[sglancy12]

As part of my love of all things Red Dawn-ish, I like the idea of a Mexican-American War as part of the Twilight War.

Why? Obviously because I like a good foreign invasion... Getting impersonally nuked by some guy in a silo thousands of miles away just doesn't have the role-playing game entertainment value of enemy soldiers fighting through your neighborhood house-to-house. But are the Mexicans up for it?

Okay... much like the Soviet invasion of Alaska, there are giant technical and logistical hurtles for a Mexican invasion to get as far as it's supposed to... not to mention political hurtles. Mexico has to have the will to do this, but I think they can find it.

Mexico has always harbored a certain amount of resentment against the United States. After all, in 1848 we stole the 1/2 of their country that has all the cities and highways and industry in it. Then after that we have consistently treated Mexico as a source of cheap labor, cheap vacations and cheap vice. Our prosperity is seen as only possible because we made off with their prosperity. So it wouldn't take much propaganda to whip the Mexican population up. Not to mention, when is Mexico ever going to get a better time for some payback against the "Colossus of the North" than after we've been nuked? We're down, the time to put the boot in is before we get back up.

In the canon, the invasion takes place after an alliance of leftists and communists seize power in Mexico City during the chaos following the November 1997 limited strategic exchange. They invade because US citizen militias have declared open season on any Mexicans crossing the border into America.

Okay... a couple of problems here:

If America is nuked and Mexico isn't, why are there Mexican's trying to get into America?

If both Mexico and America are nuked, how does Mexico muster the logistical strength to mobilize their army and invade the American Southwest? Not to mention how do the Mexicans get the Soviet "Division Cuba" into Mexico if they have suffered a nuclear strike on their oil refining capacity?

I have one simple fix built into my my timeline:

Mexico is not nuked by the USSR in 1997. Their extraction and refining capacity is undamaged. So their access to fuel will give them a huge advantage over the US military which is fuel poor and spread out in 1998 doing disaster relief, food distribution, and attempting to impose order through martial law.

Instead, Mexico gets nuke by the United States. After they invade, we kill their oilfields and refineries which results in a complete logistical breakdown in their army and a political breakdown as the 8 million people living in Mexico City have to go without lights, water and food. Civil order breaks down and the civil war re-ignites. Invasion over, Mexican Army stranded across the southwest.

But what about the casus belli? The massacre of Mexican refugees in America? If Mexico is not nuked in 1997, why are Mexicans into a nuked America from Mexico?

In the canon, Mexico is in a low-grade civil war BEFORE the nukes fall. The PRI/PPS alliance that launches the invasion seizes power in early 1998, AFTER the nukes fall, so maybe the refugees that supposedly get massacred are people who fled the civil war in the mid-1990s and were living in refugee camps along the south west border. After the nukes fall, those camps aren't going to get any more shipments of food. At first they go asking for food. Then they tool up and start demanding the food or else. Then the Southwestern American (well known for their embracing of the 2nd Amendment) start fighting these marauder bands, or even running off refugee groups that haven't turned marauder yet, and now you've got your bloodbath, with the refugee/marauders getting the worst of it.

On the other hand, maybe the PRS/PPS alliance just invented the stories of "massacres" of refugees? Maybe they also whipped up the population with stories (ala Hugo Chavez) that the Americans were about to invade to seize Mexico's oil industries. Maybe they sell the invasion as a "pre-emptive" attack?

There are some other ways Mexico can be assisted in their invasion.

Maybe "Division Cuba" is larger than a division? Maybe they bring some undamaged air assets beside Mi-28 Hind Ds? Some Mig-23s or Su-27s could make things easier for the Mexicans.

Maybe the Cubans and Nicaraguans are providing troops, advisers, or equipment disguised by wearing Mexican uniforms and sporting Mexican livery? In my timeline the Sandinistas regain power in 1996. They could be helping the Mexicans, and then quickly regret sending some of their military out of the country when Hurrican Mitch plows through in October of 1998. By then, after the US has nuked the Mexicans energy reserves, any Sandinistas in Mexico are marooned there.

After Hugo Chavez is elected President of Venezulea in December of 1998, he can throw some fuel and other assistance at the Mexicans. He'll probably be sending aid to his ideological brothers in Nicaragua too.

Any other suggestions on how the invasion can be made more plausible? Certainly the Mexican OOB from Red Star/Lone Star and Challenge Magazine needs to be revamped to include units that were left out. But that only amounts to a few thousand more men. There are some very good OOBs available on this site right now.

There's also the possibility that Mexican Drug cartels might be looking to move into the Warlord business now that their market for cocaine has dried up. These groups might be interested in acting as privateers... seizing American territory while claiming to be acting in the name of Mexico? The Tiajuana Cartel reinventing itself as a modern Division del Norte?

What other events or factors could be knit into the alternative history to make the Second Mexican-American War more plausible... or rather, making the Mexican's temporary successes more plausible.

A. Scott Glancy, President TCCorp, dba Pagan Publishing