claims being made online about the efficacy of reviews in the Amazon algorithm (and Amazon is never, ever going to confirm or deny them, anyway), reviews do provide a sort of “social proof” for those who are still undecided about buying a book.  How much, is anyone’s guess, but it can’t hurt.

Now, some may have noticed that the American Praetorians short, Drawing the Line, is no longer on Amazon.  This is by design.  Whereas it was being offered for $0.99 on Amazon, it can now be obtained free of charge, by hitting that little image over at the top of the sidebar (or just clicking this link).  The only catch is that it is available for those who sign up for the newsletter.  (I promise not to send more than one newsletter a month, unless something really, really big comes up.)

Now, I’ve moved Drawing the Line to a newsletter draw for a reason.  It’s becoming harder and harder to get the word out to you, the fans, that I’ve got new books out.  Facebook throttles everything.  Amazon Marketing Services has gotten less and less effective over the last six to nine months, as the market has gotten more and more saturated.  And that same market saturation makes visibility more difficult, as well.  So, the solution is more of a direct contact between me, the author, and you, the reader.  The newsletter is one of the best ways to accomplish that.  So, if you haven’t read Drawing the Line before, or even if you have, go ahead and sign up.  It will help ensure that you do get the word when I’ve got stuff happening, instead of letting it get lost in the noise.

Setting the Stage Part 7: European Defense Council

I’d held off posting this because it might end up being slightly (slightly) spoilery for Escalation.  But only slightly.

The acronym “EDC” technically applies to two entities.  The most obvious, and most well-known, is the European Defense Council, made up of select, appointed representatives of Germany, France, Belgium, Austria, Spain, Greece, Denmark, Portugal, Sweden, and Turkey (a late addition).  The bulk of these representatives are German and French.

The European Defense Council is secretive, but has shown every sign of being an order of magnitude more tyrannical than the EU parliament that it effectively took over from.  It continues to follow much the same policy guidelines, but they do not accept any feedback from national governments, and in fact expect that their edicts should be enforced across the old EU, to include the Eastern European countries, even nations that are not represented on the Council.  Those nations are not deemed “mature” enough for a seat.

The EDC arose during the upheaval following the Yellow Vest protests and Italy’s abrupt withdrawal from the EU, after Britain’s.  With the European Experiment in peril, the “biggest pack of utopian sociopaths you ever imagined” stepped up, forcing a vote to dissolve the EU parliament in favor of the EDC, which was granted emergency powers.

The “other” EDC is one that is not officially acknowledged by the Council, or any European news outlet.  It exists only in whispers and conspiracy theories.  Until Slovakia, anyway.

The European Defense Corps grew out of the near-disaster that was the first open engagement of the EU Army, during the Fourth Balkan War.  While ostensibly all under the same supreme command, the EU Army was simply made up of disparate units from various European armies, all understrength and stretched to the breaking point.  Personnel, logistics, equipment, communications, and training were all lacking.  And despite the ideological blinders in Europe, the group that would become the European Defense Council saw the writing on the wall.  If they were going to potentially go toe-to-toe with Russia—or, more likely, though never openly voiced, have to crack down on growing nationalist and populist movements in Central and Eastern Europe—they needed to change something.  The new theories weren’t working, and there were a lot of body bags coming out of Serbia to illustrate it.  They kept the cost as quiet as possible, and the main EU forces remained as “diverse” and “culturally and emotionally sensitive” as possible, but in the meantime, the ground began to be laid for the Corps.

Recruited in secret, trained and equipped in secret (there was plenty of money for the Corps’ equipment; it was mostly in “black” accounts and various other secret and officially illegal shelters and revenue streams), the European Defense Corps was built on the bones of the old Euro Corps and trained and commanded by French and German veterans of Afghanistan, Mali, and the Balkans.  Impressed and indoctrinated heavily with the mission of a united Europe, and the evils of nationalism and traditionalism, the young men who were recruited, many of them foreigners, were subjected to a harsh training regimen, rivalling that of the French Foreign Legion (in fact, the Corps drew on several Legion officers to run the training, though the Legion itself disbanded and furled its colors rather than be subsumed into the Corps).  Completely isolated from outside influences, the recruits were indoctrinated and drilled mercilessly for six months before any of them were allowed any liberty or leave.

It is believed (though officially denied by any government, whether under the auspices of the EDC or not) that the European Defense Corps now consists of a force almost the size of the US Marine Corps, to include three divisions, three air wings, and logistical capabilities to match.  If such is the case, the bulk of the Corps’ forces have been kept scattered across the EDC countries, as the Euro Corps still appears to be little more than a political unit centered around the Franco-German Brigade in Strasbourg.  However, recent reconnaissance photos and intel reports have suggested secluded compounds on multiple major French and German military bases, and even some bases that do not appear on any official accounting.

The EDC is not viewed as an unalloyed good by the rest of Europe, even in France and Germany.  Far from it.  There are pseudo-Marxist and far-right opposition groups, to include the Fourth Reich in Germany, which has connections with the identically-named neo-Nazi group in the United States.  Several groups have grown out of the Yellow Vest protests in France, as well, demanding democratic reforms yet still clinging to certain social welfare ideas ingrained in Europe for decades.

But there are also more traditionalist resistance movements growing within both France and Germany.  Nouvelle Gallia is the most prominent, holding actual autonomous territory in southwest France, ironically and oddly centered around Provence.  Being a largely Catholic resurgence, more than one observer has remarked on the fact that the champions of Catholic and traditional France have their center of power in the territory of the old Albigensian Heresy.

Bavaria is the central region of dissent in Germany, which makes sense, since Bavaria is traditionally the most conservative region of the country.  While not nearly as organized or powerful as Nouvelle Gallia, there are several semi-autonomous militias in Bavaria, using old Bundeswehr equipment and flying variations on the old Bavarian flag.

In a weird mirror-image, there has been more and more contact between Nouvelle Gallia and the Bavarian militias, paralleling the domination of the EDC by Paris and Berlin.  Only time will tell what role the traditionalist dissidents will play in the war to come, especially given Bavaria’s mountainous and highly defensible terrain.

The post Setting the Stage Part 7: European Defense Council appeared first on American Praetorians.

Setting the Stage Part 7

[image error] The actual insignia of the real-world Eurocorps.

I’d held off posting this because it might end up being slightly (slightly) spoilery for Escalation.  But only slightly.

The acronym “EDC” technically applies to two entities.  The most obvious, and most well-known, is the European Defense Council, made up of select, appointed representatives of Germany, France, Belgium, Austria, Spain, Greece, Denmark, Portugal, Sweden, and Turkey (a late addition).  The bulk of these representatives are German and French.

The European Defense Council is secretive, but has shown every sign of being an order of magnitude more tyrannical than the EU parliament that it effectively took over from.  It continues to follow much the same policy guidelines, but they do not accept any feedback from national governments, and in fact expect that their edicts should be enforced across the old EU, to include the Eastern European countries, even nations that are not represented on the Council.  Those nations are not deemed “mature” enough for a seat.

The EDC arose during the upheaval following the Yellow Vest protests and Italy’s abrupt withdrawal from the EU, after Britain’s.  With the European Experiment in peril, the “biggest pack of utopian sociopaths you ever imagined” stepped up, forcing a vote to dissolve the EU parliament in favor of the EDC, which was granted emergency powers.

The “other” EDC is one that is not officially acknowledged by the Council, or any European news outlet.  It exists only in whispers and conspiracy theories.  Until Slovakia, anyway.

The European Defense Corps grew out of the near-disaster that was the first open engagement of the EU Army, during the Fourth Balkan War.  While ostensibly all under the same supreme command, the EU Army was simply made up of disparate units from various European armies, all understrength and stretched to the breaking point.  Personnel, logistics, equipment, communications, and training were all lacking.  And despite the ideological blinders in Europe, the group that would become the European Defense Council saw the writing on the wall.  If they were going to potentially go toe-to-toe with Russia—or, more likely, though never openly voiced, have to crack down on growing nationalist and populist movements in Central and Eastern Europe—they needed to change something.  The new theories weren’t working, and there were a lot of body bags coming out of Serbia to illustrate it.  They kept the cost as quiet as possible, and the main EU forces remained as “diverse” and “culturally and emotionally sensitive” as possible, but in the meantime, the ground began to be laid for the Corps.

Recruited in secret, trained and equipped in secret (there was plenty of money for the Corps’ equipment; it was mostly in “black” accounts and various other secret and officially illegal shelters and revenue streams), the European Defense Corps was built on the bones of the old Euro Corps and trained and commanded by French and German veterans of Afghanistan, Mali, and the Balkans.  Impressed and indoctrinated heavily with the mission of a united Europe, and the evils of nationalism and traditionalism, the young men who were recruited, many of them foreigners, were subjected to a harsh training regimen, rivalling that of the French Foreign Legion (in fact, the Corps drew on several Legion officers to run the training, though the Legion itself disbanded and furled its colors rather than be subsumed into the Corps).  Completely isolated from outside influences, the recruits were indoctrinated and drilled mercilessly for six months before any of them were allowed any liberty or leave.

It is believed (though officially denied by any government, whether under the auspices of the EDC or not) that the European Defense Corps now consists of a force almost the size of the US Marine Corps, to include three divisions, three air wings, and logistical capabilities to match.  If such is the case, the bulk of the Corps’ forces have been kept scattered across the EDC countries, as the Euro Corps still appears to be little more than a political unit centered around the Franco-German Brigade in Strasbourg.  However, recent reconnaissance photos and intel reports have suggested secluded compounds on multiple major French and German military bases, and even some bases that do not appear on any official accounting.

The EDC is not viewed as an unalloyed good by the rest of Europe, even in France and Germany.  Far from it.  There are pseudo-Marxist and far-right opposition groups, to include the Fourth Reich in Germany, which has connections with the identically-named neo-Nazi group in the United States.  Several groups have grown out of the Yellow Vest protests in France, as well, demanding democratic reforms yet still clinging to certain social welfare ideas ingrained in Europe for decades.

But there are also more traditionalist resistance movements growing within both France and Germany.  Nouvelle Gallia is the most prominent, holding actual autonomous territory in southwest France, ironically and oddly centered around Provence.  Being a largely Catholic resurgence, more than one observer has remarked on the fact that the champions of Catholic and traditional France have their center of power in the territory of the old Albigensian Heresy.

Bavaria is the central region of dissent in Germany, which makes sense, since Bavaria is traditionally the most conservative region of the country.  While not nearly as organized or powerful as Nouvelle Gallia, there are several semi-autonomous militias in Bavaria, using old Bundeswehr equipment and flying variations on the old Bavarian flag.

In a weird mirror-image, there has been more and more contact between Nouvelle Gallia and the Bavarian militias, paralleling the domination of the EDC by Paris and Berlin.  Only time will tell what role the traditionalist dissidents will play in the war to come, especially given Bavaria’s mountainous and highly defensible terrain.

ESCALATION Chapter 2

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“Friendlies coming in,” I called over the radio.

“I’ve got you,” Tony replied.  “Come ahead.”

It was almost dark.  As thick as the woods were in that part of Slovakia, we’d had to move very carefully to avoid the locals, not to mention the occasional peacekeeper or militia patrols.  It had taken slow, methodical movement, slipping from cover to cover, often halting to stay put and just watch and listen.

Phil got to his feet and started toward the ancient barn.  Built of plastered stone and graying, aged timber, the roof was starting to sag and the base was overgrown, but it was still solid.  I suspected it had been standing for at least a couple of centuries.  It probably would still have been in use if not for the turmoil that had engulfed Slovakia over the last few years.

I carefully scanned the surrounding woods and the open field beyond for a moment, despite the fact that I knew that Scott had security set and the drone up.  The abandoned farm sat right at the no-man’s land between the Belgian peacekeeping sector and one of the few, small, Loyalist Slovak Army sectors.  While what was left of the Army that hadn’t gone over to the Nationalists after the initial riots was still outwardly loyal to the shaky government in Bratislava, that loyalty was in question among many of the peacekeepers, especially the Germans and Belgians.  None of this would have been happening if the Slovaks hadn’t already had enough of both Brussels’ financial demands and the forced immigration, mostly of young Kosovar, Bosnian, and Syrian men.  To that end, most of the EDC peacekeepers made no secret of the fact that they didn’t trust the Slovak Army.

Which made the uneasy borders between zones the best place to hide out, even though it had meant one hell of an infiltration from Hungary.

Seeing no movement, nor the hulking silhouettes of armored vehicles on the road, in the fields, or against the treeline, I followed Phil toward the barn.

Tony was right at the door, though set back in the shadows, his PSQ-20 thermal fusion NVGs down in front of one eye.  He was on a knee, his own Mk 48 held over his thigh.  Unfortunately, the NVGs weren’t all that conducive to staying down in the prone.  They tended to sag, making it extremely uncomfortable to crane your neck to see.

I slipped inside, making sure not to step in front of Tony’s muzzle.  Not because I expected the thickset former SF Weapons Sergeant to shoot me by accident, but because it just wasn’t a good habit to get into.  And if somebody did pop out of that treeline, that split second it would take to get out of his way could be fatal to us both.

Scott was hunkered down in the darkened corner, away from the doors, behind a nest of comm gear and the drone control console.  It hadn’t been fun, lugging that crap in from Hungary, but it had been useful.

He looked up as I crossed to join him.  His vaguely Asian features were still camouflaged, despite the fact that most of us had sweated most of the cammie paint off on the infil.  Knowing Scott, he’d pestered the rest of the Bravo Element to reapply their cammie paint before he’d even gotten the comms set up all the way.

I was sure that David and Chris had appreciated the reminder, and told him just how much they appreciated it in no uncertain terms.  After all, nobody in this team was an amateur.

“Dry hole,” I said, as I sat against the wall, leaning my rifle next to me.  Dwight, Jordan, and Greg filed in behind me and found positions in the barn where they could easily switch out with the guys on security when the time came.  “But you knew that already.”  I grabbed one of the water bladders that Scott had filled and purified and drank greedily.  It had been a long movement.

“But it might have pointed us in the right direction,” Scott said.  My assistant team lead was all business in the field, despite the Japanese manga I was pretty sure was shoved into his pack somewhere.  He turned the tablet he was using around and tapped the screen to shift windows.  I peered at it, seeing a satellite map of southwest Slovakia on the dimly-lit screen, with several bright red dots pulsating on it.

“Shortly after you hit that ambush, Borinka lit up like a Christmas tree,” he said.  “At least three more Persons of Interest, too.  I don’t think they were expecting to get hit so soon.”

“I wasn’t expecting the leash to get taken off the BCT that quick, either,” I replied.  “Are you still tapped in?  Are they finally on the hunt?”

He shook his head.  “I am, and they’re not.  The official line is that ‘other avenues are being pursued.’  They’ve been authorized to start patrolling their AO again, but the ROEs sound like they’re stricter than ever.  And that appears to be at the behest of the EDC.”

I snorted in disgust.  I remembered a time when the US was the top dog on the block, and sure as hell would never have kowtowed to the French and Germans.  Of course, that had been when I was a kid.  The fact that everybody was at each other’s throats back home had pretty much made that a thing of the past.  Half the government would kowtow to Satan if it pissed off the other half.

Which was why the Triarii existed in the first place.

We weren’t a PMC.  Not really.  Some of the op-eds back home that called us a militia weren’t that far off.  Colonel Santiago had started building the network that would become the Triarii in order to counteract some of the lawlessness that was becoming par for the course back home.  As he started to understand just how bad things had gotten, the network’s purview grew.  And grew.  And now we were the paramilitary force that we were, starting to fill in the blanks outside the borders of the United States as well as inside.

Why “Triarii?”  I know.  I thought it sounded weird the first time, too.  But the triarii were the third rank of the old Republican Roman Legion.  The oldest, most experienced, and most ferocious fighters, who were the last-ditch rank, the last guys to get stuck in, when the hastati and the principes hadn’t done the trick.

Once I learned that, it made sense.  We were the third rank.  We were the last ditch.

Which was why we were in Slovakia.  The Colonel had decided that it was a good test of our expeditionary capability, on top of which, he was pissed about the fact that an American soldier had been snatched off the streets of Bratislava and was being held hostage while the US peacekeepers in the country sat on their hands.

“Well, then,” I said, “We’re still on mission.”  If the Army had indeed taken up the hunt, we were under orders to back off and observe.  The Colonel didn’t want us potentially butting heads with the Army.  For rather obvious reasons, revealing our presence by making contact wasn’t high on our list of “good ideas.”

While cell phone tracking had advanced a lot in recent years, it still wasn’t a precise science.  We could pick up when a phone pinged off a tower, which gave us a location, and Scott knew how to set the drone to simulate a tower, allowing us to do some triangulation.  But it was still going to give us only a general idea of that location, and that was assuming that we were tracking the right phones.

I took the tablet and studied the readout.  There were definitely some phones on there from the target list that the intel cell had put together.  Mostly Syrians.  This was going to get interesting.

I checked my watch.  We didn’t have a lot of time; as soon as the first shot had been fired, Specialist England’s life expectancy had taken a nose dive.  But we wouldn’t do him a damned bit of good if we went in exhausted and started making mistakes.  None of us had slept in almost thirty hours.

“Rest plan for three hours,” I said.  It wasn’t going to be enough, but it was going to have to do.  “Everybody down except for security on the doors.”  It was a risk, but we needed the rest.

We’d plan and move in the wee hours of the morning.  It was a tight planning cycle, but it was one we’d trained hard for.

It said something for the Triarii special operations—or Grex Luporum—training cycle that even a guy like me could become a team leader.

***

I was never a Recon Marine.  Don’t get me wrong; I tried.  Not just out of spite, either, not that my parents would have understood.  Nor would it would have made anything worse than it already was.  The screaming when I had announced that I was going to enlist in the first place…let’s just say that it’s a good thing I was a hundred miles away at the time.  Mom couldn’t throw anything at me.

See, I didn’t come from a military family.  I came from the opposite.  Both my mom and dad were hard-left lawyers, and I was going to be a good little activist clone.  Until I wound up with a roommate in college who was a Marine Sergeant bucking for a commission.

Bart didn’t put up with my bullshit, and challenged every assumption I made.  Within three months, we were fast friends and I was already talking to the Marine recruiter.

I don’t think I’ve actually talked to my folks since then.  In my more bitter moments, I think that that’s not necessarily a great loss.

My enlistment wasn’t anything to shout about.  I did four years as an 0331, a regular grunt machinegunner.  I tried to get to the Recon screening, or MARSOC Assessment and Selection, probably six times each.  My command wouldn’t hear of it.

That was why it didn’t take much persuasion to get out after my four years were up.  Just before I had to decide whether I was going to go on terminal leave or sign the reenlistment papers, Bill Vagley, who had gotten out six months before me, told me about the Triarii.

I’d known that I didn’t have the background or the qualifications for the Grex Luporum Teams.  They were looking for guys with at least four years in a special operations unit.

But I’d been determined.  The Triarii were my second chance, so when I got called out for applying for the Grex Luporum—Wolfpack—teams without the requisite experience, I doubled down.  I swore up one side and down another that I’d do whatever I needed to; I’d catch up.  Brian Hartrick, the chief cadre, had been skeptical, but let me try out, just for having the balls to do it in the first place.

The next six months had been the most grueling of my life.  But I passed.

It hadn’t been an easy road from there to my own team.  Hartrick was still my section leader, and if there was anybody who wasn’t going to give me an inch of slack, it was him.  He’d made me pay for signing up for the teams in selection, and nothing had really changed afterward.

Now, it seemed that the team leader who’d gotten in through sheer brass was spearheading the Triarii’s first overseas op.

If I’d only known.

***

I woke up painfully as Scott shook me.  An hour and a half of sleep is never enough, and when you’ve spent most of the previous thirty hours planning, preparing, hiking a very long way, and getting in a firefight, it’s even worse.

Stifling a groan, I sat up.  “Everything’s quiet,” Scott whispered.  “The cell pings haven’t moved.  Hopefully that doesn’t mean they already killed him.”

“Only so much we can do,” I whispered back.  “Get some shut-eye.  I’m going to start planning.”  He nodded in the darkness, lit only by the faint glow from the tablet’s screen, and lay down against the wall of the barn.

I took the tablet, wincing.  Everything hurt.  Not that I had expected to wake up bright eyed and bushy tailed.  That hadn’t ever been the case in the infantry, and it sure as hell hadn’t been in the GL teams.

Borinka wasn’t far from Marianka.  It was smaller, little more than a one-street village nestled between wooded hills, overlooked by a ruined castle.

I glanced around the barn, double-checking that everybody who was supposed to be awake was, and then I hunkered down over the tablet and started to plan.

***

A little over two hours later, we were all awake and Alpha Element was getting ready to go back out.  I’d given my quick brief, and everyone had had a chance to look over the terrain.  The general mission profile was the same as it had been; we were just a little bit lighter on ammo and a lot shorter on sleep.

“As long as we can find the hostage this time and not get sidetracked trying to save everybody,” Jordan grumbled.

“Are you really sure you want to save the hostage so bad, Jordan?” Phil asked.  “After all…”

“If you finish that sentence, I will cut your fucking throat, Twig,” Jordan snarled.  “I’m not even playing.”

“Damn, Jordan, why you gotta be so sensitive?” Dwight drawled.  “It’s a joke, man.”

“Racism ain’t no joke to me,” Jordan snapped.  “I’ve had enough of Phil’s ‘jokes.’”

“Really?” Scott put in.  “Fuck, it’s like fucking high school again.  Grow up, both of you.”

“Motherfucker,” Jordan began, but I cut him off.

“Knock it off,” I hissed, exasperated.  It wasn’t the first time Jordan had pulled this shit, but it needed to be the last.  “Not the time, nor the place.  Phil, quit poking the bear.  Jordan, grow a fucking Rhino liner and shut the hell up.”  I glared at him, though it was hard to see in the darkness of the barn.  He returned my stare, though I could feel it more than see it, but finally relented.

“Fine,” he said.  “As long as Twig shuts his fucking mouth.”

“Enough of this shit,” I snarled.  “We’re in the field, on a mission.  Fucking act like it.”

“Come on, guys,” Greg said, with his usual earnestness.  “Game faces.”

“Shut up, Greg.”  Greg was once of the nicest, most cheerful guys around, certainly in the teams, but the last thing I needed at the moment was for this to turn into a team meeting.  He was right, but we needed to get moving and get to Borinka.

Scott was finishing packing his ruck.  We weren’t going to leave anyone in the barn this time; he and the Bravo Element were relocating to a site near the ruined castle.  The rear security element, consisting of Dave, Chris, and Reuben, were already joining us near the front door.

“Is Jordan getting his panties in a wad again?” Reuben asked.

“Leave it, Reuben,” Scott muttered.  The last thing we needed was for Jordan to start feeling like he was being ganged up on.  Reuben wouldn’t get overtly racist just to push buttons, like Phil would, but he’d made it abundantly clear during the entire workup that he figured getting bent out of shape over skin color was stupid.

Of course, Reuben hadn’t had his mom beaten to death by white supremacist thugs, but he still had a point.

I was just glad that Dave hadn’t stuck his oar in.  Our resident shit-talking Mexican with Short Man Syndrome would just have poured gasoline on the flames.

“We’re moving out,” I told Scott.  Not only would it put the simmering dispute to rest, at least for the time being, but we were short on time.  It was going to be a long trek back toward Borinka, and we needed to take advantage of every moment of darkness.

I pointed at Phil, who nodded silently and slipped out through the barn door.

Escalation – Maelstrom Rising Book 1 is now available on Kindle and in Paperback on Amazon. 

Setting the Stage Part 6

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Russia is a difficult animal to figure out.  Formerly the Soviet Union (while the USSR consisted of Russia, the Baltics, Ukraine, and most of the Central Asian -Stans, it was really a Russian Empire, run by the Communist Party), it is no longer dominated by Communist ideology–in fact, President Vladimir Putin has bashed Communism more than once.  However, Russia is not a liberal Western democracy.  Putin is, effectively, President for Life, in fact if not in name.  Continual claims of election meddling and corruption have been made concerning his grip on power (including by the Communists, no less).  Enemies of the Russian State don’t tend to live very long.  Furthermore, the Russian government for most of the last decade has been dominated by the siloviki, former security force “strongmen.”  Putin himself, former KGB and the man who uttered the quote, “There is no such thing as an ex-chekist,” could be categorized as a silovik, though he has held himself somewhat aloof as President, curtailing siloviki power where he apparently felt it necessary.

All of that said, there are many ways in which the Russian Federation should have become an ally of the West.  Putin himself has publicly renounced the Soviet Union’s militant atheism.  The West and Russia have a common enemy in militant Islam (though some of that is, in fact, Russia’s fault, due to their moves against the nationalist–and originally Sufi Muslim rather than Wahhabi Sunni Muslim–Chechens).

But, despite overtures since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian foreign policy has largely gone unchanged.

Russia’s national consciousness has been shaped by invasion from East and West.  There is a reason why Sergei Eisenstein made Alexandr Nevsky in 1938, even before Operation Barbarossa.  The tension between Russia and the West goes back to Peter the Great, who Westernized the very Mongol-influenced country against the will of most of his nobles.  Much of that consciousness has never gone away, and as Russia has been weakened, first by the chaos after the 1991 collapse, and then by the collapse of the price of oil after Putin had built up the economy based on Russia’s vast oil reserves, the growth of NATO and the EU has only fueled Russian paranoia about the West.

Furthermore, Russian actions across the former Soviet Union, many of which, as pointed out in the video above, have been reactive, have been met with open hostility from the West.  While that hostility is not misplaced, given the general disregard for the Laws of Ground Warfare displayed by Russian forces, both regular and irregular, and the realities of alliances on the ground, it has led to clashes and showdowns, especially in Syria, where the Russians are backing Bashar al Assad’s government, while the US and the West have backed militias they consider to be democratic rebels (it should be taken into consideration that many of the rebel groups are in fact Wahhabi Salafists; aside from backing the Kurds–which is complicated in and of itself, as the YPG and the PKK are actually fully committed Communists–much of the intervention in Syria has been poorly thought-out).

Two years of a new Red Scare in the US has only confirmed that the West is an enemy of Russia.  The truth that there has been Russian Information Operations aimed at political destabilization of the United States is immaterial to the Russian view.  It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And as NATO enters a new period of flux, Russia will see it as a threat, and take steps.

Already, there has been a return to Cold War probes on American naval forces and NATO countries, including overflights by Tu-95 Bear bombers.

Hard times, not to mention the growing instability and political chaos in the West itself, will only increase Russia’s paranoia and hostility.  General Gerasimov has already put forward a conspiracy theory, in all seriousness, that the United States will use internal unrest as a “Trojan Horse” to destabilize Russia ahead of airstrikes intended to cripple the Russian Federation.

As Maelstrom Rising begins, the Russians are actively pushing out their “buffer zone,” and preparing to take steps to cripple their strategic rivals before they can themselves potentially come under a similarly crippling attack.  And as Europe descends into chaos, the Kremlin will see both a grave threat, and an opportunity.

Nature abhors a vacuum, after all.

ESCALATION Chapter 1

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The bad guys suddenly started moving about an hour after sunrise.

We had eyes on two sides of the house from our hide site, and so it was impossible to miss when the front door slammed open and half a dozen men rushed out, bearded and armed to the teeth.  The only one who wasn’t in a rush was the guy with the Talib beard, wearing all Russian camouflage and talking into a radio.  We were so close that I could actually pick out a few of the Albanian words.

I was already nervous about being within a hundred meters of the target building, but having what looked an awful lot like a terrorist react force come rushing out made my guts pucker.  Only training and discipline kept me stock-still, though my hand was already on my OBR’s firing control, finger hovering near the trigger.  If we’d been made, it was going to get really loud and really messy, really fast.

We were also probably all going to die in the process.  Not to mention the hostage whom I was already pretty sure was tied up inside that house.

“Deacon, Weeb,” Scott Hayes’ voice said in my ear.  “I think I see what’s got ‘em all stirred up.  There’s company coming.”

I didn’t answer right away.  I was keeping my eyes fixed somewhere just above Camouflage Jacket’s shoulder as I inched my off hand toward the push-to-talk clipped to the strap of my chest rig.

None of us had wanted to set up so close.  Phil had been downright adamant that we needed to find some other way of handling the situation, as the night had worn on and we’d had to get closer and closer just to see the house through the trees.  The hills we’d hiked in through were heavily forested, and just the crunch of leaves under our boots had been excruciatingly loud.

And if I could hear the guy who I was pretty sure was Ibrahim Baruti, then he could hear me.

I reached the button and pressed it once.  I didn’t dare try to talk; squelch breaks were going to be about all I could do until the Kosovars, ethnic Albanian jihadists who had fled Serbia after the recent unpleasantness there, went back inside or we got in a firefight.  But the single break would tell Scott, in his cozy little lay-up site in an abandoned barn, ten miles away, that I was listening.

“There’s a formation of four M5s coming up the road,” Scott continued.  He was watching the drone feed from the little tricopter buzzing around at treetop level over the town.  “Can’t tell yet whether they’re heading for Marianka or Zàhorskà Bystrica, but it looks like the bad guys are getting ready for them in Marianka anyway.”

Shit.  I could feel Dwight glance at me from his position immediately to my left.  Everybody was on the same radio channel, so he’d heard it.  Dwight being Dwight, I knew he had something to say about it, but you don’t talk when you’ve only got five guys ghillied up and covered in leaves, less than a hundred meters from the enemy.

Three more bad guys came running out of the house just then.  One had a PKP machinegun over his shoulder.  Another had what looked an awful lot like an RPG-29.  They ran toward the far end of the town, while Baruti walked around the front of the house, leaving us in the clear for a moment.

And leaving me with a decision to make.

“What the hell?” Dwight whispered, momentarily relieved of the necessity to keep absolutely silent.  “I thought the peacekeepers were locked down after Slovenský Grob?”

“They were,” I whispered back.  “I guess that the lockdown got lifted since the poor bastards who decided to do the right thing got hauled back Stateside.”

“Or they’re here for the same reason we are,” Dwight muttered.  He was watching the house intently, his thick, pugnacious features hidden under his ghillie hood and a thick application of camouflage face paint.  The Mk 48 was in front of him, draped with another camouflage net that he’d brought along for just that purpose.

I glanced at the house.  It made sense.  Our intel didn’t have much good to say about Colonel Banks, who was commanding the Brigade Combat Team assigned to peacekeeping duties in Slovakia.  By all accounts he was a ladder-climber, and, shall we say… less than enthusiastic about sticking his neck out.  He sure hadn’t done a damned thing to step up for Lieutenant Randolph after Slovenský Grob.  But a hostage situation that was already in its third week might be enough to get him to pull his thumb out and send his men on patrol.

Carefully, I keyed my radio and subvocalized into my throat mic.  “Weeb, Deacon.  Does it look like that platoon is looking for our target?”  If they were, that was going to both simplify and complicate matters at the same time.

“Negative, Deacon,” Scott replied.  “These guys don’t look like they’re on the hunt.  This looks like a presence patrol.  They’re buttoned up tight and rolling like they don’t really have a care in the world.  I don’t think they’re expecting trouble from the locals.”

“These ain’t exactly locals,” I murmured in reply, even as I scanned the yard and the nearby houses.  Sure enough, there was quite a bit of movement.  Those M5s had kicked the anthill, and they probably didn’t even know it yet.  “Looks like a lot of Albanians and Arabs.”  Those Slovaks still in Marianka—I didn’t think there were that many left—were keeping their heads down.

“You get the idea,” Scott said with a touch of exasperation.  “I can see more of the streets than you can, and these guys are about to walk into a hornet’s nest.”

I heard a faint rustle of movement behind me.  “We’re here for the hostage,” Jordan muttered.

“Yeah,” I whispered back, even as I started to get my hands under me to get up.  “But we can’t just sit here and let those kids get slaughtered, either.”

I didn’t get up immediately; I was planning in my head as I watched the town and added up what I knew about the enemy’s dispositions.

We couldn’t get into position to flank the ambush being set up on the road, not in time.  Judging by what Scott had said, the American vehicles were already on the outskirts, and it would take us twenty minutes to work our way through the woods.  They’d be smoking hulks by then.

We didn’t have solid confirmation that the hostage was in that house, but we were going to have to take the chance.  We might not be able to head the ambush off, but we damned well could create a hell of a diversion.

“Dwight, you and Greg are the base of fire,” I whispered, as I got up on a knee behind the bush that we’d been hiding under.  “The rest of us are going to hit that house.  If we make it to the door without being spotted, give us a five count and then open up.  Try not to shoot where the hostage might be.”

“That’s some great advice, right there,” Dwight grumbled, settling himself more solidly behind the Mk 48.

The rest of the team was starting to move, though still keeping low and moving carefully.  It wasn’t quite time to go loud just yet.

“This wasn’t the mission, Matt,” Jordan whispered again.  “We’re here for the hostage.  If we’re blown now, then they might just kill the hostage.”

“And if he’s in there, we kill two birds with one stone,” I whispered back.  “Otherwise, we cause some noise and escape in the chaos.  They won’t know for sure that we weren’t just a security element for the peacekeepers.”

“They’re not that stupid,” Jordan hissed.

“Guys,” Greg whispered.  “The cell hits point to this place.  Matt’s right.”

One of the functions of the drone that Scott was controlling from the barn was cell phone tracking.  What had narrowed our search down to Marianka in the first place had been multiple targeted cell phones pinging around this very house.

“Jordan just doesn’t want to risk it to protect a bunch of white boys in the Griffins,” Phil said.  He was crouching at the edge of the bushes, his rifle already held across his knees, his eyes trained on the house.

“Fuck you, Phil,” Jordan hissed back, a real note of anger in his voice.  His face was painted green and brown, but was black as the ace of spades underneath the paint.  “That shit ain’t funny.”

I was starting to get pissed.  This wasn’t the time nor the place.  We’d been prepared to quickly plan the hit based on our recon, but this was turning into a debate, not a planning session.  We were all too old and too experienced to fall into this bullshit.

“Knock it off,” I whispered.  “It’s my call.  We’re hitting the house.  If England’s in there, we pull him out.  If not, we cause as much noise and chaos as we can before we get out, then fall back to Rally Point Hotel.  Any questions?”

There weren’t any.  I’d known that there wouldn’t be.  Their initial reaction had been something of a rational one; we were five guys about to go charging into a hotbed of Kosovar and Syrian militia.  None of these bastards were in Slovakia for good reasons, regardless of the European Defense Council’s platitudes about the “plight of refugees.”

And the fact of the matter was, that every one of us was a warrior.  We weren’t going to sit by and let more Americans get slaughtered if we could help it.

And we were more confident in our own training and skill than we were in the current US Army’s.

I started out, moving out of the bushes and skirting the treeline, trying to get some distance between my precious personal hide and Greg’s and Dwight’s line of fire.  The sun was still fairly low in the partly cloudy sky, so the light was dim enough that I was pretty sure I was still hard to see, looking more like a green and brown swamp thing than a man as I moved against the thick vegetation behind me.

The house was two stories tall, with a red tile roof and plastered walls.  Surrounded by a waist-high iron and brick fence, it was something of a sprawling estate for Marianka; clearly the original owners had been well-off.  But they were long gone, and it looked like Baruti had appropriated it for his own headquarters.

There was another treeline running down the edge of the field to the corner of the fence, and I slipped into it.  Phil and Jordan followed in trace, maintaining a spread-out file, weapons held ready as they scanned around us.  I was doing the same thing; we hadn’t had time to build much of a picture of the enemy’s pattern of life since the sun had come up, but the drone’s intel was painting a grim picture.  This well-to-do suburb of Bratislava had been turned into enemy territory pretty quickly.

I wasn’t running, but I wasn’t moving slowly, either.  With the peacekeepers getting closer by the minute, we were on the clock.  Despite my insistence, I hated going off half-cocked like this.  The rest of the team knew it, too, which was why I’d gotten as little pushback as I had.

We reached the fence without incident.  I could hear yelling in Arabic and Albanian on the other side as I took a knee, facing down the fence line, my OBR held ready while I waited for Jordan and Phil to catch up.

I heard the rustle as they joined me, then Jordan’s hand came down on my shoulder.  “Up,” he whispered.

I rose slowly, easing head and weapon over the top of the fence.  We were right behind the guest house in the corner of the back yard.  I couldn’t be sure that it was unoccupied, but the windows were dark.  We’d still probably have to clear it quickly.  None of us wanted to leave a pocket of bad guys behind us as we crossed the open yard to the main house.

As I covered, Phil put his rifle atop the fence and vaulted over it.  It was an easier barrier than some of the walls we’d trained on, based on compounds in the Middle East and Afghanistan.  Jordan followed, and then I was the last one over.

For a brief moment, we crouched in the shadows between the fence and the guest house.  I peered around the corner, seeing a single figure loitering on the back deck of the main house, carrying a FAMAS.

Whether it had come from a captured weapons cache or had directly been supplied by the French portion of the EDC was anybody’s guess.

Jordan was at my elbow.  “The house looks clear,” he whispered into my ear.  “The front door’s open, no lights, just crap piled in the hall and the living room.”  He’d peered into the window while I’d been scanning our target.

“Deacon, Weeb,” Scott’s voice crackled in my ear.  “Time’s up.  If you’re going to go, you’d better do it now.”

So, I leaned out around the corner and put a bullet into the guy on the deck.

The thunderous report of the 7.62 echoed across the hills around the town, shattering the early morning calm.  The dark-clad man with the FAMAS bullpup staggered, staring down at the widening dark stain on his chest for a brief fraction of a second before he crumpled, crashing to the deck with a thump and a muffled clatter as he landed on top of his rifle.

I was already up and moving as he hit the floor, sprinting around the side of the guest house and heading for the steps leading up to the deck.  A figure loomed in the doorway, and I caught a glimpse of a weapon.  I started to slow, bringing my own rifle back up to fire, but a shot cracked past my shoulder and took the man in the chest.  He fell backwards, into the house.

Then I was up onto the deck, my OBR leveled at the door, Jordan right on my heels, as Dwight opened fire on the front of the house with a long, roaring burst of 7.62.

The back wall was mostly big picture windows and the door.  There was no point in pausing; there was no cover.  Fortunately, Jordan was right there with me, and so we didn’t even slow down as we punched through the door and into the house.

I stepped over the fallen body in the doorway.  The man was in his death spasms, choking on his own blood.  I still kicked the old Skorpion machine pistol away from his hand as I passed, just in case.

We were in a sort of living room, or at least it had been.  The sectional couch and chairs were still there, as was the coffee table.  The pictures on the walls had been torn down, and the place was trashed.  There were piles of propaganda leaflets on the coffee table, as well as porn and what looked an awful lot like drugs.  A partial wall closed half of it off from the rest of the house, though the opening into the kitchen/dining area was wide open.

I went left, Jordan went right, and Phil darted in behind us, following me along the left-hand wall.  He’d paused to take that shot on the way, then rushed to catch up with the two of us.  A two-man entry was preferable to a one-man, but the more guns in the fight, the better.

More gunfire echoed outside.  It sounded like Dwight and Greg were in a medium-range firefight with somebody up near the front of the house; not all the fire was going in one direction.  We rapidly closed on the doorway; the living room was clear.

Jordan had hung back closer to the door, having moved only far enough to get his back to a wall instead of a window.  He had a lot wider field of fire than I did, even as I quickly crossed the room, angling toward the end of that partial wall, with Phil right behind me.  Jordan snapped his OBR up and fired, pumping three shots rapidly into the dining room.  The reports were deafening inside the enclosed space of the house.

He ceased fire just as I reached the end of the wall, and then I was committed.  Taking a breath, I stepped around, snapping my own rifle toward the nearest corner.

There was a stairway ahead of me, leading up into the second story, and a short hallway next to it, leading to the entryway and more rooms on the ground floor.  There was also a body at my feet.  A few feet away, I saw another Kosovar fighter with a SIG 550 in his hands, crouched and aimed in at the corner that I’d just rounded.

He was half-slumped against the wall, his rifle pointed off to one side, and off balance.  He’d apparently dived for cover as Jordan blew his buddy’s brains all over his jacket, but that momentary loss of balance was all the advantage I needed.

I drove my rifle toward him, barely picking up the offset irons alongside the shortdot scope, and blew a chunk of his heart out of his back.  The second shot, that scorched his beard with the muzzle blast as the bullet blew the back of his skull off, spattering blood and brains against the wall behind him, was little more than insurance, but it had been so instinctive that the twin reports almost blended into a single, catastrophic noise.

The dead man was still sliding down the wall, his rifle slipping from nerveless fingers, as another figure appeared at the top of the stairs, his eyes widening as he saw the weird, leafy apparitions with rifles standing over his fellow militiaman’s body.  He lifted the FAMAS rifle in his hands.  I had a split second to shift targets, throwing myself sideways as I did so.  Staying still was a good way to get shot.

He triggered a burst into the wall above Phil’s head, just before both of us blasted him.  He staggered, wobbled for a second, then fell face-first down the stairs, actually doing a somersault before he hit the floor at the bottom.

More gunfire erupted behind me as Jordan shot at somebody toward the front of the house, but Phil and I were already driving our way up the stairs, stepping hard on the body at the base of the steps as we went.

Press the immediate threat.

I drove up the stairs two at a time, only slowing as I neared the top.  I really didn’t want to get my head blown off by sticking it up without at least my own muzzle between my noggin and the bad guys.

Phil was right next to me, and we popped over the landing with our rifles leveled at the same time.  The short hallway at the top of the stairs was clear, for the moment.  We both surged the rest of the way up, as more gunfire thundered and echoed from the front of the house.

More shots cracked from the door to the right.  I started to angle toward it, though there was yet another open door right to the left.  The barking reports of gunfire were coming from that one, that made it a threat.

I didn’t have to say or even signal anything.  Phil, who was closer, moved right to the door, pausing just long enough to know that I was right beside him, then pushed in.

He was already shooting as he crossed the threshold.  I was so close behind him that my muzzle was right over his shoulder, but the man leaning out of the window, firing back at the treeline was already down, leaving a red smear on the white wall.  His rifle had fallen out the open window.

It took less than three seconds to ensure that the room was clear, and then we were coming out, this time with Jordan in the lead.  He went straight across the hallway, bursting into the room we’d bypassed, and I was halfway across the threshold when he called, “Clear!”

We barely paused, just turning and burning back down the hall.

As I came out, I glanced down the stairway, in time to see two men in dark clothes, chest rigs, and turbans start up the stairs.  I threw myself across the hallway as they opened fire, bullets chewing into the ceiling and sending bits of plaster raining down on us, and returned fire.  My first shot smashed into the smaller man’s collarbone, sending him reeling as the follow-up shot tore his throat out.

The snap of the bullet made the taller, skinnier guy flinch.  Which was when Jordan leaned out of the door and shot him in the skull.  His head snapped backward as he crashed onto his back.  Red started seeping from the turban wrapped around his head.

Everything went quiet all of a sudden after that.  We still pressed on to finish clearing the house, even as Scott said in my ear, “Deacon, Weeb.  The patrol’s halted short of the town.  Looks like they’re setting security and calling higher for instructions.”

Of course they are.  I acknowledged with a double squelch break.  I shouldn’t have been surprised.  The current US Armed Forces seemed to be even more hogtied in red tape and armchair quarterbacking than it had been when I’d been a Marine.

There wasn’t time to worry about it, especially as Dwight’s voice broke in.  “Deacon, Teddy.  Y’all kicked the anthill.  There’s probably a platoon heading your way.  I can keep ‘em back for a bit, but you need to wrap it up and get out of there.”

I didn’t answer immediately, because we were moving into the next room, at the end of the hall.  It was as empty as the second one had been.  I held up a hand to hold for a moment.  “Deacon copies all,” I said, as chagrined as always that I was breathing as hard as I was.  Close quarters combat gets the heart pumping harder than any run.  “Top floor cleared.  We’re going to check the rest of the first floor, then exfil.”

I had a sneaking suspicion that we weren’t going to find Specialist England, or if we did, we weren’t going to like what we found.  It was too quiet for anything else.

But as I nodded to Phil, he flowed out into the hallway and headed for the steps.

He hooked around the base of the steps as I stepped out to cover the opening onto the living room.  Jordan tapped me as he went past, and I turned to follow.

Two more bodies were slumped at the front of the entryway.  The door was standing open, with what might have been yet another corpse lying on the front steps.

There were two rooms on the side, a master bedroom and a bathroom.  It took seconds to clear both.  No more bad guys, and no sign of the hostage.  In fact, it didn’t look like he’d ever been there.

“This is Deacon,” I sent.  “We’re on our way out.”  I’d barely gotten the last syllable out before Dwight opened fire again, the rattling roar of the Mk 48 tearing the brief quiet to shreds.

It took moments to retrace our steps to the back, even as we started hearing heavier ordnance going off to the west.  It sounded like the militia had started engaging those Griffins anyway, and unless I missed my guess, they were getting some .50 caliber love in return.  Of course, the M5s had 50mm main guns, too, but the gunners were probably locked out of those for the time being.

In a way, I thought, even as we vaulted the fence again and faded into the treeline, the paralysis of the US peacekeepers was a good thing.  After all, it wouldn’t be good if they found out we were even in the country.

ESCALATION Prologue

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Missiles Fly Over the East China Sea

 Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy ships exchanged antiship missile fire with the Japanese Kaga task force off the coast of Fuke-jima in the early hours of Wednesday morning.  It is unclear whether or not the Chinese ships had actually passed into Japanese waters, though Beijing denies any such incursion.  Japanese Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Hideo Hayashi insisted that the Chinese ships entered the Kaga task force’s exclusion zone, the fifth such incursion within the last three months, though he did not deny that the Japanese ships fired first.

The Chinese deny that any major damage was done, claiming that their point-defenses shot down all incoming missiles.  However, sources claim that the frigate Yiyang was observed listing seriously and possibly burning.

 

Violence Spreads to Palawan

  The battle over the Spratly Islands has spread to the Philippine Island of Palawan.  While the PLAN remains offshore, Filipino authorities are insisting that the increasingly effective paramilitaries operating on Palawan are in fact Chinese proxies.  Senator Joniel Bautista has even accused the People’s Republic of China of smuggling PLA commandos onto the island.  Paramilitaries have seized control of Puerto Princesca International Airport, and a combined force of Filipino and Vietnamese troops have been attempting to regain control of the airport for the last three days.  The death toll continues to rise.

 

Korean Unification Talks Continue to Stagnate

Representatives from the ROK and the DPRK met again on Tuesday, only to go into recess for the fourth time without progress.  While the official statements from both governments insist that talks are continuing, there have been no changes in the last six months.  Sources say that Pyongyang is under increasing pressure from the People’s Republic of China to remain in Beijing’s orbit, and that any unification that does not include a close partnership with China will have serious consequences.  Meanwhile, increasing Japanese navy patrols near the Korean coast have Seoul worried about taking sides between the increasingly hostile Asian powers.

 

Day Four of Coup in Kiev

As the fourth day of the pro-Russian takeover of the government in Kiev comes to an end, the level of violence is still strikingly low.  More Russian armored columns have advanced out of the annexed Donetsk region, taking up security positions around the capitol city.  More have pushed toward the west, ostensibly to bolster Ukrainian border control points with Romania and Poland.  While Ukrainian Patriotic Union holdouts still hold Odessa, Vinnitsya, and Lviv, they appear to be simply holding their positions.  It is believed that the attempted capture of Ukraine Alone politician Kyrylo Stasiuk by European Defense Council special forces in Kharkiv last month contributed to the turn in public sentiment toward Russia.  The EDC troops are estimated to have killed nearly a hundred people in their botched attempt to escape after Stasiuk’s security and Kharkiv police cornered them in the Kharkiv Palace Premier Hotel.

 

More Russian Forces Observed on Estonian Border

The Estonian Defense Forces remain on high alert, as more units of the 138th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade and the 268th Guards Artillery Brigade began conducting maneuvers around Volosovo, less than 45 miles from the border.  While Russian authorities insist that the maneuvers are simply scheduled training, recent Russian moves in Ukraine and Abkhazia have made the Estonians and Latvians increasingly nervous.  Estonian Prime Minister Evelin Ainsalu has repeatedly requested support from both the United States and the European Defense Council.

 

Russia Issues New Protest Over US Deployments to Poland

Russian Ambassador Evgeniy Suvorin repeated the Kremlin’s protests about US military deployments to Poland when he met with Secretary of State Gordon today.  “Given the tensions that exist in Eastern Europe at this time, placing additional NATO troops in a country that has grown increasingly hostile to Russia cannot be seen as anything but adding fuel to the fires of instability in a Europe that is already suffering.”  In the press conference afterward, Suvorin refused to answer questions about Russian moves in Ukraine.

 

Night Clashes Across Saudi Border as Violence Increases in Anbar

Artillery fire thundered over the Iraq-Saudi Arabia border last night, while Iranian Azarakhsh ground-attack aircraft bombed Saudi positions near King Khalid Military City.  Unconfirmed reports suggest ground incursions near Rafha, and Saudi attacks north into Kuwait.  Meanwhile, a new rash of bombings across Ramadi, Fallujah, and Baghdad targeted Iraqi Security Forces and Shi’a civilians.

 

Turkish Forces Consolidate Gains in Iraqi Kurdistan

Kurdish Peshmerga attacks on Turkish positions near Zakho were beaten back yesterday, while fighting in Duhok continued, with Turkish forces having secured approximately half the city so far.  Turkish forces are pushing out of Soran, as well, though Peshmerga forces have successfully ambushed a column making its way through the Ali Bag Canyon.  There are unconfirmed reports of hundreds of civilians being slaughtered in Soran, in retaliation for Peshmerga attacks on Turkish headquarters in the area.  KRG officials have asked for assistance from the United States, but there are reports that they have approached the Islamic Republic of Iran for help, as well.

 

French and Belgian Crackdown

European Defense Council Security Forces continued their roundup of far-right groups following the burning of three South Asian enclaves outside of Paris, and one in Brussels.  Some commentators have remarked that the EDCSF are not discriminating between traditionalist groups and true extremists, but the EDC denies it, insisting that there is no longer any room in Europe for nationalist violence.  When questioned about the connection between the burning of the enclaves and the rash of bombings and truck attacks across Brussels, Antwerp, Reims, Metz, and Paris the week before, EDC spokesperson Clara Hausler refused to answer and ended the press conference.

 

Senator Billings Killed in Bombing

In the third such killing in the last six months, Senator Tyrone Billings of Michigan was killed by a VBIED outside his Ann Arbor home last night.  This comes after three months of threats, following Billings’ vote against S.8853, the “Hate Speech” law that would bring the US into line with European Union standards.  Most of Senator Billings’ security was killed in the blast.  Police have no leads.

 

Shots Exchanged in Slovakia

American peacekeepers exchanged fire with European Defense Council troops in the Slovak town of Slovenský Grob, early yesterday.  While the Pentagon insists that the brief firefight between US Marines and a Swedish contingent of the EDCAF was a case of mistaken identity, the EDC has issued official protests and demanded the US ground commander be harshly disciplined.  Reports that the Marines were attempting to intervene in what some have described as a “massacre in progress” have been dismissed by all official spokespeople.  However, what appears to be photo evidence has already leaked to the internet, purporting to be images of Swedish troops watching as militia rounds up Slovak civilians and lines them up against walls, with other dead bodies in the background.  The Pentagon has refused to comment, while EDC spokesperson Raymond Thibault has denounced the photos as blatant forgeries.  Pentagon reporters confirm that the Marine unit has been recalled from Slovakia, and is currently in Germany, in transit back to the United States.

The War Planners

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This book wasn’t quite what I was expecting.  I picked up the omnibus edition of the first three books in the series, largely because it’s one of the only major “next world war” series out there.  Given the scope of Maelstrom Rising, that was of some interest.

In many ways, it has a wider (and narrower–I’ll get to that) scope than expected.  There’s also some action, but it’s quite limited.  This is really more of a suspense, conspiracy thriller than a classic military techno-thriller.

It starts right off the bat with David Manning, an employee of an IT firm that works closely with the Defense Department and CIA, on his way home to his wife and kids.  Everything is normal, nothing especially is off-kilter except for his 2-year-old hanging up on him while he’s driving home.

Until he gets kidnapped off his front porch.

His kidnappers are Americans, and assure him that he’s in friendly hands; they just needed to get him out of sight quickly, because they need his help, specifically his expertise concerning a new cyber-warfare program that his firm has helped to develop.  He is quickly spirited away to a Red Cell, where it’s revealed that the Chinese have infiltrated the US government and defense apparatus, and are planning a devastating attack to remove the United States as a global superpower.

Lacking intel, the Red Cell’s mission is to wargame out the attack, trying to stay ahead of the Chinese and determine how to stop the gaps and head off the attack.

A good chunk of the middle of the book is devoted to the Red Cell’s planning, suiting the book’s title, The War Planners.  These people, from various intelligence and defense agencies, as well as private contractors, are getting into the weeds on not only military defenses, but psychological warfare, economic warfare, information operations, and infrastructure attacks and weaknesses.  Watts clearly put some research in, and understands at least some of not only the Chinese model of “Unrestricted Warfare,” but also something about how Chinese intelligence agencies work.

Getting into the rest of the book might be getting too far into spoilery territory.  Suffice it to say that not all is necessarily as it seems, and it becomes a very Ludlum-esque thriller, as David tries–not always successfully–to figure out who to trust.

It’s not big on action; this is definitely setting up the story to come.  There’s some small-scale, very personal violence, but only a little.  The suspense is far more immediate than the action, and Watts does a good job of making the reader start to doubt every character but Manning.  The sense of paranoia becomes palpable as the story goes on.

Overall, while I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of action Watts brings out of this scenario, this was very much a setup book.  Tense, but without the follow-on books, it would be somewhat slow, and ends on something of a cliffhanger.  Fortunately, having the omnibus, I can launch right into the next book, The War Stage.

 

Setting the Stage Part 5: China and the West

Everything that China does in the Maelstrom Rising series is based on patterns already established over the last few decades.

China has been endeavoring to become the world superpower for decades.  To that end, they see the United States as their primary rival.  While many who espouse open trade with China dismiss the 1999 white paper, “Unrestricted Warfare” as little more than a hypothetical exercise, every Chinese move, whether in the military, economic, or cyber realms of late has pointed toward a rising hegemon with the United States as its primary enemy.

The growth of Chinese power projection in the Western Pacific involves an incremental domination of China’s nearest neighbors, while challenging American sea supremacy.  While the Southeast Asian nations have protested the building of artificial islands in the South China Sea, US Navy vessels have passed through those waters, which the United States considers international waters, in “Freedom of Navigation” exercises, which Beijing has protested as provocations and violations of Chinese waters.

The Southeast Asian nations especially see this as a threat, and they are the first in the crosshairs of Chinese hegemony.  The Chinese, much like the Russians, seek to be a regional power, though global superpower status has been believed to be in Beijing’s mindset for some time.  Again, certain apologists in the West insist that none of this makes China an enemy, but the People’s Republic of China remains a Communist country, now with a President for Life in Xi Jinping.

China’s expansion is not purely a matter of power-hunger.  China’s Communist regime, its massive expenditures, to include the building of “Ghost Cities,” entire metropolises built purely to stimulate the economy, that now stand empty, has left the Chinese economy dangerously fragile.  China is not self-sustaining.  And that means that as long as the country is reliant on the outside world, and not always on Beijing’s terms, China remains vulnerable.

Not all of China’s efforts to secure its international power and resources lie in military force, however.  China has been actively trying to secure natural resources around the world for the last couple of decades.  Not only that, as part of the “New Silk Road,” they have been securing control of ports and other infrastructure by various means.  The United States sold the Panama Canal to China in the ’90s, and the effort has only increased as time has gone by.

The infrastructure is only part of the plan, however.  Africa has become a de facto Chinese colony.  Beijing is using debt and infrastructure projects in the Third World to secure assets in Africa.  And with China lacking many natural resources desperately needed, Africa has become the prime treasure house for China.

It’s not just Africa, either.  Chinese companies have taken over the bulk of the resource extraction from Afghanistan, and Chinese companies have done business with Mexican cartels for illegally mined iron, stolen petroleum, and other natural resources which have become a major source of cartel income.

While there have been many scenarios about war with China published, any major war between China and the West will doubtless involve considerable combat in Africa and Latin America, to cut Beijing off from its vassals and the resources they can provide.

On the cyber warfare front, there have been many indicators that have not been corroborated, but the Chinese cyber warfare unit has been active against the United States for some time.  Observe the “Attack Map,” and how many connections are going straight to China.  Given the references in “Unrestricted Warfare,” and the access that many Chinese companies have obtained to US tech, any clash will doubtless be accompanied by crippling cyber attacks.

By the events of Maelstrom Rising, all of these factors have continued to develop and escalate.  The encounters in the South China Sea have devolved into a sporadic shooting war with ASEAN.  Naval standoffs with Japan have become increasingly frequent.  And, while the war remains in the shadows, Beijing has decided that now is the time to deal the death blow to what remains of the Pax Americana.

 

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