American forces became notably more cautious. The most grueling battles were fought with Militia penal battalions, where the savagery of the MPs became infamous. Instead of dashing armor exploits, Army tankers tiptoed into enemy rear areas. The phenomenon accelerated the American trend toward extreme artillery dependency. US industry finally gave the Army mountains of munitions, and the commanders expended them at a prodigious rate.
The shaken formations on each side found bold or even aggressive endeavors beyond their capacities. It turned the summer battles into shoving matches, where weight of shells and political maneuvering often gave greater gains than any hard fighting.
From An Idiots Guide to the Sino-America War, by Robert E. Wagner:
The Summer Offensives of 2041:
After a six-week refit, America finally won the jackpot from Colonel Valdez of the Mexico Free Army. His soldiers had fought courageously throughout the war, and his freedom fighters had played havoc with the Chinese and their puppets in Mexico.
In June of 2041, Colonel Valdez secretly entered southern California. He met with the Mexican Army generals garrisoning SoCal for the Pan-Asian Alliance. They represented three hundred thousand Mexican Army soldiers. Valdez’s impassioned speech combined with American guarantees and cash bribes won over the generals, who claimed to burn with hatred against the barbaric Chinese nukers.
Five days later, in an act of North American brotherhood, the Mexican SoCal Occupation Army defected to the US-Canadian side. The SoCal Front collapsed for the PAA.
This led to anti-Chinese uprisings in Mexico and had a dramatic effect on the summer offensives. On top of the first wave of troop replacements, Chairman Hong shipped emergency reinforcements across the Pacific. At the same time, Marshal Meng withdrew his best divisions from the fronts in Texas and Arizona. These divisions disarmed the Mexican Army in Mexico and began patrol duty to secure the largest cities and the road routes from the ports to the Texan fronts.
The Mexican revolt gained strength and drew off yet more Chinese strength. This led to a grave weakening in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Throughout July and August, American forces pushed the weakened PAA south.
By September, at the cost of bloody massacres, the Chinese regained full control of Mexico. By October, the PAA fortified their final long slice of America. It stretched from Houston-Austin-Odessa, Texas to Carlsbad, New Mexico to Phoenix, Arizona.
According to Chairman Hong, the doctrine was simple. Better to fight the Americans in North America than to fight them elsewhere. To that end, from spring to autumn, over two million new soldiers crossed the Pacific to Mexico, with more on the way.
The American problem of what to do with the PAA Fortress Mexico led to the Chicago Conference and the decisions reached there.
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The Chicago Conference
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
13 October 2041
Strategic conference minutes, 2.39 P.M.
Participants: Harold, McGraw, Levin (Director of the CIA) Caliato (Director of Industry), O’Hara (Admiral, Pacific Fleet), Danner (Air Marshal, Strategic Air Command).
HAROLD: Gentlemen, I have called this meeting for a specific reason. Not to put too fine a point on it, I believe this is a historic occasion. Perhaps that sounds melodramatic to some of you. After you’ve heard my proposal, I doubt you’ll think so.
First, it is my opinion that the United States has reached a crisis point. For three years, we have faced the onslaught of the world, absorbing incredible blows. No other nation on Earth could have withstood two thirds of Asia, South America and United Europe hammering against us in tandem. In fact, the United States is such a unique country, that we not only withstood the attacks, but we have essentially thrown the invader off our sacred soil. Now we must decide how to proceed. A wrong choice here could have debilitating consequences for our country’s future.
INDUSTRY DIRECTOR CALIATO: Perhaps this isn’t my place, Director. I’m the last person to complain, believe me. Yet I feel that I should point out that the Chinese still hold parts of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. In other words, the job isn’t finished. I know the President expects us to clear the entire country.
HAROLD: The enemy still holds a sliver of land. You’re correct in pointing this out. And yes, I agree with you. The President wants every acre cleansed of even a taint of the invader. Yet we’re not remiss in recognizing that this sliver is barely enough land to contain China’s forward defenses. In many ways, we can wait to regain this last strip. The real problem is continued Chinese proximity to our heartland. This spring, Hong showed us with fearful brutality what he could and would do with tactical nuclear weapons. As long as China maintains heavy concentrations of troops on or near our border, we are in danger of a second nuclear strike.
CALIATO: I thought the general explained yesterday how the Army has built a nearly impenetrable antimissile belt along our forward defenses. General McGraw told us Hong could not repeat this spring’s performance. You’ve gone on TV more than once to assure the populace of this.
HAROLD: Granted, it would be difficult for the Chinese to duplicate their performance. I told the public we’re safe from a repeat in order to calm their worries, not necessarily because it was true. I fear that the Chinese might gather a tremendous number of drones and use a similar swarming tactic against our defenses before unleashing another cruise missile wave. No. While I applaud the military’s efforts, the war has shown that—over time anyway—a determined attacker with plenty of materiel can penetrate any defensive zone.
CALIATO: Then we’ll never be safe as long as the Chinese are in Mexico.
HAROLD: Those are my thoughts exactly.
LEVIN: Please excuse my interruption, Director.
HAROLD: Doctor Levin, I’ve asked you to attend this meeting precisely because I desire your input. The CIA has, hmm, foreign and other hidden assets the rest of us can only envy at this stage.
LEVIN: I’ll take that as a compliment.
HAROLD: I mean it as such.
LEVIN: Thank you. The CIA has worked hard to maintain its foreign connections. My point is otherwise. In listening to you, I believe you’re suggesting…well, a much longer war than the American people will sustain.
HAROLD: This is interesting. Go on, please.
LEVIN: Let’s put aside any word games. We here know the score. We’re intelligent men. Today, and likely tomorrow, too, the Homeland Security slogans will continue to stir people’s blood. “Free America!” and “Drive the Chinese into the sea,” are rousing chants. A continuing American death toll from a fierce and drawn out war in Mexico, however, will eventually rob the catchphrases of their power. I do not mean any disrespect to the military, but the summer offensives have shown the Army, the Marines and the Militia’s weakening resolve for protracted combat.
HAROLD: I believe you state the situation accurately.
LEVIN: Then in your opinion, the United States cannot sustain a long war in Mexico as we attempt to oust the Chinese from North America.
HAROLD: We would need South American Federation help for that.
LEVIN: According to the reports I’ve read, the junta leaders have lost their taste for North American adventures. They are, however, still firm allies of the PAA. I’m not sure why you would suggest they might help us against the Chinese.
HAROLD: They’re still PAA allies. I’ll agree with you there. Clearly, though, their unwillingness to engage in further combat shows a lack of firmness toward China.
LEVIN: I suppose one could make that argument. That’s a long way from their helping us oust the Chinese.
HAROLD: I made no such claim. I merely said we would need massive military assistance to drive the Chinese out of Mexico, such as from the SAF. Otherwise, it would take greater causalities than Americans are likely willing to accept.
LEVIN: That’s my point exactly.
HAROLD: We’re here to examine options and possibilities and see where they lead. As I’ve just said, Doctor Le
vin is quite correct in pointing out that a protracted war in Mexico would exhaust our country. Likely, it would unify the Mexican people against America. The majority of Mexicans presently hate the Chinese occupier. Yet the Mexican people have a longstanding antipathy toward the US military in their country. No. Hong is correct in pouring massive PAA troops and materiel into Mexico, to ensure it remains a bulwark against us. As long as Mexico remains a Chinese fortress, we will live under the shadow of Chairman Hong. It will severely restrict what we can do elsewhere.
MCGRAW: That obviously leaves us at an impasse. We cannot allow the Chinese to stay in Mexico, but we cannot go in and dig them out. Therefore, we need a new strategy, as we’ve reached the end of our primary goal, namely—driving the aggressors out of our country.
LEVIN: Here’s an option I wonder if anyone has pondered. We could send out peace feelers to Beijing. Maybe it’s time to end this war. Let’s call it even.
HAROLD: No! That is unacceptable. After witnessing Chinese perfidy these past three years, America cannot stomach a China-allied or China-friendly Mexico. We must drive China out of Mexico and then we must humble the Chinese, hurt them badly. We must teach them and the world what it means to attack us.
LEVIN: Are you suggesting another Mexican civil war, with Colonel Valdez’s expanded army as the kernel?
HAROLD: That would be a third tier option, not a first.
LEVIN: Then I don’t understand. Director, General McGraw, I agree with the analysis about America being at an impasse. We cannot allow the Chinese in Mexico, and yet we cannot pay the butcher’s bill to drive them out of the country. Peace seems like the only solution.
HAROLD: You’re forgetting the best option of all.
LEVIN: Which is?
HAROLD: That we knock China out of the war by defeating her utterly, by forcing her into a supine position.
LEVIN: (laughs). If driving Chinese soldiers out of Mexico is beyond our strength, how do you expect to defeat the Chinese in their own country? Can we ferry an amphibious force to the Chinese coast?
ADMIRAL O’HARA: I admit we still have transports—if we scrape every port and call home those ships that have remained in foreign harbors these last three years. We may even have several destroyers for escort duty. But that’s not enough to ferry an amphibious force big enough to take China. Hell, we’d be lucky to have enough to storm Taiwan. Not that they’d make it there—the Chinese navy would sink them before that.
LEVIN: Then invading China is impossible, which means knocking it out of the war…is a pipe dream.
HAROLD: By ourselves, yes. We need allies, the Indian League or the Slavic Coalition, or preferably both.
LEVIN: How could you persuade either power bloc to do this?
HAROLD: The key is food, which means reviving the old Grain Union.
LEVIN: The Chinese captured Australia and the Brazilians overran Argentina. Without those two countries, we and Canada are the totality of the Grain Union.
HAROLD: Obviously. That’s one of the reasons we’re holding secret talks with the South American Federation. If the SAF exits Argentina, we will return their POWs, over one and a half million men.
LEVIN: Your results?
HAROLD: So far, we haven’t convinced the junta leaders. Australia looks more promising.
LEVIN: I don’t see how. Chinese troops garrison the continent.
HAROLD: I’m sure you’ve read the latest intelligence reports. Chairman Hong is in the process of pouring vast number of troops into Mexico. He has to get them from somewhere. We believe the PAA forces sustained over two million casualties during the spring and summer offensives and the Red Dragon attack. The bulk of those losses were Chinese soldiers, not Japanese or Vietnamese. Hong has raised new levies, of course, but less than one million in number. The rest of the soldiers are coming from China’s strategic reserve and from their various occupation forces. These troops were stationed in Siberia, Kazakhstan, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand.
LEVIN: That’s interesting, certainly. How many PAA soldiers are in Australia now?
HAROLD: There used to be three hundred thousand A-category troops. Now it is closer to one hundred and fifty thousand.
LEVIN: He took half out of the country?
HAROLD: Why not? China controls the Pacific. According to our estimates, Hong has also shifted five hundred thousand A-category forces to Burma, raising the numbers to one and a half million, possibly two million.
LEVIN: You’re suggesting we make an amphibious invasion of Australia?
HAROLD: A liberation, let’s call it. As one of our moves, yes.
LEVIN: How? China controls the Pacific, remember?
HAROLD: A stealth invasion coming up from Antarctica to hit the bottom of Australia. We would bypass the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
LEVIN: That would be a pure gamble, a wild throw of the dice.
HAROLD: Not altogether—General McGraw, if you would tell them, please…
MCGRAW: Gentlemen, we have reached a new era in war. In part for us, it’s because we must. Our boys have fought hard for three years, and we’ve taken bitter losses. The young ones who joined up to take the veterans’ places don’t have the same stomach for a fight, nor are they as skilled. To encourage our divisions to keep driving this summer, we had to supply them with more artillery tubes per one hundred thousand soldiers than ever before. I should point out, that’s a common feature of protracted warfare. It even happened to Napoleon Bonaparte and his Grande Armee.
What that means for us is that we need to go high tech to defeat the Chinese. We’re going to comb our divisions and take our best soldiers, concentrating them into elite formations. We’re also working on several new technologies. One of them is the hypervelocity missile. Tests suggest that they would fly too fast for lasers to knock them down. The laser beam could not stay on target long enough to impart enough heat to destroy the missile.
LEVIN: That sounds like a war-winning weapon to me.
MCGRAW: Unfortunately, the hypervelocity missiles are only in the first experimental stages, so we cannot count on them just yet. What we are doing as of now is increasing our number of THOR missiles. Nothing can knock them down once they’re raining toward Earth. I should add, though, the Chinese are hard at work on stealth satellite detection and killer satellites of their own to take out our THOR launch vehicles once they find them in orbit. Still, if we can manufacture enough THOR missiles and get them over the battlefield, we should be able to destroy any critical enemy component at precisely the right time to do the most damage.
LEVIN: The Chinese will have other countermeasures you haven’t thought of yet.
MCGRAW: That’s another reason we have to find other baskets.
LEVIN: Excuse me?
MCGRAW: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
LEVON: Oh, of course.
MCGRAW: Clearly, the THOR missiles point the way. We must gain control of orbital space and learn to use it with pinpoint accuracy.
LEVIN: It sounds as if you already have systems in mind.
MCGRAW: I do. It also happens to be one of our key inducements we could offer any allies, be they Russian or Indian.
LEVIN: I feel I should point out that Premier Konev is engaged in secret talks with Chairman Hong. They have come to an accord.
HAROLD: I realize that. But the Russians have also received German Dominion AI Kaisers. It seems the new European Union people don’t like those smart tanks and want to send the entire stock of them as far away as possible. Perhaps as interesting, the Europeans have released General Mansfeld, sending him to the Russians.
LEVIN: All true. Yet that is a long way toward convincing Konev to fight China. While the Russians would like to regain Siberia, they must realize the cost in blood would be too high.
HAROLD: It’s one of the reasons we’re working so closely with the Indian League. Still, we cannot leave any stone unturned. Which is why we need your help, Doctor. I rea
lize the CIA knows much more about Russia and India’s internal workings than Homeland Security does. We’re gathering a team. I—we plan to send a Presidential representative to Moscow to offer Konev whatever American help it will take to get him to move.
LEVIN: Who’s your representative?
HAROLD: An old colleague of yours, Doctor. Anna Chen.
LEVIN: Anna? I’m surprised you’ve let her live.
HAROLD: Excuse me?
LEVIN: Just a slip of the tongue, I’m afraid, and in poor taste.
HAROLD: We work for the President.
MCGRAW: David Sims will recover. I answer directly to him.
LEVIN: We all work for the President. I salute his health.
HAROLD: We wish him a quick recovery.
(The members pause for a moment of silence.)
LEVIN: I’ll admit you’ve made me curious, Director. Yes, we’re at an impasse, as you say. America cannot allow Chinese armies in Mexico. Yet we can’t go in and defeat them…well, the cost in blood would be too high to go in with millions of US soldiers. You’re hoping to use Russia and India to start a ground war in Asia, which would no doubt pull the PAA troops out of Mexico. I’m wondering if we have more than THOR missiles to offer our allies. (Looks at McGraw.) A minute ago, you were talking about taking over orbital space.
MCGRAW: Suppose the Indian League drove into Southeast Asia. They’re building up to do that. They have enough infantry, but lack the armor. What could we offer the Indians short of massive reinforcements? Some of my experts looked back to Afghanistan for the answer, to the time we invaded in the 1990s. There, a handful of elite Special Forces, on the ground, called down Air Force smart bombs. Those bombs fell on the enemy’s head, driving them out of their defenses and back onto the road as they fled. That let the Northern Alliance soldiers defeat them.
Invasion: China (Invasion America) (Volume 5) Page 15