America you wake up like you usually do and turn on the
morning news.
It's a tense time, and while you try not to overload on bad
news you're always grateful to turn on the two and find out that the world
hasn’t ended just yet.
That doesn't mean it isn't coming perilously close to.
There's tension in Eastern Europe again.
Riots broke out in East Germany over renewed travel
restrictions for East German citizens.
The Berlin Wall has gotten some big upgrades over the last
twenty years, and is now starting to resemble the Korean DMZ in many ways.
The 'death strip' as it's known by the west is a long
stretch of barriers, machine gun nests, and booby traps that run along the East
German side of the wall.
In recent years, the entire border between east and West
Germany has been militarized, and now tank traps, mine fields, and barbed wire
stretch for hundreds of yards on both sides.
There's even rumors that the British have created nuclear
mines that they've buried somewhere under the West German soil along the
border, with the goal being detonating them in case of Soviet Bloc incursion.
But you live in America, thousands of miles away from what
might become the frontline of the third world war.
Life remains much the same as it has since the end of World
War II, thanks to the protection of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and the
might of the US Navy, which currently operates over 500 ships and 14 carrier
strike groups.
It's the largest, most powerful naval fleeting human
history, and it has to be because while enemies may be thousands of miles away,
there are many of them.
What really bothers you though is the resumption of nuclear
alert flights by the United States over recent tensions in Eastern Europe.
The entire eastern front of Europe seems Tobe gripped by a
fresh wave of revolutionary spirit, with millions of eastern Europeans deeply
unhappy with their lives under the rule of regimes controlled by the Soviet Union.
In 1985 Mikhail sergeyevich Gorbachev became general
secretary of the communist party of the Soviet Union, and under his leadership
the Soviet government enacted a policy of Perestroika.
The Soviet Union had begun to greatly lag behind the
economies of the west, and Gorbachevhoped that major state reforms would help
the economy grow.
He loosened the disastrously tight rein on industry that the
Communist Party had kept for decades over the entire Soviet Union, allowing for
sweeping economic reforms.
Individual ministries were now capable of carrying out more
independent action without Kremlin oversight.
Gorbachev however coupled his reforms of the Soviet economy
with greater freedom for the Soviet people and those living in Soviet satellite
states.
Speech became freer than it had ever been in either the
Soviet Union or the Russian empire, and Gorbachev believed that the freedom to
criticize the government would allow for greater efficiency.
Gorbachev immediately became a national hereto the average
Soviet citizen, but instantly made himself an enemy of the ruling elites.
Once given their freedom of speech, the Soviet people almost
immediately used it to complain about their lack of access to basic consumer
goods, government corruption and inefficiency, and being left behind by the
wealth and prosperity of the west.
Movements demanding more than just economic reform began,
and some were even calling for political reform as well.
This proved to be too much for the old Soviet hardliners,
and in 1989 a successful coup removed Gorbachev from office.
A new general secretary was established and the army
mobilized to suppress what were now deemed insurrectionist movements across the
Soviet bloc.
American President George H.
W.
Bush asked the new general secretary to not use force to
quell rebellions across the Soviet bloc, but his pleas were ignored.
Soon Soviet troops were crushing rebellions in Lithuania,
Ukraine, and Poland.
As the Soviets cracked down harder, more rebellions sprang
up.
For a moment it seemed as if the Soviet Union and its
network of satellite states might come apart at the seams, but in the end brutal
reprisals across Eastern Europe quelled revolutionary movements.
Tens of thousands took advantage of the chaos to flee to
Western Europe, some of them ending up shot by border guards with strict orders
to allow no one passage to the west.
That's when the First Line of People's Defense was created,
a massive network of fortifications, walls, fences, and barbed wire that stretched
across the entire heart of Europe.
The continent was now divided on a scale that dwarfed the
Korean DMZ many times over.
According to the current General Secretary, the First Line
is necessary to keep away the corrupting influence of the west.
However, all know that in reality it's to prevent any NATO
intervention in the many ongoing rebellions and insurrections across the Soviet
bloc.
The First Line however is accompanied by what six years ago
was named the “Second Line of People's Defense”.
Much like China's great firewall, this 'line ‘of protection
is a digital great wall that firmly separates east from west on the internet.
With the mass adoption of the internet, the West saw a great
economic boom, yet in the East the internet allowed for the dangerous sharing
of information across ideological lines that separated capitalist west from
Soviet east.
Thus the Soviet authorities worked to completely cut off
western internet from reaching any citizen of the Soviet bloc, instead allowing
only eastern websites on what's essentially the world's largest intranet.
But the launching of satellite internet has begun to breach
that digital barrier between east and west, and inevitably revolutionary zeal
followed.
With yet another crackdown by the Soviets in East Germany,
the situation has become so tense that the United States has once more begun
the flight of nuclear-armed B-52s on patrol routes that bring them close to Soviet
air space.
The move is a deterrent against nuclear escalation in case
of war, as it will put US bombers within just a few hours flight time of Soviet
targets.
Many see it as an unnecessary provocation, but so far the
concept of MAD has kept the relative peace between east and west since the end
of the Second World War.
On your way to work, the news on the radio announces new
anti-communist hearings by thus congress.
You thought the days of McCarthy-ism were over, but with
rising tensions in Europe the old fear of communist infiltration have gripped
the United States again.
You have to be careful, because complaining about wage
inequality or the high cost of medical care can be seen as a sign of communist
sympathy.
This isn't a crime- yet- and the United States is still a
free-speech nation, but if the wrong people were to hear you talking about
rising wage inequality or unaffordable healthcare they might think you're
secretly a Red.
That might make finding job opportunities little harder than
it normally would be or even get accepted into certain colleges or universities.
As you pull up to work you can't help but notice that
they've opened up a brand new military recruiting office next door.
The US military is at the largest it's ever been, nearly 2
million strong, and it seems as if there's been a sudden uptick in recruitment
drives.
This has been mirrored by a complimentary surge in American
flags- you spot one hanging just about outside every house in your neighborhood.
For the umpteenth time in just the last week, you’re
grateful that you don't live in Europe.
-Europe-It's another sunny day in Madrid, soon it’ll be unbearably
hot as it always is at the height of summer, but for now you enjoy the relative
cool of the early morning.
You savor it, because this is going to be one of your last
three mornings as a civilian before joining the Spanish air force.
You're a volunteer in Spain's professional, all-volunteer
military.
But it sounds as if Spain may be bringing conscription back
very soon- at least on limited scale.
While it abolished full-blown conscription in 2001, the
rising tensions with the Soviet bloc have grown concerns across Europe that the
NATO alliance isn't quite ready for a ground war against the Soviet Union and its
satellite states.
For now the situation appears contained, but it’s gotten
increasingly worse over the years.
It's difficult to get news out of the east, but what does
make it out isn't pretty.
Political unrest and even outright rebellion has increased
year over year, and the advent of VPNs and satellite internet, as well as other
ways of circumventing Soviet censorship are to blame.
Not for the first time this week you're grateful you live in
Spain, though you'd rather live somewhere a bit further from the potential site
of World War III- maybe like America.
The people of Eastern Europe are growing increasingly
restless.
Soviet economic reforms in the late 1980sonly went so far
before being largely withdrawn after the coup of 1989 against General SecretaryGorbachev.
The old Soviet hardliners are back in control, and they've
kept a tenuous grip on power for the last thirty years.
But the Soviet economy is faltering and withering from a
lack of open innovation and free market ideals.
It has been for a long time, but the economic explosion that
the digital revolution brought to the west has now left the east far behind.
In response the Soviet authorities clamped down even harder,
banning foreign travel and any non-state sponsored media in the Soviet bloc.
But massive inefficiency and stagnation are taking their
toll, and it seems like the situation gets direr year over year.
Some wishful thinkers believe the Soviets could somehow turn
this all around, but the truth is that the Soviet model of communism simply
doesn't work in the modern era.
The writing is on the wall- the Soviet Union will fail, but
the question is what will happen when it does?
An animal is never more dangerous than when they are wounded
and cornered.
Some Soviet bloc militaries have even been disbanded altogether;
the Soviet Union no longer believing that those militaries can be counted on to
obeys Kremlin commands.
Lithuania and Estonia for instance have had their military
forces disbanded, and now former officers and soldiers are eyed warily as potential
insurrectionists.
The Soviet Union has instead moved its own forces into the
territories, further tightening its iron grip around the two republics.
But the heavy-handed tactics are backfiring as resentment
grows over Soviet rule.
You've been preparing for military service for months now,
and your dream is to fly one of the new American-made F-35s.
You hope you'll be selected for the special training program
at the American base at Torreon.
This along with Moron and Zaragoza are thereof the US Air
Force's most important overseasbases, as they are a vital link back to airfields
in the US for aircraft transiting to the European theater of operations.
Additional American bases have recently undergone
construction in the UK, Spain, and even Turkey.
It seems most NATO members are eager to have US forces
present on their soil these days.
Less exciting is the presence of hundreds of American
nuclear weapons across the NATOalliance.
These are meant to be used by both American and host-nation
pilots in case of war.
You marvel at how the Soviet Union has managed to hold it
all together so far.
Not only are they under attack from within, but from without
too as waves of extremist terrorism rock the southern territories.
There have even been attacks inside of Moscow itself.
This is all thanks to the Soviet Union's ongoing occupation
of Afghanistan, which it took in the 80s and has held since.
There was hope that the United States could help arm and
fund the Mujahedeen fighting the Soviet occupation, but in exchange for support
with their nuclear weapons program and an agreement to come to the defense of
the nation should it be invaded by India, Pakistan turned away from the United States
and refused to cooperate in the effort to arm the rebels.
It's been thirty years now and the war seems to drag on
forever, with the Soviets losing steady trickle of men every year.
Most of the fighting is over and the US hashed a difficult
time arming any opposition groups, but an insurgency is ongoing as Islamic
extremists vow unending Jihad against the Soviet occupiers and their godless
regime.
Yet the Soviet Union won't pull out of the nation, fearing
it would quickly become an American ally which would give the US yet another
toehold in the all-important Middle East.
You can't imagine what it must be like to wage a war against
terrorists for decades, nor how much money the Soviets must have wasted in the
effort.
For that, you're thankful, but what truly worries you is the
understanding that the Soviet Union simply can't continue much longer.
Economic stagnation, out competition by the west, political
and social unrest- sooner or later the Soviet Union is going to implode.
But what happens next, both in Europe and the world, is what
scares you the most.
After almost a century of ideological opposition, you doubt
the nuclear armed Soviet Union is simply going to quietly disintegrate and grant
freedom to the many republics and client states demanding it.