OT or Not OT: Twilight 2030

[Raellus]

Or thereabouts. No, as far as I'm aware, a new reincarnation of our beloved military-themed, post-apocalyptic RPG isn't in the works. The recent drama in Ukraine has, however, created fertile ground for entertaining the worrying possibility of another major war. Although I love the classic, alternate history flavor of the original Twilight 2000, sometimes I get a hankering to bring current and near future gear and geopolitical issues into the post-apocalyptic, neo-dark ages of the T2K milieu. So I thought we could discuss possible future scenarios that might get us there. Let's start with potential global flashpoints and/or recent worrying developments.

• Russia vs. NATO (over Ukraine)
• No-Ko acting out vs. South Korea and its allies (again)
• India vs. Pakistan (again)
• The Middle East (always)
• China flexing its military muscle in Asia and the Pacific (no one's forgotten about Taiwan)
• Japan's recent lean to the right (again) and remilitarization
• An economic/political break-down of the EU
• Ethnic/religious violence in Africa (constantly)

Let's also add to that...

• the increasing odds of a global pandemic- something echoing the rampage of the Spanish Flu in 1918-'19
• Global Warming (whatever the cause) and related competition over resources
• Chances of another global economic meltdown
• Spectacular acts of terrorism
• Massive natural disaster with global impact (think Krakatoa)

These have all been likely suspects for a while now. Am I missing anything that needs to be factored in?

Anyone care to take a stab at a Universal Theory of the Causes of WWIII incorporating all of the above? I'd prefer not to explore conspiracy theories (e.g. the Illuminati and One World Government), or sci-fi, or supernatural factors at this point; we can delve into that later, if any of you care to go there.

What else would you like to see in a future iteration of Twilight 2000?

Discuss.

[mikeo80]

IMHO, any one of the scenarios Raellus mentioned could be the spark that lights the fuse that sets off the powder keg. Look at WWI, One crazed assassin ended up being responsible for 10 - 20 million deaths. Yes there were a multitude of issues and problems that the world was facing. But one spark lit the fuse.

Again, IMHO, I see Korea, Syria or maybe Iran as being the most likely area to provide the spark. It very easily could by China and Taiwan, China and Japan, Russia.

It also could be a geological phenomena that starts the ball rolling. Yellowstone Caldera, Major earthquake along the Pacific "Ring of Fire", Asteroid impact, solar flare.

It could be something as insidious as Ebola going air born. Or SARS, H1N1 or other type of flu.

I have tried to stay as far away as I can from the conspiracy theories, sci-fi, or other "things that go bump in the night." (read zombies)

So, yes, we could have Twilight 2014, 15, 16 or what ever.

Time to get off of the soap box.

My $0.02

Mike

[pmulcahy11b]

Hey, anything that makes my stuff more worthwhile...

[mikeo80]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Hey, anything that makes my stuff more worthwhile...

I agree with what you say, Paul. I just do not want to test drive that theory.

My $0.02

Mike

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Crazed assassins don't worry me overly much, they usually foul up something and get caught before they can fulfil their design e.g. John Hinckley, Jr. trying to kill then president Ronald Reagan.
It's the well motivated, strongly committed, social activist type assassins who are prepared to die for their cause and are smart enough to seize opportunities to fulfil their aims that bother me e.g. Gavrilo Princip when he saw Archduke Ferdinand sitting in a stalled car.

[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?