[Rainbow Six]

Interesting post…not sure how achievable it is to include all of the factors mentioned. Some of them are way beyond my area of expertise, but a few random thoughts on some of them (BTW, I really think Twilight 2025 has a ring to it)

An economic / political break down of the EU…economics is for the most part outside my area of expertise…I rely on what I read in certain newspapers and see on certain TV news channels and the ones that I’m reading / watching are saying that the economy is on the mend in Europe…how permanent that recovery is who knows, but as I said, economics is outwith my area of expertise so I wouldn’t be comfortable on that subject without doing a considerable amount of research which I can’t do at the minute (this post is a quick one during lunch hour at work)

A political break up of sorts is probably possible , although would likely be limited in scope (disclaimer – this post isn’t intended to get into any of the real life politics of the EU). I can only really speak for the situation in the United Kingdom here, where – according to the opinion polls - there is a sizeable percentage of the population who, when asked, state that they favour leaving the EU and Prime Minister David Cameron is on record as stating that if the Conservatives win the next General Election in 2015 he wants to hold a Referendum on continued UK membership in 2017. If the Referendum took place and if the public voted to leave I don’t see how the Government could do anything except leave the EU, but those are both big If’s, particularly the second one.

So, a partial break up of the EU, at least to the extent that the UK leaves, is not impossible at all. Even if that was to occur though, my own view is that the remaining 27 Member States would remain intact, leaving the UK potentially marginalised on the fringes of Europe, in which case it might look westward towards the United States, whilst the EU becomes more Euro Centric at the start of the 2020’s, which may or may not cause some friction with the US (bear with me, this is all going somewhere). We have members from other EU members who may be able to offer more insight into the likelihood of their countries splitting away from the EU.

The Middle East…yep, for sure an ongoing area of tension. Let’s posit a few things…firstly, that Assad eventually emerges victorious in Syria and the Damascus Government becomes even more closely aligned with the Iranians. At some point in the next twelve – eighteen months the Israelis decide to launch an air strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Strikes are partially successful, causing significant but not fatal damage to the Iranians’ nuclear ambitions – let’s say enough to set them back five to ten years (Twilight 2025 again)…Tensions are escalated but a full scale War is averted. Israel is roundly condemned in the court of World opinion as the aggressor and the Iranians – and their Syrian vassals – plot their revenge – which will later lead us into spectacular acts of terrorism. I don’t feel overly comfortable “suggesting” possible terrorist attacks, but there are several that spring to mind that could cause loss of life in the hundreds. There are several others that could cause loss of life in the thousands or even tens of thousands if you want to go that far…

Whilst the Iranians are plotting we see China flexing its military muscle in Asia and the Pacific, which leads to several countries in the region increasing their military spending, most noticeably Japan. Other Asian nations, observing what appears to be an arms race between the PRC and Japan become increasingly nervous. In Europe, the Russians, meanwhile, have been relatively quiet since their unopposed annexations of eastern Ukraine in 2014 and Belarus in 2016. For its part NATO has roughly a Division’s worth of troops. Mostly British and American (the Germans offered but the Poles declined) stationed in Poland as “guarantor” or the Alliance’s commitment to its Eastern members. The US also quietly deploys enough equipment to new POMCUS sites in western Poland to equip a full heavy Division.

So, what happens next? Off the top of my head (and as I said I haven’t done any serious research on this, just throwing ideas about to discuss) are there two major potential flashpoints?

Europe…or Asia…Who kicks off World War 3? The classic T2K timelines always started in Asia, so why not stick with that – there’s a flashpoint in Asia (I don’t know what – Taiwan seems the most obvious) which brings the US and China into direct confrontation. The US rapidly reinforces the Pacific, which inevitably leads to a reduction in forces committed to NATO (other NATO members offer the US vocal support but there is little tangible assistance – the Royal Navy sends a couple of warships and that’s about it). The Russians see their opportunity to annex the Baltic States by force whilst the US is committed elsewhere (effectively it’s a reboot of sorts of V1 – in V1 the West Germans took advantage of the fact that the Soviets were engaged against the Chinese to attempt reunification with East Germany – in this timeline it’s the Russians taking advantage of the fact that the Americans are engaged against the Chinese to force “reunification” with the Baltic States).

The Russians don’t go against Poland initially because they are certain that will prompt a NATO response but they think they will be able to retake the Baltics without encountering serious opposition using the by now familiar refrain that they are acting to protect Russian minority groups. This leads to much debate in NATO HQ and elsewhere as to how to respond – the Eastern European states, led by Poland, all fear that they will be next and advocate direct action. The Western European states are less eager to face up to the Russians, particularly as the US can only supply limited support as it’s already involved in hostilities against the Chinese. Meanwhile the Baltic states are being steamrollered. Potentially the schisms within NATO eventually cause the alliance to fracture, with a number of western European states (led by France) withdrawing from the alliance (again, mirroring the classic T2K timeline). Critically the Germans, who have the largest Army in Western Europe, opt to honour their treaty commitments and the Panzer Divisions move east.

With the US now fully committed in Europe and Asia, the Chinese have a quiet word with their ally the Supreme Leader of North Korea, who decides that now might be a good time to reunite the Korean peninsula. Elsewhere different parts of Africa descend into ethnic / religious violence, whilst tensions are threatening to boil over in the Middle East and between India and Pakistan in the disputed Kashmir region…

Thoughts?