Making Sense of Some Developments in Arizona

[Webstral]

As I work on a new piece for Thunder Empire, a few things that are periphery but important occur to me. The first is the quantity and disposition of the food stores at Fort Huachuca. The food was meant to sustain the metropolitan populations of the Valley of the Sun, which includes Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe, Scottsdale, and other significant population centers, and metropolitan Tucson for 180 days at 1500 calories per head. The Pentagon’s Contingency Division was looking at a modified Red Star scenario in which a strong but sub-general East-West nuclear exchange would completely cut off food shipments to the two urban areas of Arizona without seeing nuclear weapons used against either urban area. In the event of a White Star scenario—which is more-or-less what happened—the food could be used to smooth the inevitable shortages that would occur during the transition from pre- to post-Exchange agriculture and transportation. In the event of a Blue Star scenario, in which a extended conventional war caused severe economic disruption, the food stores could be used to keep a lid on civil unrest resulting from mass unemployment and poverty.

In the event, food shipments to Phoenix and Tucson were not completely cut off before the Mexican invasion. As reporting in Howling Wilderness, the triage plan to limit food distribution to urban centers of lesser importance was to be implemented on 1 July 1998. Despite its defense industry, the Valley of the Sun was placed in the bottom half of the list. Tucson was located even further down. The deteriorating situation in CONUS led to food shipments diminishing before the Mexican invasion on 2 June 1998. Thus some food was flowing out of the stores at Huachuca when the Second Mexican-American War started, but not very much.

The other factor of some importance was the re-emergence of the bubonic plague. The initial outbreak was in San Francisco, but other outbreaks soon followed in Arizona and other states. Rather quickly, the plague made its way to Phoenix. Much of the population was weak and tired already. The plague soon tore gaping holes in the population. So many people were dying by mid-June that it was impossible to say how much food might be needed. A few violent incidents along the I-10 corridor involving Mexican attacks on American convoys transporting food from Huachuca to Metro Phoenix, plus a few more incidents of violence at the Phoenix end, plus the first cases of plague among the troops at Huachuca convinced Thomason that Phoenix was done. Thus from about July onward the populations of Pima, Santa Cruz, and Cochise Counties were eating food meant for three times their number. Of course, they were now completely cut off from the outside world. Even if the Mexicans had been inclined to allow food to travel along the rail lines through their territory in New Mexico and California, Milgov never would have allowed food to go to Huachuca and Tucson.

There was, by the way, much loss of life in SAMAD to disease. Bubonic plague killed many in separate outbreaks that were contained with much effort. Other contagions killed thousands. The pre-war population of the three counties was about 500,000. Still alive are 400,000, but this number includes tens of thousands of Mexican refugees working in labor battalions, refugees from Metro Phoenix who survived the journey after June 1998, refugees from Yuma and rural areas throughout southern and eastern Arizona, and even some refugees from Albuquerque.