World War 3 (DJK95)

World War III (often abbreviated to WWIII or WW3), also known as the Third World War, the "Final War“, the "War to End all Peace", the "War to End all World Wars", or the "Impossible War", was a global war that lasted between 2025 and 2032 while ending the so called "Long Peace" of the "Pax Americana“.
The vast majority of the world's nations -among them all nuclear powers- eventually formed two opposing alliances: the Allies and the Revisionist Powers. In a state of total war, more than almost 2 billion people from over 100 nations were mobilized, making WW3 the largest war in human history, surpassing its predecessor, WW2. With fighting occurring on every continent, including small operations against satellite stations in Antarctica, WW3 was also the most widespread war in history. The main participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the line between civilian and military resources. The Third World War was the deadliest event in the history of mankind, marked by 300 million casualties, including the victims of various war crimes, like the Uighur and Kurdish genocides, the ethnic cleansing of Shias and Sunnis, the carpet bombing of the Gaza Strip, the massacres against the Crimean Tatarians, Kashmiri Muslims and Indians, Israelis, Tibetans, Ukrainians and Taiwanese, and many more. Millions more died in the years after the war, due to famine, disease, follow-up conflicts or the long term effects of nuclear and chemical warfare.
The war was marked by the extensive use of ballistic and cruise missiles, automated and autonomous weapon systems, cyber-warfare, hypersonic weaponry and the use of chemical and nuclear weapons of mass destruction. It was the result of the Second Cold War, Sino-Russian expansionism, neo-imperialism, globalization, the Korea Crisis, the Venezuela Crisis, the proxy wars in the Middle East between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the economic crisis and socio-political conflicts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic 2020-2023, the Russo-Ukranian War, Karabackh conflict, the rise of the AKP dictatorship in Turkey as well as US foreign policy under the first term of Donald J. Trump and Joseph R. Biden.
== The Belligerents ==
=== The Allies ===
The Allies of WW3 were a western based Alliance of some of the most powerful nations in the World, including the majority of the nuclear powers at that time. It was mainly composed by the members of NATO, the Saudi-led Arab coalition, Israel, the Asian powerhouses of India, Japan and South Korea, as well as Australia and New Zealand, while later on many nations in Africa, and in both South and Central America joined as well. This alliance included most of the world's liberal democracies, which was why many allies shared a common set of fundamental values. This shared ideological basis received massive cracks though, since the alliance also included illiberal democracies, and even authoritarian regimes like Saudi Arabia. Many allied nations also experienced a democratic backsliding due to the global rise of authoritarianism and anti-liberalism in the years before the war. This undermined the unity of the Allies and led to the struggle the alliance had for keeping up with the Revisionist Powers. The unofficial leader of the Allies was the US under the administration of Joseph R. Biden and later on Donald J. Trump, who gained a second term as president in 2024, while using emergency laws to prolong his presidency until 2031.
North America: The United States of America was the main global hegemon of this time period, but struggled to maintain its status due to the rise of China and a resurgent Russia, leading to the tensions that caused WW3 in the first place. Under the first administration of Donald J. Trump, America saw a period of deep political division and the erosion of various fundamental political norms, while becoming increasingly anti-globalist and isolationist.
Trump, who openly endorsed authoritarians worldwide, whilst boosting right-wing and conservative movements in the US and Europe, showed aggressive and erratic behavior against US allies out of his "America First" policy, effectively weakening NATO in the process. The US under Trump also withdrew from various international institutions and agreements, or cut their funding for them, like the Paris [climate] Agreement, the Iran nuclear deal, NAFTA, the INF Treaty, UNESCO, the UN migration pact, the Open Skies Treaty, the WHO during the Covid-19 pandemic and many more, although Biden returned to several of those prior to WW3. Trump also engaged in various trade wars, not only against US adversaries like China, and nations like Mexico, but also US allies like Japan, Canada and Europe, calling the latter a foe of America.
After the Mueller Investigation did not find evidence for collusion between the Trump-campaign of 2016 and Russia, and an impeachment attempt failed at the end of January 2020, the Republican president still managed to rally almost half of the US behind his cause, although not achieving re-election in 2020, leading him to deny his defeat while questioning the legitimacy of the victory of his Democratic opponent, Joseph „Joe“ R. Biden. Biden tried to reverse the policy of his predecessor by seeking to re-engage in multilateralism and diplomacy, while trying to unite a deeply divided America. Biden was seen as a complete opposite of the Trump administration: He was widely seen as more favorable by American democratic allies in Europe and Canada, while relying more on experts and experienced politicians during his presidency, which he always called as being purely transitional. He tried to distinguish himself from his predecessor also by taking a tougher stance against authoritarians and dictators worldwide, leading him to oppose Russia more offensively than Trump did, while continuing the increasingly belligerent course against China, although with a more diplomatic approach. Despite Biden's attempts of fighting the division of American society, the rifts in US communities still remained high and encouraged Trump to follow an even more aggressive and anti-liberal re-election campaign for 2024, that led to a very hostile climate against Democrats, liberals and the media, causing a rise of not only Right-Wing, but also Left-Wing extremism in the US. Biden, whose physical and cognitive health increasingly diminished in office due to old age, was also accused of projecting American weakness for example through signaling that the US would under no circumstance intervene, should Russia invade American ally Ukraine, as did occur shortly after. In 2024, despite being found guilty of using party-donations to pay hush money to a pornstar, as well as sexual assault, Trump managed to win the election against the incumbent Joe Biden, who, despite calls to drop out of race because of his cognitive decline, refused to give up the candidacy which sent ripples throughout America and the whole world. Due to a shift of balance of the Supreme Court towards the conservative side, and unquestioned support of millions of his followers, the re-elected US president of 2024 managed to rule America in a style close to pseudo-authoritarianism, allowing him to protect his political allies, marginalizing his enemies, while also being free of almost all legal consequences because of sympathetic Supreme Court decisions and later on a republican dominated Senate from 2026 onwards. Trump also retrieved a lot of US forces from around the world, in what was later dubbed the „Great Retreat“, because he deemed overseas deployments as undesirable if the respective nations would not pay America for stationing troops inside their borders. This led the US to pull out troops from Syria, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan and in parts even Europe. Although Biden tried to stop or even reverse this process when he took office, this still led to a weakening America's positions as soon as the war broke out. Trump's aggressive behavior against his Allies and adversaries alike, supported by his large base, also led to an increased global rise of anti-American sentiment during his first term. During the war, America was the main driving force behind the allied war effort, while following its own agenda. While initially engaging in North Korea to stop the nuclear threat of the Kim regime, the US later explained their war effort as a mean to prevent Chinese, Iranian and Russian aggression, which threatened America's strategic, economic and military dominance. After 2025, Trump, following his "America First" policy, planned to utilize the war to crush any economic challengers of the US, while cementing America's status as the world's strongest superpower.
During the course of the war, Trump and his subordinates even indirectly colluded with America's enemy Russia in order to reach their ambitions, meaning Trump knowingly neglected his European Allies in their fight against Russia, hoping that Putin would crush the EU as an economic rival, while the US could focus on defeating China and Iran. Many American soldiers on the other hand saw this war as a battle to protect the world against the ambitions of the Revisionist Powers for remodeling it in their authoritarian image. They firmly stood for their country, while some of the younger newly drafted recruits openly criticized Trump for his lack of strategy and commitment for America's allies and values. Trump's plan failed, and since he over-focused his forces on the Eastern Front, the US suffered horrendous casualties, due to the large armies that were concentrated in comparatively small areas of harsh terrain. Also, the US over-stretched their forces on multiple fronts around the world, which dispersed America's strength as a whole. This led the US to lose half of all its troops it send into the war, while also losing its most important military assets. America managed to achieve a marginal victory along with its Allies by pushing China as the last Revisionist Power towards an armistice. This came after Europe consolidated and restructured itself independently from the US, which forced the Russians out of allied territory, and pushed them out of the war. The result was a devastated America, that lost much of its military and economic strength, while also losing its most important partners after the intention of Trump's neglection to his European allies became public. The resulting turmoil led to the destabilization of the US and ultimately the Second American Civil War.
Canada under Justin Trudeau joined the War as a NATO member after Canadian troops were attacked following the Russian invasion of the Baltics. During the course of the war, Canada proved to be committed to the alliance and supported the Europeans in Scandinavia and Poland against the Revisionist Powers. Canada was also the main ally who supported the US against the Russian invasion of the Aleutian Islands, Greenland, and in the battle against Mexico in the last phase of the war. Greenland on the other hand became involved in the war after the American Thule-base on its territory was bombed by Russian submarines, later followed by a brief Russian invasion of the island.
Europe: The Allies of Europe mostly joined the war out of their NATO alliance with America, as well as ideological and self-defensive reasons. The majority of the continent, most of which were members of the EU, became part of the Allies, except Switzerland, the European Micro-States and Ireland, as well as the Revisionist Powers of Belarus and Serbia. Europe faced a time of division and crisis prior to WW3 due to the rise of anti-EU populism, Brexit, both right-wing and left-wing extremism and economic hardship after the COVID -19 pandemic and following the Ukraine-War. While Europe struggled to maintain unity, tensions with other Eurasian countries started to increase simultaneously, especially with the Russian Federation. Russia was accused of performing various attacks against regime critics in and outside of Russia, often using nerve agents in the process. The most notable victim of this was Russian regime critic Alexei Navalny, who was allegedly poisoned by the Russian regime with the nerve agent Novichok and later on imprisoned in a Russian internment camp, ultimately resulting in his death in 2024 whilst still being imprisoned. This, in addition to Russia's annexation of Crimea, its engagement in the Ukraine War, its disinformation campaigns against EU countries as well as its support for anti-democratic movements and authoritarian regimes caused the EU to impose a wide array of sanctions against Russia, which in return led the relations between the two sides to sour. Europe also was increasingly at odds with the rising superpower China because of its human rights violations against the Uyghur minority, its treatment of Hong Kong, Chinese spying operations in the US and Europe, as well as its maritime claims in the South China Sea, leading various EU countries to take a more defiant approach against China as well. However, due to the close economic relationship between China and many European countries, Europe remained rather reluctant to oppose China significantly during the Second Cold War.
Many Europeans who fought in WW3 later on saw it as a battle to protect freedom and democracy worldwide against the authoritarian influence of the Revisionist Powers and the threat of nuclear destruction, while also fighting for their political survival. While nations like Poland, the Baltics, Finland and Norway joined to defend themselves from the Russian invasion, others hesitated to do so. France and the United Kingdom proved to be the only allies in Europe who were able to effectively support the US outside the continent, although Spain, Portugal, Italy and Germany were able to give minor support to the North Africa Front and other non-european battlefields. Both the UK and France joined as the first European nations the allied coalition of the US, due to their close political ties with America, their own conflicts with revisionist states and their own strategic interests.
Germany, although being the economic powerhouse of Europe, as well as a central political and military figure, was more of a liability for the Allies, due to the atrophied state of its army and the antiwar sentiment of its population. Germany was also blamed for having some responsibility for the escalation of hostilities, especially in Ukraine due to its controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline that transported Russian gas directly from Russia to Germany while bypassing third countries in Eastern Europe. Despite Germany imposing various sanctions on Russia, as well as harboring and treating the prominent Russian regime critic Alexei Navalny after his alleged Novichok poisoning, the pipeline project as well as Germany's reluctance to revitalize its military, while often seeking appeasing approaches towards nations like China, Russia and Turkey caused it to be seen with suspicion and growing frustration by its allies. Germany joined the war reluctantly, due to the attack on German troops in the Baltics, Germany's NATO membership and the Russian missile assault on its territory, which forced the Germans to act. During the course of the war Germany managed to partially compensate for that by bringing in increased effort in the development of new weapons and taking a leading role in terms of coordination and logistics. Over the course of the conflict, Germany saw some form of remilitarization, which alongside diplomatic efforts, allowed Germany to once again become one of the most powerful military actors on the continent, allowing it to further dominate Europe after the end of the war while again facing suspicion from many EU countries. The right-wing governments of Italy and Greece joined rather reluctantly despite of their NATO membership, since their governments consisted to a significant degree of pro-Russian politicians, leading some populist leaders to collude with Russia and therefore slowing down allied approaches.
The Balkans mostly joined in after Serbia sided with Russia and therefore brought the conflict to their region as well. The conservative nations of Hungary under the authoritarian regime of Viktor Orbán, and traditionally pro-Russian states Bulgaria and North Macedonia went further than just staying neutral and refused to actively support their NATO-allies, leading them to only allow passive access to NATO facilities and bases inside their countries as well as bringing in symbolic efforts to show some form of assistance to their allies in the case of the Czech Republic and Hungary. The population of those countries was rather divided over how their nations should join the war, leading to various political struggles in both countries. Bulgaria on the other hand joined in more actively on the war effort against Turkey, only after being attacked and invaded by Turkish forces. As soon as the Turks were pushed back, Bulgaria remained passive again.
Austria joined the Allies as well during the final phase of the war, and supported its European partners against the last Russian strongholds on the Western Front and Turkey, after the Turkish Invasion of Greece, due to Austria's own tense relationship with Turkey and Russia in the years before the war. In the Caucasus, both Georgia and Azerbaijan sided with the Allies as well. Georgia, which waged a short war against Russia at the beginning of the 2000's, and lost territories to it, hoped to regain control over the occupied areas, while Azerbaijan joined because of tensions with Armenia over the Azeri conquest of the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which cleansed the area of almost all of its armenian inhabitants and caused continued tensions between the two Caucasus nations. Armenia also joined the Allies later on in the war, despite originally being a Revisionist Power until that point, in order to assist the Allies in their war effort against Turkey. Ukraine already fought a brutal war against Russia since the Russian assault and invasion of Ukraine in spring 2022, which followed the Crimea annexation of 2014 and the Donbass War, and therefore joined the Allies later on when WW3 broke out and the conflict spread beyond Ukraine itself. Individuals like Orbán, but also Matteo Salvini from Italy, Marine Le Pen from France, political factions in the Chezch Republic, Greece, Croatia and various members of the German AfD party even actively advocated for peace in Russian favor, since they saw Russia's state model as preferable. This lack of unity, as well as years of massive military underfunding, led the European allies to suffer heavy casualties, while inching close to the brink of collapse. Only after the realization that the US would not actively save them, the Allies reorganized themselves in Europe and turned their armies into one coordinated force, pushing the Russians back into their own territory and forcing them out of the war, without the exchange of nuclear strikes. Therefore, WW3 led to the reemergence of Europe as a military superpower on a more global stage.
Middle East: The Allies of the Middle East were mostly the members of the GCC and its military arm, the Peninsula Shield Force, except Qatar, and were dragged into the war by Saudi Arabia, an arch nemesis of Iran and competitor for religious and regional dominance. Saudi Arabia saw this war as the opportunity to destroy Iran as a rival and to establish a regional hegemony of its Wahhabis regime with the help of the US. Saudi Arabia went as far as to use Sunni terror groups in order to attack civilian structures inside revisionist territory, leading to many civilian casualties far away from the battlefields. Saudi Arabia, under the de facto rule of crown prince Muhammed bin Salman, also engaged in the ethnic cleansing of Shias throughout his nation an conquered areas, therefore leading many war crimes to be associated with the Allies, creating a rift between its co-belligerents. The Turkish de facto dictatorship under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was also part of the Allies for most of the war, even though it already had severe anti-western sentiments and illiberal tendencies before the conflict, which led to many western citizens to be taken as hostages to pressure Turkey's political will. Since the Allies followed a desperate appeasement policy for Turkey, Erdoğan managed to collaborate with the Revisionist Powers without much hindrance, in order to destroy Kurdish forces and minorities in Turkeys vicinity, which ultimately escalated into the Kurdish genocide. This was one of the main reasons for Turkey to be pushed out of the alliance, along the betrayal of Turkish troops against their allied counterparts during the Qatar campaign 2027.
Other important members of the Allies in the Middle East, that joined the war because of their own tensions with Iran, Or Saudi pressure, were the UAE, Jordan, Egypt and Israel, which was not an official member of the Saudi coalition. Israel was one of the most effective and supportive partners of the western allies, while following its own agenda against its arch nemesis Iran, with which it already waged multiple proxy wars and even direct confrontations before and after the Syria War. The largest escalation between the two arch-enemies occurred in the spring of 2024, when Iran launched a barrage of drones and missiles against Israel in retaliation of its assasination of iranian generals near the iranian embassy in Syria, in the wake of the Gaza-War. Israel's war goals were the destruction of the Iranian nuclear program, as a means to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and the end of Iranian anti-Israeli operations in the Middle East. Israel was also the only ally in the Middle East that supported the West against the Russian air force. Israel engaged in a more independent war with Palestine as well, after the Hamas pledged alliance to the Revisionist Powers following the ongoing Gaza War of 2023 onwards. Israel proved to also be one of the most controversial members of the Allies due to its brutal war against Hamas in the Gaza-Strip and the resulting humanitarian crisis that was brought upon the Palestinian civilian population which caused a wave of global pro-Palestinian demonstrations and movements, as well as several accusations of perpetrating genocide against the Palestinians. Many of these accusations on the other hand came from openly anti-semitic and anti-Israeli sources, which, in combination with a severe propaganda war of both sides, increasingly blurred the line between activism, terrorist support, humanitarian efforts anti-semitism and zionism resulting in a severely divided discourse that continued deeply into WW3. The campaigns during WW3 led to countless civilian victims on both sides and ultimately the carpet bombing of the Gaza strip, after massacres against Israeli civilians in settlements of the West Bank. Kuwait joined after being invaded by Iran in 2022, while Bahrain and Oman joined a few years later, after Iranian forces were defeated in the gulf. Cyprus allowed allied troops to use its bases since the beginning of the war, but was not a full member of the Allies until the Turkish invasion and partial occupation in 2027. The puppet government in Yemen associated itself with the Saudi coalition, in opposition of the Iranian backed Houthi rebels. Since the country was on the brink of the collapse after years of famine created by the Saudi-led blockade in the wake of the Yemen war, the role of Yemen in WW3 was rather marginal.
Asia: Since the Asian theater of WW3 was one of the most central fronts of the war, the Allies in Asia, most of them being part of ASEAN, proved to play a significant role for the allied war effort. The main Allies on the Eastern Front were Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and India. South Korea was the first nation to join the Allies, after it became the target of North Korean aggression, which led to the beginning of the Second Korea War, and therefore the spark of WW3. Japan was also one of the first Allies of the conflict, while also being a traditional US partner and economic powerhouse of East Asia. Japan was also engaged in decades of tensions with China, due to Chinese territorial claims, their shared history in WW2 and their rivalry for regional dominance. Japan was also one of the allied nations that became partially occupied by the Revisionist Powers. Taiwan was a long year US ally, and source for tensions between the west and China, since China claimed Taiwan to be its rightful territory. Taiwan was increasingly supported by the US in its opposition of Chinese influence and military threats, resulting in its population electing representatives that sought a more independent way of living for the Taiwanese. Taiwan was threatened by China with military conquest numerous times before WW3, with China intensifying its campaign of intimidating the island with creeping military exercises as well as attempts of cutting it off diplomatically all over the worl. ,Taiwan therefore joined the Allies after being attacked and invaded by China in the first year of the war. Despite heavy resistance, Taiwan was occupied by China for most of the war, and saw terrible massacres against its population in the name of the "reunification of China".
India was the main challenger in Asia for China's rise as a superpower, while also engaging in territorial disputes with the Peoples Republic. India was originally a member of the SCO and BRICS and stayed neutral in the first year of the war. After both its arch-rivals China and Pakistan joined forces against the west, India broke with said organizations and joined the Allies, leading to the opening of another land front against China in the Himalayan mountains and Pakistan along their shared borders. The reason for that was India's opposition of Chinese regional dominance, as well as its long dispute with Pakistan over the Kashmir region and transnational terrorism. India allowed the US and Australia to send troops in its territory as reinforcement, and brought in massive amounts of manpower as well as further nuclear advantage for the Allies. Bhutan and Myanmar joined the Allies after being invaded by China as an attempt to encircle India, due to it refusing to assist Chinese operations because of chinese support anti-junta rebels over tensions stemming from the unwillingness of Myanmars military leadership to intervene in fraudulent activities in the Shan-Staat region. Meanwhile Vietnam joined after its denial for joining the Revisionist Powers by China's demand. Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore joined after Indonesia became part of the Revisionist Powers, while they also suffered economically due to China's war with the west. After being overwhelmed by the Allies, Indonesia switched sides and also joined the alliance. The Philippines also became part of the Allies due to its traditional partnership and mutual defense treaty with the US, but under authoritarian leader Duterte, it also colluded with China in order to prevent being directly attacked by the Middle Kingdom. Thailand also joined due the economic damage it suffered from China's actions, as well as its defense partnership with the US. Thailand was also caught in the crossfire of the fighting between the Allies and Revisionist Powers in Southeast Asia, forcing it to join one side.
Australia and Oceania: As members of the ANZUS alliance with the United States, both Australia and New Zealand joined the Allies and supported the allied war effort on the Eastern Front against the Revisionist Powers, while later on sending troops to Europe in the final battles of the Western Front. Both nations not only brought in manpower and political support, they also allowed the US to use their territories as bases to build up forces against China and its Allies, even though New Zealand seemed to be rather reluctant to do so, due to its opposition of US nuclear capable assets in the Southern Hemisphere. Australia in particular was a dedicated US ally in the war against the Chinese-led Revisionist Powers in the Indo-Pacific sphere of influence due to its own growing conflicts with China before war, which led Australia to join the newly founded AUKUS alliance with the US and the UK, leading it to acquire nuclear submarines later during the war.
Papua New Guinea joined the Allies against Indonesia after being caught in the crossfire, as well as its own conflict with its neighbor over territorial and ethnic tensions in West Papua, while many micro-states in the Pacific, like Guam, East Timor, Samoa, American Samoa and various others mostly joined because they either officially belonged to the territory of other allied nations, like the US, UK and France, or they became the direct or indirect target of revisionist aggression.
Africa: Africa remained neutral throughout most of the war, but became target of revisionist operations against allied resources and troops stationed there. Additionally, many African countries suffered from the secondary effects of the war, like massive grain shortages due to warfare and blockades in and around the biggest grain producers in the world, causing famine and starvation throughout Africa, which was used to gain African countries as allies by the respective sides. After Algeria and Libya's government joined the Revisionist Powers in opposition of the West, both Morocco and Tunisia joined the Allies as major non-NATO partners, in order to protect Gibraltar and the Mediterranean, while also relieving pressure from Egypt. Morocco also engaged in the war because of its re-inflamed dispute with Algeria over Western-Sahara. Libyan forces under the lead of warlord Haftar also heavily operated under allied supervision, since Haftar enjoyed massive support from the Saudi coalition and even France. The sub-Saharan nation of Chad came under attack by the Revisionist Powers for hosting allied troops and its resources, therefore joining the Allies out of self-protection, while also hoping to receive allied help to counter the global food crisis that emerged from WW3. South Sudan joined the Allies after its neighbors became part of the Revisionist Powers, among those Sudan, with which South Sudan had a history of bloody conflicts. Kenya, and Ethiopia later joined in order to stop the fighting in Africa and because of their strong connection and partial dependence with and on the West, as well as their own conflicts with African Revisionist Powers. Nigeria, as well as the other members of ECOWAS, spearheaded the allied war efforts in the West Africa campaign, due to the ongoing conflict with the Sahel military Juntas in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, which originated even before the start of WW3.
Uganda became part of the Allies due to its political and economic connection with the US and Britain. Uganda was also a member of the EAU, which joined together in East Africa in order to stop Sudan, the CAR and the DRC, leading this alliance to become an important part of the Allies in Africa. Uganda was also engaged in conflict with the CAR over its accusations of ugandan support for the M23 movement. Rwanda and Burundi also teamed up with the Allies against the DRC, because of their shared history with one another and Uganda, that already was one of the Allies. Rwanda was also at odds with the D.R.C because of its alleged support for Kongolese rebel groups of the M23 movement fighting against the government. Tanzania joined the Allies because of its close ties with Uganda as well, and later supported South Africa against Mozambique. South Africa broke with the BRICS and joined the Allies for economic reasons and its historical ties with Britain, although the main reason for South Africa's engagement was the intention to prevent the fighting in Africa from spreading. Namibia was pressured by South Africa to join the Allies, in order to open a front against Angola. Overall, Africa saw massive destruction of human-, and wildlife, while local conflicts lasted even until the war already ended. Due to the hundreds of thousands killed in the battles, and the destruction of infrastructure, WW3 contributed to the spread of diseases throughout the continent, while many endangered species were brought to the brink of extinction. The war effort brought in by Africa also led to the acknowledgement of many African nations as more equal political partners for the West, therefore strengthening Africa's political weight in the world.
South and Latin America: South America, like Africa, remained neutral for most of the war, and was the last continent to be entangled in the fighting. The continent became involved in the Third World War after Venezuela under the rule of Nicolás Maduro, with the support of Cuba, waged war against the United States. The majority of American Allies in South and central America were members of the anti-Maduro Lima-Group, which advocated against Maduro's rule in the years before the war, as well as the Rio Pact, 
 with the sole exception of Ecuador. Colombia and Brazil were the first south American nations to join the Allies, with the intention to overthrow Maduro and stop the war from further spreading, which ultimately failed. Brazil was also interested in stopping the flow of Venezuelan refugees into its nation, while hoping to gain economically and politically from a Brazilian-American cooperation. Guyana joined the allies following military hostilities from Venezuela, due to Maduros regime claiming the disputed region of Guyana Essequibo for itself due to being rich in natural resources, while French Guyana joined in as an allied overseas possession and neighbor of Guyana and revisionist Suriname. After Bolivia, and later Uruguay joined the Revisionist Powers, the majority of the remaining continent, who were members of the OAS, sided with the Allies to put an end to the war in South America, among those were Argentina, Chile, Peru, Paraguay and Ecuador. Argentina, and several other Latin American nations also joined because of increased terrorist activity that was sponsored by Iran as a form of asymmetric warfare against the west.
In The Caribbean, many island states, like Haiti, the Dom. Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, the Virgin Islands, Curaçao, Puerto Rico and many more also joined the allied cause due to them being part of allied territory, as well as Cuban and Venezuelan aggression in the Caribbean sea. After Nicaragua, El Salvador and later Mexico sided with the Revisionist Powers, the majority of Central America joined the Allies in order to stop the war from further escalating. These nations were among the last to join the alliance at all.
=== The Revisionist Powers ===
The Revisionist Powers were a loose alliance of anti-western nations, many of which were members of the SCO and CSTO, and were aspiring to end America's global hegemony, in order to reshape the world's power structure in their favor. The most central members of this authoritarian, eastern based entente of illiberal democracies, authoritarian regimes and dictatorships were the Peoples Republic of China and the Russian Federation. Both were the main challengers for US dominance throughout the world, although Russia tried to reestablish itself as a superpower after the collapse of the Soviet Union, while China desired to rise in this rank for the first time as well. Both regimes were engaged in the Second Cold War against the West (2014-2025), which included territorial demands and expansion, nuclear and hypersonic arms races after the collapse of the INF treaty in 2019, as well as cyber and information warfare. China and Russia also used military force to fulfill their ambitions, which was seen in the Crimea annexation and the Chinese militarization of the South China Sea.
These nations were joined by various illiberal states and dictatorships, like North Korea under the rule of Dictator Kim Jong-un, the mullah regime of Iran, Syria under dictator Bashar al-Assad, Pakistan, Belarus, Hezbollah controlled Lebanon, Iraq and the Central Asian republics that were part of the Soviet Union. This loose alliance was later joined by many nations in Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America and even Europe, like Serbia, DRC, Venezuela under dictator Nicolás Maduro, Cuba, Bolivia, Sudan, Zimbabwe and many more, including former NATO member Turkey under the dictatorship of Erdoğan. Most of these nations shared a rather opportunistic connection with each other, instead of joined values or ethics. The main aspect that united these authoritarian regimes was the opposition of western global dominance and the perception of the US as a threat. The Revisionist Powers were the first ones to use chemical and nuclear weapons in the war, and are generally believed to be responsible for the majority of war crimes committed during the conflict.
Asia: The main Revisionist Power in Asia was the Peoples Republic of China, which strived for becoming the new global superpower at America's expense. China possessed the largest army in the world in terms of manpower, and ranked as No. 3 of the world's most powerful nations overall. Under the reign of Xi Jinping, China witnessed an era of militarization and increased global power. With its "Belt and Road Initiative", China managed to gain influence throughout the world, while using debts to enforce its will on smaller nations. China also dreamed about territorial expansion, including claims for the South China Sea, the Japanese Senkaku and Tsushima Islands, Taiwan, Hong Kong, as well as parts of India. China, alongside Russia was the main driving force behind the Revisionist Powers, and was responsible for many war crimes in Southeast Asia. It managed to conquer many of its claimed territories, but struggled to hold these after years of allied blockades and intense fighting in difficult terrain. The allied blockades, and the tens of thousands of Chinese casualties led to civil unrest that was struck down with brute force. The bloody actions of the communist party against its people led to a drastic loss of support for Xi Jinping and weakened China's unity, which was originally fueled by massive nationalism. The ongoing domestic unrest inside China, as well as Russia being pushed out of the war, led to a Chinese retreat on all fronts and the invasion of China with the help of Tibetan freedom fighters, as well as Uyghur rebels, which were heavily persecuted by China, with the Uighurs being internalized and ultimately killed in so called "Re-education Camps".
These factors led to the collapse of China's communist party, and forced the Chinese army to seek for an armistice with the Allies. The Armistice of Taipei led to the full liberation of Chinese occupied territory, including Tibet, which was under Chinese control for multiple decades. China's first ally was the nuclear armed North Korean dictatorship under Kim Jong-un. North Korea was a isolated hermit state, that engaged in severe tensions with its neighbors and the US over its nuclear program, threatening America and its allies with nuclear destruction multiple times. Although tensions eased after the Singapore Summit 2018, where Donald Trump negotiated a vague deal with the Kim regime for denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, without explicit conditions, the conflict was reignited after the Hanoi summit of 2019 brought no progress. De-nuclearization talks in the months after collapsed, causing North Korea to stop negotiations with the US at the end of 2019. The following tensions led to new aggressive actions of the hermit state, which ultimately caused the provocative missile launch that led to the US attack in 2022. North Korea was pushed back in the beginning of the war, and was only able to hold of against the Allies because of Chinese, Russian and Mongolian support. After the allied advance at the end of the war, Kim Jong-un resorted to nuclear weapons use, as the second Revisionist Power after Pakistan, which caused China and Russia to abandon Kim as an ally. This led to the collapse of the Kim dynasty, the North Korean army command and ultimately the fall and death of Kim Jong-un himself.
Other Asian nations joined the revisionist cause as well, either because they hoped to economically benefit from China, or they were pressured to engage in order to retain their independence. Laos and Nepal were pressured to join the Revisionist Powers, despite their already pro-Chinese stand, and obeyed in order to prevent being annexed or economically destroyed by China. Cambodia and Bangladesh, as well as Indonesia joined due to their respective conflicts with allied nations like India and Australia, and hoped to gain economically from a Chinese advance. Mongolia, due to its close ties with China and Russia, and its geographic position, joined the Revisionist Powers rather reluctantly in order to prevent being overrun by either power, and mainly supported the revisionist effort in Korea and Russia's arctic campaigns against Alaska and Canada. Sri Lanka also joined the Revisionist Powers, due to its ties with China following the Belt and Road Initiative, as well as its own conflicts with India.
Europe: The dominant Revisionist Power in Europe was by far the Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin. Russia struggled to regain its status as a global superpower after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but saw an era of remilitarization under the rule of Putin. While the Russian army was strengthened over the course of two decades, Russia engaged in several conflicts that saw the grab of territories by the Russian Federation in Georgia and Ukraine, which ultimately led to the Second Cold War. Following the Crimea annexation of 2014, Russia launched a full scale military assault on Ukraine earlier in 2022 after Putin denied Ukraine its sovereignty, while citing various pretexts for war that were later on seen as fabricated and untruthful. The result was brutal war with severe losses on both sides, a new proxy war between Russia and the west, the illegal proclaimed annexation of ukrainian territory according to Russia, as well as severe economic hardship and war crimes against Ukrainian civilians, all which only intensified during WW3. As an attempt to undermine the West as a threat to Russia's power position, the Federation engaged in various propaganda and disinformation campaigns, while also interfering with the democratic structures in the West, like the US presidential elections 2016.
Russia also supported right-wing populist movements throughout Europe following the Refugee Crisis of 2015 as an attempt to destabilize the unity of the EU, which was quite successful, considering the pro Russian positions of various right-wing dominated European countries. As a result, Russia enjoyed a lot of sympathy among anti-liberal groups and even managed to achieve a rather positive view among Trump supporters in America, Russia's main adversary, who rather concentrated their interests on China, since Russia's strongman politics, and anti-migrant positions were considered favorable among conservatives around the world. This ultimately led to the indirect Trump-Russia collusion during the war, and right-wing cooperation with conservative European nations, that caused a lot of casualties and destruction in Europe, and by extension, the destabilization of America when Trumps pro-Russian strategy became public. Russia possessed the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, as well as the single most powerful nuclear devices, the Soviet era Tsar Bomba, and the unmanned giant nuclear torpedo-drone "Poseidon". The Federation was also engaged in an arms race with the West, including increased development of hypersonic and nuclear weapons, which escalated after the collapse of the INF-Treaty in 2019. Russia legitimized its actions often because of eastern NATO expansion, by which it felt encircled, as well as the protection of ethnic Russians in western territory. Russia also backed several authoritarian leaders around the globe, among them Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and Venezuelan ruler Nicolás Maduro. Despite the fact that Russia and China used to engage in several border disputes and competed for influence and dominance worldwide with each other, both powers became much closer in the years before the war. Reason for that was that both were engaged in tensions with the West, more specifically the US, which was the worlds strongest superpower. In order to undermine western dominance, Russia and China increased their cooperation and ultimately joined forces, even though both nations tried to dominate each other during the course of the war. Russia had just a few fighting allies in Europe, since the majority of the continent was either a member of NATO or otherwise an American ally. The most important ally of Russia in Europe was therefore Belarus under dictator Lukashenko, who was a traditional pro-Russian partner of the federation.
Belarus was a member of the CSTO and former part of the Soviet Union, and had therefore strong ties with Russia, even though the Belarusian population was increasingly skeptical about the relationship with Russia. Belarus joined nonetheless in order to prevent being annexed by Russia, and fought for the majority of the war on the side of the Revisionist Powers, while granting access to its territory and troops to Russia, similar to how Belarus allowed Russia to use its territory for the invasion of Ukraine in Winter/Spring 2022. Another important Revisionist Power in Europe was traditional Russian ally Serbia, that joined the alliance because of its deep grudges against NATO after the Balkan Wars at the end of the 20th Century, as well as its conflict with western backed Kosovo and NATO member Albania. Armenia also reluctantly joined the Revisionist Powers, because of its CSTO membership, which led to intense battles in the Caucasus mountains against Georgia, Turkey and Azerbaijan, although it was also engaged with the latter in a war over Nagorno-Karabakh, during which tried to regain the control over the territory lost during the 2020 Caucasus war. Besides actual allies, Russia enjoyed wide support by right-wing governments and populist movements throughout Europe and the United States.
Middle East: The main driving force behind the revisionist war effort in the Middle East was the Shia dominated Mullah Regime of Iran. The Islamist republic was engaged in a series of proxy wars against Sunni-led Saudi Arabia for regional and religious dominance prior to WW3. Iran also clashed on numerous occasions with its other main adversary, Israel, which it sought out to destroy for decades, since Iran was not acknowledging Israel's right to exist as a nation. Another reason for tensions in the region was the conflict between Iran and the US, causing America to rally Iranian adversaries under the lead of Saudi Arabia in the Middle East together, in an attempt to stop Iranian anti-American ambitions. One reason for this confrontation was Iran's nuclear program, since it was accused of using it as a way to develop nuclear weapons, which especially concerned Israel. Iran negotiated a deal with the West to ease the tensions surrounding its nuclear program, while also hoping that sanctions would be lifted.
The deal was unilaterally abandoned by the US after the election of Donald Trump, which led to increased hostile rhetoric between Iran and the US, as well as American Allies in the Middle East. Tensions boiled up in 2019, when multiple acts of sabotage and aggression were conducted against oil tankers, refineries and pipelines at the Gulf and Saudi Arabia. The crisis culminated even in the downing of a US drone and new sanctions against Iran, while yet there were no military clashes between the two sides until the outbreak of WW3 due to Trumps strategy of bluffing. Sole exemption was the symbolic Iranian missile strike during the flare up of tension at the beginning of 2020. Before the war, Iran supported various extremist groups throughout the entire Region, including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthi Rebels in Yemen. The Islamist Republic also supported Syrian dictator Assad in the Syrian Civil War, which led to direct clashes between Iran and Syria's neighbor Israel. Iran was one of the first Revisionist Powers to join, and one of the last to leave the war, following Iran's military defeat and the collapse of the mullah Regime in 2029.
Iran also was the only Revisionist Power, aside from Turkey, that tried to acquire nuclear weapons during the course of WW3, but this attempt failed due to Iran's downfall before it could assemble sophisticated nuclear devices. Due to its close ties with both Iran and Russia as its main allies, Syria under the rule of Bashar al-Assad joined the Revisionist Powers right from the beginning, when Syrian forces were caught in the crossfire of the clashes between western and Russian air forces. Syria was entangled in a brutal civil war, that escalated in a proxy war between various regional and global powers. As a result, Syria saw the rise of multiple terror groups, the use of chemical weapons and the biggest refugee crisis of the 21st century until WW3. Shortly before the war broke out, Assad managed to regain control of most of his territory he lost to Syrian rebels and Islamist groups, thanks to the support of Russia and Iran. Syria, which was accused of using poison gas multiple times in the civil war, was also the first Revisionist Power to use chemical weapons on the Southern Front, later joined by Iran and Iraq as well. This encouraged the Saudi coalition to use these substances as well, causing a chemical arms race in the Middle East similar to WW1. Another member that joined the Revisionist Powers in the Middle East more or less right from the beginning was Lebanon, which was dominated by the Iranian backed Shia militia Hezbollah. Hezbollah pressured Lebanon to join the Revisionist Powers in support of Iran, as well as a consequence of Israeli-Lebanese tensions. Iraq became a member of the Revisionist Powers as well after it was invaded by Saudi Arabia, and besieged allied bases in its territory, while taking American troops as prisoners. Both Iran and Iraq became much closer in the years before WW3 due to Shia supported uprisings, leading Iranian backed extremist groups and political Shia parties to operate in Iraq, which caused also heightened tensions with Israel. Iraq even voted to expel American and other foreign troops from its territory, leading to souring relationships between Iraq and the US under Trump. The Palestinian Territories , which were already largely under israeli occupation, joined the revisionist cause too, after the remnants of the radical and Iranian backed Hamas pledged alliance to the Revisionist Powers following the Gaza War, which led to new battles between Israel and the Hamas in the occupied territories. Palestinian extremists and Hamas killed several hundreds of Israeli citizens, including the massacres against civilians in Jerusalem and the West Bank settlements. These massacres led to the carpet bombing of the Gaza Strip, which killed almost a third of its total population. At the end, all of Palestine was conquered and only regained its previous status due to allied pressure and revisionist threats against Israel.
Qatar joined the alliance after the Saudi invasion in 2027 due to its close ties with Iran and its tensions with Saudi Arabia, which organized a blockade against the gulf state because of its connections to Iran and various terror groups. Turkey became a official Revisionist Power after being de facto kicked out of NATO because of its collaboration with Russia and Iran, the Kurdish Genocide and the betrayal of Turkish troops during the Qatar and North Africa campaigns, where Turkish forces stationed in the gulf state and Libya turned against their allies and attacked them to protect Qatar and the Tripoli government. Turkeys proved to be an uneasy co-conspirator for the Revisionist Powers before that, due to numerous occasions of Turkish troops clashing with Russian and Iranian forces on multiple fronts, while Turkey kept on delivering weapons to revisionist enemies. Following the switch of sides, Turkey attacked not only Greece, but also Cyprus and allied troops in the south after the defeat of Syria and Iraq. Turkey then was overwhelmed by an allied coalition from Europe, the US, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, India and the Saudi-led coalition and ultimately came under allied occupation, similar to Nazi-Germany after WW2. Before its downfall, Turkey even tried to obtain nuclear weapons of its own, causing it to attempt using the fissile matter of the seized nuclear bombs in Incirlik, leading to the only nuclear strike against Turkey. After all, the Middle East saw one third of its entire population killed in WW3.
South and Central Asia: The central Asian republics and former Soviet states of Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan joined the Revisionist Powers reluctantly, due to their SCO and CSTO membership, in order to prevent being annexed by either China or Russia. As a result, these nations granted the Revisionist Powers access to their territories, while also allowing them to forcefully conscript troops from the central Asian republics, that were send to fight at the Western Front, the Afghanistan Front and the Indian Front.
Pakistan joined the Revisionist Powers because of its SCO Alliance and otherwise close partnership with China. Pakistan also developed a more anti-US stand, after American accusations of Pakistan supporting terrorists, which also led Pakistan to accuse the US to encourage Indian aggression in the wake of the Kashmir conflict 2019. After the Afghanistan campaign, Pakistan engaged in a long and brutal fight with India, since tensions between those two nuclear powers were quite high after the Kashmir crisis of 2019. Despite support from the forced conscripts of central Asia, Pakistan was steadily pushed back, until it resorted as the first fighting nation of the entire war to nuclear weapons use. Following India's response, Pakistan was nonetheless overwhelmed and became the first nuclear power to leave the war defeated.
Africa: Both China and Russia managed in the years before WW3 to increase their influence in Africa. Russia was one of the biggest weapons salesmen on the continent and kept close relationships with many authoritarian rulers throughout Africa, while China was able to pressure its will on many und African nations through investments and a systems of state debts. Through these methods, China and Russia were able to convince the regimes of Sudan, the DRC and Zimbabwe to join the revisionists cause and pressured them to attack and sabotage western troops and economic resources in their neighboring countries, in order to weaken the allied war effort later in the war.
When as a result more and more African nations joined the Allies, other pro-Russian and Chinese states started to side with the Revisionist Powers, among them the CAR, Angola, and later on Mozambique, Madagascar, Somalia, Eritrea and Botswana. The CAR joined the war due to close ties with revisionist nations, namely Russia, as well as ongoing clashes with Uganda and Rwanda over the M23 rebel movement. Algeria and Libya under the rule of the anti- Haftar government in Tripoli joined earlier as well, due to their partnership with Russia and their respective conflicts with western states like France and the US. Western Sahara became involved too because of the territorial dispute between Algeria and allied Morocco. The military juntas of Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea joined forces out of anti-Western sentiment, inflamed by Russian hybrid warfare campaigns, as well as their ongoing conflict with ECOWAS. Mali, Niger and Chad, following the West African Crisis of 2023-2024, which included threats of the use of force from ECOWAS, went even as far as forming a mutual defense pact, the so called „Confederation of Sahel States“ in opposition of ECOWAS and the West, which later resulted in most of the Sahel being plunged into war as soon as hostilities began in western and Nothern Africa. Somalia on the other hand joined out of anti-american sentiment and territorial disputes with Ethiopia, after it recognized the breakaway region of Somaliland and began gaining access to the Red Sea through Somaliland. Due to the large population in Africa, and revisionist warfare that explicitly targeted civilian life, the war actions in Africa started by the Revisionist Powers resulted in almost 2 million casualties alone. The African theater was also the only during WW3 that saw some kind of biological warfare, in form of revisionist troops in equatorial Africa and Madagascar using corpses of Ebola and Plague victims as natural carriers for biological weapons by placing them in allied territory or water supplies as an effort to stop the enemies advance. While this led to a new larger Ebola outbreak, in Madagascar the spread of the Plague could be contained not only due to allied efforts, but also Chinese and Russian one, since those distanced themselves from their now rogue allies on the African Island.
Latin America: In South and Central America, as well as the Caribbean, the main nations to join the Revisionist Powers were the biggest members of ALBA, the socialist regimes of Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua, later joined by Suriname, Uruguay, El Salvador, the Windward Islands of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica and ultimately Mexico.
Venezuela joined because of its partnership with Russia and China, which was the reason for Venezuela, that was already on the brink of collapse due to years of hyperinflation and sanctions, to suffer massively under allied blockades of revisionist goods. Venezuela also was engaged in high tensions with the US, which increased after Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro accused the US to have organized an attempted coup by opposition leader Guaido in 2019. Venezuela also re-emphasized territorial claims on neighboring Guyana, leading to a public vote for annexing the disputed area of Guyana Esquiba, which increased military tensions in northern South-America. As a result of these factors, Venezuela, with its socialist allies Nicaragua and Cuba, attacked and seized allied ships during the war as an attempt to break, or at least compensate for the blockade. When the US declared war against them, Venezuela and Cuba attacked and occupied several territories in the Caribbean among them Jamaica, the ABC islands, Trinidad and Tobago, Puerto Rico and many more, in order to exploit their resources, and to use them as fortifications against incoming allied attacks. On the height of their occupation campaign, Cuban and Venezuelan air forces, supported by Russian bombers managed to perform a hit and run raid against Miami and the Florida Keys, which was, despite being pushed back after just a day, the second time American mainland territory was attacked in WW3, after the Russian campaign against Alaska and the Aleutians. When Venezuela and Cuba suffered massive allied attacks, Bolivia joined the Revisionist Powers as well in support of its fellow socialist comrades, which ultimately caused the rest of the continent to be entangled in the war as well. Uruguay joined due to tensions with Brazil, including re-inflamed territorial issues and the rather pro-Maduro stand of Uruguay's leading party. El Salvador joined in in support of Nicaragua, while Mexico became part of the Revisionist Powers after it also suffered under the years of both allied and revisionist blockades, targeting the respective other side, but it decided to join the Revisionist Powers because of American anti-Mexican policies under the administration of Trump, which led to multiple racist attacks against Mexico when it protested Americas blockades against Mexican trade partners.
Oceania: Indonesia and its islands aside, the only partner the Revisionist Powers had in Oceania were Fiji, the Solomons Islands and Vanuatu. Fiji declared its support for China due to increased strategic engagement of the Middle Kingdom in Fiji, and the Pacific overall, which led Fiji to allow stray Chinese vessels to dock on its territory for smaller repairs. Vanuatu built a base for Chinese naval assets, and therefore became indirectly a Revisionist Power. The Solomons had a military agreement negotiated with China prior to WW3, which was exploited by the chinese to threaten mainland Australia. Aside from that, Oceania was not of much significance for the main Revisionist Powers.
=== Non-State Participants ===
The two major alliances aside that fought against each other, WW3 also saw the increased war effort of various groups and organizations, that tried to influence the war on their behalf. The big international organizations like NATO, the UN, the EU, SCO, CSTO, GCC, ALBA, OAS, EAS, ANZUS etc. aside, most of the non-state groups that tried to benefit from the war were Islamic terrorist groups, although many of which were supported by either side in order to use them to their advantage. Among these extremist militias were Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban, al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, al-Nusra, ISIS and many more. ISIS only played an insignificant role at the beginning of the war, since its state sponsors focused their resources at the war effort against their respective enemies, while ISIS was also overrun by the large armies charging against each other. The same happened to most of the smaller militias, except Hezbollah, the Taliban and Hamas, leading international Islamic terrorism to largely vanish as a result of the war.
The Kurdish terror group PKK also engaged in the war, due to its ongoing conflict with Turkey, which worsened after Erdoğan's rise to dictatorial power. The Kurdish militias of YPG, SDF and the Peshmerga joined in as well, as a result of Turkish aggression against Kurdish territories, which ultimately led to the Kurdish Genocide. Although all of these Kurdish groups were associated with the Revisionist Powers, due to Turkey being a part of the Allies for most of the war, they coordinated themselves more with the allied war effort, after Turkey became a Revisionist Power. Other non-state participants that engaged in WW3 were various rebel-groups, like the pro-Russian Donbass rebels, the pro-Turkish FSA against Assad, the pro Iranian Houthi-Rebels in Yemen, the Uyghur and Gurkha rebels in China and Tibetan freedom fighters, who helped liberate Tibet with the support of the Allies at the end of the war. Ireland, which remained neutral throughout the war, saw the resurgence of the "New IRA", that was engaged in several hostilities in the wake of Brexit in the years prior to WW3. This militant group was encouraged by the Revisionist Powers to conduct several anti-British attacks on the Irish island, with focus on Northern Ireland. This led to civil war like uprisings, that forced the UK to partially focus its attention to its own territory, slowing down the British advance at the Western Front.
== Prelude ==
=== The Second Cold War (2014-2025) ===
Read main article: Second Cold War
=== Sino-Russian Expansionism ===
Read main article: Sino-Russian Expansionism 
=== The Ukraine War ===
Read main article: Ukraine War 
=== The Korea Crisis ===
Read main article: The Korea Crisis
=== The Venezuela Crisis ===
Read main article: The Venezuela Crisis
=== The Gaza War ===
Read main article: The Gaza War
=== AKP dictatorship in Turkey ===
Read main article: Erdoganism
=== Proxy Wars between Saudi Arabia and Iran ===
Read main article: Saudi-Iranian Proxy War
=== ECOWAS Crisis in West Africa ===
Read main article: ECOWAS Crisis
=== „Project 2025“ and the 2024 US presidential elections ===
Read main article: Project 2025
In 2024, the world was shook by a series of devastating conflicts, as well as an era of global political disunity a rise of authoritarianism, anti-liberalism and far-right movements, while the current global hegemon, the United States of America, struggled to maintain its current status as a superpower against a rising China and revanchist Russia. With ongoing wars like the Ukraine and Gaza Wars, as well as severe cultural clashes inside the US between the left and moderates versus a right-Wing conservative counter-Revolution the 2024 US presidential election was seen with much contesting. Incumbent president Joe R. Biden, who suffered from both physical and cognitive deteriorating health ran for re-election but dropped out of the race following increasing calls from even his own party to give the bid up in favor of a younger candidate. The Republicans once again decided to support former president Donald J. Trump, who campaigned by declaring that the 2020 election was stolen from him and that he would be the „retribution“ for all who he and his followers condemned as their enemies. Trump ran despite being put on trial and partially charged for abusing party-donations and even sexual assault, but was still admired by millions of his fans, while his appointed conservative Supreme Court judges Layer the groundwork for his immunity against the law, which would prove to be fatal later on in the timeline. The Democrats meanwhile nominated Vice President Kamala Harris as their new nominee following quick-primaries. Trump and his Republican supporters at the same time also planned as part of the so called „Project 2025“ to re-Model the executive of the American government in a way which would de facto fill in many offices with Trump and party-loyalists, risking a lack of expertise due to the exodus of critical experts in various important fields, as well as a democratic backsliding due to the installment of Trump-loyalists in most influential positions. This however proved to be very appealing to Trumps base, which still made up almost half of the US political landscape, since they kept seeing Biden as an allegedly illegitimate president who got the US into wars while supposedly allowing the country to be overrun by illegal immigrants, as well as „ruining“ the American economy. Kamala Harris ran on a platform that included working together with American allies, while accusing her opponent of working with the future Revisionist Powers to interfere with the American electoral system. Despite her efforts to paint his opponent as what was later be described by historians as a „Revisionist in allied clothing“, his poll ratings continued to not reach the same levels as Trumps, since means Americans where frustrated by the economy and the cultural controversies under the Biden administration. Therefore, Trumps MAGA style campaign became very popular, especially for rural American families, many of which suffered from mass-unemployment, housing issues, poverty and in parts even hunger due to the economic consequences of the pre-WW3 world. US intelligence at the same time registered countless attempts from the future Revisionist Powers to interfere in the election, including hacking attacks, disinformation and propaganda campaigns as well as direct and indirect collusion attempts with the Trump campaign, since Trump promised to effectively weaken and potentially destroy US alliances in the war to come. According to declassified intelligence reports from after WW3, revisionist sleeper agents managed to infiltrate the US in order to sow distrust in the democratic system, while sabotaging the election wherever possible. US allies, especially in Europe, watched the election with severe concern, since a re-election of Trump was seen as a massive blow to the allied war effort of supporting Ukraine against Russia, which could, in the case of a russian victory, bring the threat of war directly at NATOs doorstep. Despite an incredibly close race, very similar to the 2020 election, and reports of irregularities in the digital voting systems, Donald J. Trump managed to accomplish victory in the November 2024 election, prompting a political earthquake among the allied leadership worldwide. Trumps election caused unprecedented riots and uprisings in the US, due to Democratic supporters rejecting his rule. During his re-election speech, Trump repeated his promises of a „punishment“ of those who in his mind wronged him and his followers and proclaimed that he would make the US greater and stronger than ever before. He declared that he will cut support to allies he deemed weak, ungrateful and even antagonistic immediately, while signaling no hesitation to end the support of Ukraine to force the country to „end the war“, which would’ve meant a de facto surrender to Russias terms. Trump soon announced his new cabinet, which included various of his former most loyal political supporters who enabled his most authoritarian impulses and the undermining of democratic norms. And indeed as envisioned in „Project 2025“, the newly elected US administration began re-building the government in a way which resulted in many offices to be brought in the line of the Republican Party under trumpian leadership causing widespread opposition and concerns not only in the US, but worldwide.
== 2025 ==
=== The Outbreak: The Second Korea War ===
Following the collapse of the Singapore agreement between the US and North Korea after the Hanoi summit in 2019, and the failed negotiations in Stockholm in October the same year, tensions between the two sides started to escalate again after the re-election of Donald J. Trump, especially until July 2025. Despite being mostly focused on domestic issues following the COVID-19 pandemic and the internal division of the US during the first term of the Trump presidency, Biden tried to appeal more to American allies, like South Korea, again, while trying to appear more tough towards autocratic regimes like the ones of Kim Jong-un in North Korea. The Biden administration saw Trumps sympathetic approach towards non-democratic rulers as weak and appeasing, while Biden himself was accused of being too soft to the likes of Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party. The dictatorship of North Korea started to rebuild facilities which were associated with its nuclear and missile program, while also reinitiating missile launches of short distances in May 2019 onwards, forcing the newly elected US president Biden to increase the pressure on the dictatorship in the years after in order to not appear weak in front of both his critics and America allies.
Reason for that was that former US president Trump followed a pattern of threats of military action that always proved to be empty, since he preferred to back down last minute on multiple occasions, like the Korea Crisis of 2017, the Venezuela Crisis after 2019, the Iran Crisis of summer 2019 and January 2020. This led to harsh criticism from the then oppositional Democrats, who condemned Trump's rhetoric, while his foreign adversaries saw this behavior as a proof of US weakness, leading to more aggressive political approaches from nations like Russia, Iran and China. This trend however continued and even escalated under the administration of Joe Biden, whose old age and cognitive as well as physical decline, coupled with the disunity of the American political landscape proved now to be a factor creating an image of a weak US in the minds of American adversaries which facilitated severn aggressions like Russias invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the beginning of the Gaza War in 2023 and the Iranian missile attack on Israel in 2024. Tensions remained high worldwide following Trumps re-election in 2024, which was followed by a complete reversal of Bidens policies, including a severe reduction of financial and military support of Ukraine, threats of an American pullout of NATO, should the Europeans not give in to certain American demands, as well as an increase of verbal and military hostility towards Iran and China. Despite Trumps animosity towards the American-South Korean alliance, which he saw as a waste of American money, stationed a carrier group in the waters around the Korean Peninsula as a show of force in June 2025, even though he previously halted several joint US-South Korea drills in 2019 and after. This caused increased hostile behavior from the North Korean regime, which already completely froze any negotiations with the US at the end of 2019 and suspended talks with US during the election period in 2020 and 2024. After months of aggressive rhetoric exchanges between the US and North Korea, which was paused during the Covid-19 pandemic, the dictatorship of Kim Jong-un reintroduced medium and long range missile tests as a provocation, believing Trump would never retaliate, leading to new sanctions and threats from the American side. World War III is generally said to have begun on the 23th July 2025, the anniversary of the foundation of China's communist party, with the US missile strike against North Korean facilities following a provocative missile launch from the North Korean regime under Kim Jong-un, which was mistakenly thought to be a direct attack against US carrier groups stationed in Korean waters. At the same day, the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army conducted a series of massive combat drills as a show of force during the anniversary, which was the reason why China severely increased its military presence and activities in the South China Sea, the Strait of Taiwan, as well as the East China Sea. These Chinese drills were also one reason why the regime of Kim Jong-un saw itself compelled to test the US' resolve by launching a missile, since it expected the US navy to be too distracted by the Chinese naval exercises. Russian vessels also participated in these drills in the South China Sea, in order to demonstrate the growing Sino-Russian partnership aimed at opposing the American-led western world order.
The result of the strike was the beginning of the Second Korean War though, with the United States of America, South Korea, Japan and Great Britain on one side, and North Korea on the other. After the missile attack of the US, which was intended to be a "bloody-nose-strike", North Korean anti-ship batteries started to fire against US vessels, forcing those, alongside the American air force to conduct several retaliation strikes against the North Korean coastline. North Korean troops then started to shell Seoul with hundreds of rockets and artillery pieces, while firing missiles at American naval assets and bases in South Korea and Japan. South Korean and Japanese THAAD and Patriot systems were able to intercept some of the missiles, but the majority of them did hit their targets, inflicting damage to the US forces in the region, as well as killing more civilians. This led South Korea and Japan to intervene against North Korea, which meant sending in troops to stop a possible invasion of the DMZ. Nations all over the world declared their worries about this escalation, with both China and Russia blaming the US for starting the conflict, while the UK, Australia and other US allied nations condemned North Korea for its attacks against the south and Japan. In Europe, fears grew that this might escalate into a larger, potentially global conflict, leading several nations like Germany to declare their neutrality and non-desire to get involved, while the UK prepared troops and SAS special forces, along with a carrier strike group that would all be sent to Korea after a few days of heated arguments inside the parliament. Nations from Europe and Asia called for a diplomatic solution to the conflict, with Austria and Switzerland offering to mediate between North Korea and America. The US on the other hand denounced any criticism of its actions, and instead demanded total support of its Allies.
On the ground in Asia, South Korean forces were mostly left on their own to fight, since the US still tried to contain hostilities as much as possible, leaving the bulk of the fighting to South Korea. American 2nd and 25th infantry divisions arrived as the earliest US reinforcements of the war though, accompanied by two American marine regiments. Because of the artillery bombardment of densely populated Seoul, thousands of South Korean people died in the first few days, even though North Korea deployed not every artillery piece it could in this area, in order to cope with upcoming counterattacks. South Korea started to move troops from the South towards the border, but Kim's forces were able to strike before enough reinforcements could arrive in time. North Korean ground troops crossed the DMZ and successfully broke through the center of the South Korean lines in front of Seoul. The fresh US reinforcements advanced from the south, allowing the Allies to stop the North Korean approach by establishing a secondary line of defense along the Bukhan River. The war focus of North Korea then shifted towards Seoul, which already saw a massive build up from forces of both sides. Congestion started to slow down the concentration of troops from the North though, allowing South Korean and American forces along the Bukhan River to prevent further North Korean progress. Allied ships on their way were heavily attacked by North Korean missile forces helped by radar systems stationed in the mountains along the North Korean coastline. North Korea tried to hit as many ships, planes and bases as possible, knowing the enemy would take time to assemble considerable forces for an invasion.
Yet, South Korean and American planes managed to perform a huge amount of successful incursions and sorties into North Korea through their nearby bases and carriers, hunting down missile launch platforms and bases. Since South Korea still remained under extreme pressure from the North, the US re-deployed the 82nd Airborne Division from Poland to Seoul, where they immediately engaged in heavy fighting as soon as they arrived. The People's Republic of China, and later the Russian Federation, tried to intervene by blocking allied navy assets on their way to the Korean Peninsula. China, which was already engaged in a trade war and arms race with America, wanted to prevent a unified Korea under US supervision, with American troops directly at China's border. Chinese frigates around the Spratly Islands, joined by several Russian ships that conducted naval maneuvers with their Chinese counterparts as a signal against the west, actively harassed the US Navy, when the American naval assets stationed in the South China Sea where called to the Korean Peninsula as well. Tensions in the region started to increase heavily, with both sides executing further daring maneuvers, while the Chinese navy tried to deny access to the East China Sea for its American counterparts. As the result, both sides came continuously closer to each other, with neither one of them willing to back down. An American carrier then rammed through a Chinese naval vessel, after it came extremely close in an attempt to deny passage for the US ships. The frigate sunk, with all passengers on board drowning. China, under lifetime leader Xi Jinping, demanded an apology from the US, as well as reparations, which the US refused to do, saying this was the result of provocative Chinese actions.
While the US ships pushed through towards Korea, China vowed to retaliate, and conducted several hacking attacks against American cyber infrastructure. The satellite surveillance station in Exmouth Australia registered a massive hacking operation against its systems, turning its screen dark. The US accused China for the hacking and countered with its own cyber attack, which took out several local Chinese servers. As a result, Chinese jets flying from the Spratly Islands started to buzz the remaining US ships in the South China Sea. When the Chinese jets came dangerously close to the US ships, the American navy responded by downing a Chinese aircraft, claiming it was about to attack the carrier group. China was outraged by this, demanding all American actions of war should be halted, while allied troops should leave Korea. Russia, with several of its ships in the South China Sea being caught in the crossfire, also imposed a naval blockade against the Allies in the waters around Korea, the Philippine Sea as well as the eastern Mediterranean around the Suez choke point, in support of China, while also protecting its Pacific Fleet base.
The reason behind this was that Russia was already in a proxy war with NATO and the West as a whole in Ukraine, leading to severe tensions and mutual antagonism. Russia speculated that participating in Chinese blockades against western forces and allies might compel China to support Russia more offensively in its war against Ukraine, as well as in its political and economic conflict withheld West. Just like in the South China Sea, both sides engaged in provocative maneuvers, which led US forces to demand free passage towards Korea. The Russian navy ignored the demands and remained dangerously close to the opposing vessels, leading US ships to fire warning shots against Russian frigates. These were seen as offensive actions, leading the Russian navy to open fire on allied ships, while Russian planes were buzzing US naval assets and aircraft. As a result, both sides where engaged in short exchanges of fire, leading several Russian, but also American ships to be hit, with one Russian frigate even sinking, leading more than one hundred Russian sailors to drown. The Russian government under Vladimir Putin was outraged, threatening retaliation if the US is not backing down. After the Chinese ultimatum for total retreat of allied forces in Korea has been ignored, Xi Jinping declared war on the United States of America and their allies, leading the US to send almost all of its naval assets into the Pacific.
=== The war spills over ===
Russia did not declare war at first, but rather retaliated by attacking US naval assets in the Persian Gulf, the eastern Mediterranean and the Arabian Sea, in order to prevent further escalation at the Korean Front. While China's 79th and 80th armies entered the Korean peninsula to stop the allied advance into North Korea, both the US, now backed by French and British forces, exchanged clashes with the Russian air force in the Middle East, following the retaliatory strike against US ships. Ship launched missiles and drones attacked Russian military positions in Syria, including Russia's Tartus naval base. Syrian and Iranian soldiers were caught in the crossfire, leading both nations to threaten the US and its allies with war, should hostilities not be halted. Saudi Arabia on the other hand declared its unconditional support for the US, should Iran enter the war against America. In the meantime, Russia saw massive anti-American protests by Russian nationalists, and after increasing numbers of casualties in Syria and the South China Sea, Vladimir Putin declared war on the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Japan and South Korea. He warned that if NATO entered the war in support of America, every participating nation will be met without mercy. The declaration of war was ironically meant as a method of de-escalation, since Putin anticipated that it would scare the US and its allies into a diplomatic approach and concessions, before the conflict would actually start. And despite multiple calls for peaceful solutions of several NATO members, the US declared that it would not back down when being confronted on the battlefield, which led Russia to prepare for war with not just America alone, but rather all of NATO.
Both Russia and China declared their support for each other, despite mutual distrust. While Russian forces entered Korea on China's side, NATO called for an emergency meeting in Brussels, in order to discuss the reaction to the escalation. The declarations of war by China and Russia resulted into a crash at the stock market, leading to record lows for the dollar and other currencies, meaning massively increased prices and panicked sells on the stock market rather early on. In the meantime, hostilities in the Middle East continued to spiral out of control. More and more Syrian and Iranian casualties were counted because of the clashes between Russia and the West, which caused Iran to resort to a more aggressive approach itself, meaning a new harassment campaign against the US in the region. Tensions between Iran and the western powers already rose in the months prior because of the Gaza War, which lead Iranian forces, as well as the Teheran backed Houthi rebels to both attack and seize merchant ships in the Gulf of Oman and the Red Sea. Iranian speedboats and other naval assets harassed American vessels in the gulf, in order to divert their attention from the Syrian battlefield, hoping that this will push the US to slow down its military actions for the sake of avoiding a broader conflict with Iran. The mullah regime also began to increase its attacks on American vessels carrying oil and other goods, due to claiming these would transport military supplies to Israel. Iranian backed Shia militias meanwhile conducted new attacks against the remaining US forces in the bases in and around Baghdad, leading to new air and drone strikes in Iraq against these Iranian Proxies. This on the other hand caused new calls of the Iraqi government for a US retreat, since Iraq did not want to become a battlefield itself, while Iraq saw the US presence as an occupation since the crisis of January 2020. During these attacks, dozens of US soldiers were injured, while five were even killed, since the militias were less hesitant to avoid casualties, due to the dynamic of the escalating tensions. Trump condemned Iran for this and proclaimed that the US will „crush Iran like no one has ever seen before“, while at the same time attacking several US allies verbally who called for american restraint and even criticized Trumps handling of the global crisis. US aircraft now specifically targeted Iranian forces operating in Iraq and Syria, while increasing the aerial presence close to Iran. Iranian forces then fired missiles against American aircraft, accusing them of violating Iranian airspace. The attacks missed their targets, but Trump, who was accused by the oppositional Democrats of escalating the conflict without a clear strategy, saw himself forced to authorize a missile strike against the anti-air batteries in question, leading to massive anti-American protests in Iran. And after a series of violent clashes between American and Iranian naval assets in the Persian Gulf, Iran and Syria declared war on the US, France and the UK. This led to a Saudi ultimatum for complete removal of Iranian forces from Syria, and when it was ignored, Saudi Arabia declared war against Iran and Syria. Jordan and the UAE, as members of the GCC, were pressured and convinced by Saudi Arabia to join as well, while two days later, Israel, whose tensions with Iran escalated over the October 7th 2023 massacre and the following Gaza War, and Egypt also joined on the allied side. When troops of the Saudi coalition entered Syria, its neighbor Lebanon, dominated by the Hezbollah militia, sided with Iran and mobilized its troops against Israeli forces, after these violated Lebanese airspace to attack not only targets in Syria, but also inside Lebanon itself. The situation between Israel and Lebanon was already precarious before the war, due to border skirmishes between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants, as well as Israel already conducting airstrikes inside Lebanon against the leaders of the Hezbollah. Since the US pulled out most of its troops in Syria in 2019, the Americans severely lacked in military presence in the region, leaving only a token force of around 5800 soldiers on the Arabian Peninsula to counter Russian and Iranian forces immediately. Saudi Arabia invaded Iraq with the goal of opening a land front into Iran, leading to a fierce Iraqi ultimatum for a total halt of any foreign military action inside Iraq, while demanding the Saudis to leave.
The Iraqi demands were largely ignored, with the Saudi leadership noting that Iraq should join the GCC coalition in attacking Iran, since they had no intentions of stopping their invasion of Iraq. Iran offered Iraq to support it against the Saudi invaders and their quote „imperialist and Zionist backers“, and after several clashes between Saudi forces and Iraqi soldiers in the south of the country, Iraq agreed to a military cooperation with Iran. Iraqi troops besieged American bases and took US, British and French soldiers stationed in Iraq as prisoners, while more and more Iranian forces crossed into Iraq to take position against the Saudis in the south. Iranian troops also participated in the siege of the American Baghdad base, while additional attacks have been conducted against US installations in Iraqi Kurdistan, drawing the attention of NATO member Turkey. Iran tried to gain momentum before the US and the Arabian coalition could consolidate their forces, leading it to conduct missile strikes against American bases in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, Syria and Kuwait, leaving only Oman unharmed at first. Iranian forces invading Kuwait were halted though, which led Kuwait to join the Allies as well. The only NATO member in the region, Turkey, under the de facto dictatorship of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, also entered this war by declaring war on Syria, with which Turkey was already unofficially at war since 2020, and Iraq, but refused to fight against Russian and Iranian forces. Instead, Turkish officials met with an Iranian and Russian delegation in secret to negotiate an anti-western collaboration pact. Both sides agreed to not interfere with each other, and in exchange, Iran allowed Turkey to invade Syrian and Iraqi territories, in order to destroy Kurdish forces and minorities in the region. Turkey also denied allied troops to use its NATO bases for attacks against Russian targets, which increased the rifts inside the alliance.
Meanwhile, representatives from Russia, China and Iran met in former Astana, Kazakhstan, and signed a cooperation pact, declaring their joined support in opposition to the United States, and its "imperialist " ambitions. Both China and Russia also pressured the members of the SCO and CSTO, as well as Mongolia, to join their cause, if NATO decides to interfere. NATO on the other hand declared its support for America, but hesitated to invoke its article 5. Instead, the UK and France prepared their troops to be sent into the Middle East and Korea to back the American war effort, while Poland and the Baltics were mobilizing their troops at their respective borders with Russia. Unlike the beginning of the Ukraine War, this was used to justify an immediate and general Russian mobilization, as well as provocative troop deployments at the borders not only of the Baltics, but also Norway and Finland alarming those states as well. In Ukraine, Russia significantly intensified its attacks against Ukrainian targets in the Luhansk and Donezk Oblast, while once again performing a strategic missile bombing campaign, this time with significant focus on targets in western Ukraine, which was seen as direct threat against other European nations. Other important NATO members, like Germany, Italy, Greece and Spain remained rather hesitant, and declared only their logistical support for their fighting allies. Hungary, Czechia and Bulgaria neglected their allied duties, and rather declared to stay neutral due to their pro-Russian leaderships. The NATO members in the Balkans, Portugal and Denmark also declared their neutrality, but agreed to passive support as well. In the meantime Russia send a regiment of multiple Tupolev Tu-160 Bombers, a transport plane and various long distance planes with around 100 Russian soldiers to a new base in Venezuela, while Iran deployed multiple Sahand destroyers that were supposed to be stationed in Venezuela as a sign of support for Venezuelan dictator Maduro against the US. Russia also deployed a couple of warships, like anti-submarine vessels and ships with helicopter flattops, so that its presence against the US in South America would be increased. After China entered the fight in Korea more aggressively, Americas carriers in the waters around the peninsula were forced to retreat beyond DF-21 and DF-26 range. Meanwhile, the Holy See of the Vatican state condemned the growing violence on the Asian Continent, and instead called for peace and humility for the sake of mankind.
=== Europe plunges into War: Russia's Blitzkrieg ===
Both Russian and Baltic forces were mobilized at the closest distance possible between each other, leading the armies to meet almost face to face. At the same time, large numbers of Russian troops entered Belarus and started large scale military drills, similar in scale to the the Russian „Zapad-2021“ wargames of September 2021. Meanwhile throughout the Baltics, ethnic Russians, who claimed to be discriminated by their governments engaged in massive anti-NATO protests. These protests were tried to be disrupted by the government, leading to clashes between security forces and Russian protesters. Russia exploited these protests, which were encouraged through Russian disinformation campaigns, and said these were fascist acts against ethnic Russians, similar to how it justified its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Russia accused the Baltics and the West overall to oppress Russians within their territory, which according to the Russian government would force Russia to once again intervene and "protect" its fellow citizens. Due to the massive tension between these forces, a series of border incidents occurred, for which both sides were blaming each other. Additionally, russian news coverage broadcasted increasing amounts of propaganda stories, which included accusations of NATO planning nuclear attacks on Russia, building bio-weapon factories alongside the russian border as well as accused preparations for a „genocide“ of ethnic russians throughout Europe, riling up the population in Russia proper..
Estonian and Latvian troops accused their Russian counterparts of cutting through and demolishing border fences along the frontier, leading to warning shots being fired. Russian troops accused the Baltic forces on the other hand of opening fire without warning across the border, while allegedly throwing rocks and tear gas grenades. Reports emerged about Russian forces attempting to cross into Estonia and Latvia without military insignia, similar to how the Crimea invasion occurred in 2014, which was immediately rejected by the Russian government, which called these allegations deliberate fake news campaigns. Despite Russian claims of innocence, troops of Estonia and Latvia presented several Russian nationals as prisoners, accusing them of seeping into Baltic territory the same way Russian troops did during Russia's hybrid warfare campaign in Ukraine after the Euro-Maidan in 2014, prompting an aggressive reaction of the Putin regime. In Poland, several russian nationals were captured alongside the polish-belorussian border, close to the Suwalki gap, which Poland accused of being Wagner-mercenaries trying to infiltrate polish territory for an upcoming invasion of the corridor. The Kremlin accused the Baltic nations and Poland again of oppressing Russians and taking innocent Russian nationals as prisoners for propaganda reasons. At the same time, more and more shootings were reported between Baltic and Russian troops, while simultaneously, the anti-western protests of ethnic Russians became more violent, with even the first people being killed in these riots.
These incidents were used by the Russian leadership to justify a full scale invasion of the Baltics, similar to how the regime launched its war against Ukraine, leading Russian troops to cross into Estonia and Latvia, while missile and air attacks were reported all over said countries. The first objectives of these invasions were the „neutralization“ of hostile forces along the border, while allegedly „protecting and liberating“ Russians inside Baltic territory. Russian troops engaged in heavy combat with the Baltic defenders, who were facing retreat soon after the invasion began. It became apparent that Russia planed to overrunning the Baltics, in order to cut them off from NATO reinforcements, as a way of neutralizing the perceived threat NATO posed to Russia. The Kremlin thought that a quick campaign against the Baltics, before the consolidation of NATO forces in the west, with a following occupation, would lead NATO to accept the Baltics being in Russia's sphere of influence again, in order to avoid a larger conflict by attempting to retake them. When the first line of Baltic defense was pushed back, NATO forces stationed in the Baltics assisted their allies in fighting back against the Russian invaders, leading the British-led battalion in Estonia and the Canadian-led battalion in Latvia to engage in the first fights against the Russians. Belarus, under dictator Lukashenko, meanwhile reluctantly joined Russia as a CSTO member, in order to retain its independence and avoid being annexed itself. Since Lukashenko only remained in power after the 2020 uprising due to Russian intervention, he lacked any leverage to deny Russia its demands, making him effectively depended on Russian goodwill. After being pushed into the war by Russia, Belarus mobilized its troops along its entire border with the Baltics, Poland and Ukraine, while granting Russia not only free access to its territory, but also its own military forces. Russia used Belarus to encircle and invade Lithuania, were it was met with heavy resistance of the already alerted and mobilized Lithuanian army. During the invasion of Lithuania, Russian troops also engaged in combat with the German-led battalion stationed there.
Belarus also allowed Russian troops to enter its territory so it could close the Suwalki gap between Poland, Lithuania and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, spearheaded by the exiled Wagner-group and cut off the Baltics from possible NATO reinforcements. Poland declared its support for the Baltics, and started to shell both Kaliningrad and the Belarusian border, leading Belarus to declare war on Poland. Meanwhile, Russian troops also invaded Norway in order to protect the Northern Fleet base in Murmansk, while they also went into Finland. Russia justified these moves by declaring that Finland NATO membership makes it de facto also a party in this war, leading to Finnish forces to launch long range cruise missiles to strike St. Petersburg as an symbolic act of retaliation. And despite the majority of the missiles being either shot down or missing their targets, the resulting damage was enough to cause panic in the city, since this was the first time that St. Petersburg was attacked since WW2. Russian airborne units were dropped off all over the Peninsula, in order to cut off potential reinforcement routes to help the Finnish. Polish troops desperately tried to prevent the Suwalki gap from being closed, but they were pushed back, due to Russian missile and air strikes. The attack against Poland forced NATO to finally invoke its Article 5, leading Germany and other members to prepare the rapid reaction force they were obligated to send in. Meanwhile Canadian troops stationed in the Baltics were almost completely destroyed, leading Canada to declare war on Russia. Canada declared its support for Europe, and prepared to send in more troops, while the US planned to send only the absolute minimum of manpower into Europe, because they wanted to focus on China at the now called Eastern Front, while Trump was accused of harboring personal sympathies for russian dictator Vladimir Putin, going as far as claiming in the past that he would encourage Putin to attack european NATO members, should they not pay for their military the way he envisioned.
Before allied European troops could be transported to Poland, Russia conducted a so called "shock campaign" against Europe. They executed a series of air and missile strikes, hitting military, infrastructural and even political targets not only in Poland, but also Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden. Among those targets were important NATO ports, airfields, roads, bases, command headquarters, as well as the capitals of Berlin, Stockholm, Brussels and Amsterdam. The nation which was hit the most by this campaign, which was later nicknamed „The Long Night“, as a pop-culture reference to the popular TV show Games of Thrones, was Germany, because it harbored many important NATO and US bases, while being a very important crossroad for arriving allied reinforcements on their way to Poland. Among the German targets being hit were the US Army Europe Base in Wiesbaden, the American air force headquarter in Europe of Ramstein, the NATO airbase Geilenkirchen, the NATO command of Ulm, as well as the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. Other targets hit were the EUCOM headquarter in Stuttgart, the ports of Antwerp, Kiel and La Rochelle, as well as Bucharest and missile defense sites in Romania.
This attack was supposed to scare every nation that would want to join the allies from doing so, and even if they do nonetheless, the strike would have destroyed important NATO infrastructure, slowing down the enemies approach. This attack, especially against the neutral nations, created a wave of shock and outrage throughout Europe, due to more than 2000 Europeans and Americans being killed in the process. Germany, which originally did not plan to actively engage besides the obligatory effort, was therefore forced to declare war against Russia, and so did Belgium, Sweden and the Netherlands as well. France and the UK condemned the attack, and declared their total support for their allies, leading them to fully mobilize their armies. Montenegro and Croatia also declared war on Russia, and after days of hesitation due to their covertly pro-Russian right-wing governments, Italy and Greece joined as well, since the threat of their NATO bases becoming Russian targets as well was too evident. Spain and Portugal also joined in soon after, as well as Denmark following the Russian hostilities against Scandinavia. Slovakia and Slovenia also declared their support for their NATO allies, but remained reluctant to issue an official declaration of war against Russia or other Revisionist Powers at this point. While traditionally pro-Russian state Bulgaria, as well as the newest NATO member North Macedonia still issued their neutrality and agreed only to support their allies in logistics, Hungary under the authoritarian rule of Viktor Orbán agreed on minor symbolic military assistance to their allies, leading Hungarian troops to be stationed in Warsaw to demonstrate support for Poland, while Czech soldiers were mobilized to guard the Czech border to Poland, as well as supporting minor operations at the southern part of the Polish front. The full engagement of NATO led Russia and China to once again pressure the members of the SCO and CSTO to join their cause, that is why Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Armenia reluctantly declared war on the US and its allies. Pakistan also issued support for the anti-western alliance that was now dubbed the Revisionist Powers by America, leading India to be the the only SCO member to remain neutral. Mongolia, wedged between both Russia and China, also declared war on the United States to the surprise of many political experts, in order to prevent from being annexed by either Power. Meanwhile, the European allies mobilized their armies to fight against Russia and Belarus in Poland and Scandinavia.
The US army's 173 airborne brigade combat team in Italy, as well as the 2nd cavalry regiment in Germany then rushed to the fight in Poland, although their communication was severely jammed by Russian electronic warfare units, forcing the Americans and their allies to rely on outdated high frequency radio devices. Russia also tried to slow down the British supply line further by destroying the Eurotunnel with a submarine attack, leading to hundreds of civilian casualties. The NATO forces that were already arriving and fighting in Poland meanwhile lost over 60,000 men and women, leading to casualty rates similar to WW1. Polish troops were determined to hold as much ground as possible, therefore refusing to fall back to the main defense line of NATO. The American forces in Poland on the other hand were set back from the first lines of defense as some form of counterattacking force. Due to Russian pressure though, the Americans had to disperse all its divisions to assist its wavering allies. This led to the so called Third Battle of Masurian Lakes/Tannenberg, during which the NATO commander employed the 10th Mountain division to help the poles. Further south, the 1st Calvary and the 1st Armored Divisions started a counterattack, leading to immense casualties beyond allied expectations.
 In the Baltics, Russian troops reached the outskirts of the Baltic capitals of Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius in just about 60 hours. The last Baltic army resistance, supported by the remnants of the NATO forces that were stationed in the Baltics before the war as a deterrent, entrenched itself in urban territory as a last attempt to hold the line. In the rest of the occupied Baltic territory, the population followed a strategy of "total defense", meaning that they formed smaller units of civil resistance, that inflicted damage on the invading enemies. Many ethnic Russians on the other hand welcomed the invaders as "liberators" since Russia portrayed the Baltic resistance as anti-Russian and fascist hostilities, leading them, alongside other pro-Russian forces, to sabotage the Baltic resistance. Even though the total defense somewhat slowed down the Russian approach, this strategy of civil resistance led to heavy civilian casualties, since Russia actively targeted civilian areas out of anti-resistance warfare, which was used to justify heavy attacks without regard for civilian life. Overall, the Allies suffered horrendous casualties in a time-span of just 72 hours, losing about 50% of their present forces along the now called Western Front. Ukraine also concentrated its troops even more around the frontlines of the Donbass as well as the southern theatre along the coastal region and in the west at the border with the pro-Russian Transnistria in Moldova, in expectation of new Russian offensives.
Following a series of fresh assaults on all fronts, which resulted in heavier Ukrainian losses than before, most of eastern Ukraine was completely cut off from supplies from the defending forces, while Russia began to break through in multiple sectors of the Donbass and Eastern Ukrainian Front. Russia still received support from the Donbass rebels of the self proclaimed republics of Luhansk and Donetsk, who fought on Russian behalf against Ukrainian forces for years, while a new full scale invasion of northern Ukraine was launched with the help of Belorussian troops, forcing president Volodymyr Zelensky to retreat his troops back into central Ukraine, while also facing Belarusian attacks in the northwest. Additionally, Serbian volunteers and more Syrian mercenaries were trafficked into Ukraine to assist in the Russian war effort, while Russian troops and local forces in Transnistria engaged in skirmishes with the Ukrainian army along the border. While Russian troops were performing brutal attacks in Mariupol against what they described as „partisan fighters“, revisionist forces entered Kharkiv, resulting in the Ukrainian resistance in central Ukraine strengthening its defenses by using the river Dnieper as a natural barricade, since the flat terrain of Ukraine made it almost impossible for the defenders to hold up against enlarged Russian armored formations. Russian bombers then targeted multiple of the many dams of the Dnieper, in order to reduce the reservoirs of water in preparation of crossing the river on their way towards Dnipro and the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, while also new battles erupt in and around Zaporozhye, resulting in damage of the largest European nuclear plant there. The result of the demolition of these dams was massive flooding in central and southern Ukraine, that killed thousands of civilians. Ukrainian forces then dug in into the urban territory, leading to weeks of brutal urban trench warfare in multiple Ukrainian cities. Meanwhile in the Caucasus, Georgia joined the allies, and started its own campaign to retake the territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which were occupied by Russia since the Georgia War at the beginning of the 2000s. Armenia concentrated its forces on its border with Georgia, demanding the end of hostilities in the Caucasus mountains in favor of Russia.
In Europe, every attempt to break through to the Baltics failed, leading them to be completely overrun by Russia in just about two weeks of fighting. The Russian National Guard was sent to counter any potential Baltic insurgency, allowing more army units to participate in the ongoing offensives in the west. Russia then focused its movements on the west against Poland, where thousands of French, British, German, Dutch and Belgian troops arrived. In Scandinavia, the Russian advance into Norway was halted at Alta with the help of British, Swedish, Finnish and the newly arrived Canadian troops, forcing the Russians to dig in into mountainous terrain, in order to protect Murmansk. Sweden attempted to relocate troops from Stockholm and Umea to the Finnish cities of Turku and Vaasa, but due to Russian airstrikes, the ports were largely destroyed. The Russian Northern Fleet started to attack the Norwegian island of Svalbard, occupying the island as a base of operation in the process. The aggression in the Arctic waters forced Iceland to declare war against Russia, after a missile hit NATO stations on the Island. Meanwhile Russian and Belarusian troops advanced into Poland, taking Allenstein and Bialystok, while threatening Warsaw.
=== The Eastern Front: China's Advance ===
At the Eastern Front, the allied advance into North Korea was stopped at Sariwon, leading to bloody fighting with thousands of casualties on both sides. Both the Allies and Revisionist Powers kept on sending more and more troops into the Korean Peninsula, creating increased civilian casualties due to the dense population in Korea. China used its ballistic missile arsenal to destroy the US base in Okinawa, while also thinning out Japanese defenses. Chinese and North Korean missiles also hit mainland Japan, creating chaos and mass casualties, although many of the incoming missiles were intercepted by US anti-missile defenses. Chinese submarines slowed down allied supply efforts in the East China Sea, effectively cutting off the Senkaku Islands from Japan. China increased the pressure by executing waves of air strikes, after the missile attacks against Okinawa, the Senkaku and Tsushima islands, leading to most of the American and Japanese assets there to be demolished. Due to the amount of time the US needed to further assemble its forces across the Pacific, the Allies struggled to increase pressure on China. Chinese ships and planes conducted several attacks on Kyushu, Jeju, and the Gotō Islands, leading to the First Battle of the East China Sea.
China used these offensives to prevent allied naval forces from reaching Japan's southern islands, so it could prepare an amphibious invasion of said islands. After the first month and a half, Australia, as a member of the still young AUKUS alliance, as well as the ANZUS and Five Eyes groups, joined the Allies and declared war on China, Russia and North Korea. A week later, New Zealand also joined the Allies. Australia allowed the US to further use its territory as a base, while also preparing to send troops into Korea and the South China Sea. Indonesia, which strengthened its ties with China by becoming part of its "Belt and Road" initiative, declared its neutrality while still keeping close relations with China. In order to prevent being entangled in the war, Indonesia declared its waters as a non-militarized zone, denying entrance for any warship that tried to pass through its important sea corridors. Meanwhile the US launched a series of bomber strikes from Guam against the Chinese attackers around Okinawa, while also attempting to strike coastal China, leading to steep casualty numbers on both sides. The majority of attacks against Chinese coastal targets failed though, due to Chinese anti-air defenses. Simultaneously, chinese air and missile forces conducted a series of strikes against the taiwanese Kinmen and Matsu Islands directly off the chinese coast. Taiwanese forces there, which were already in full combat readiness when the war broke out desperately fought back, using among other things heavy WW2 era howitzers to shell the chinese coast, leading to civilian casualties in Xiamen. After a few weeks of bombings, China also managed to take the Senkaku and Tsushima islands, while also preparing to invade Okinawa. In the same time at the beginning of October 2023, China amassed enough forces to take mainland Taiwan, due to its strategic position and its territorial claims over the island. The launch date of the invasion was put in October, due to the weather conditions then being ideal for large naval crossings in the Strait of Taiwan, which is usually the case only a few times in the year. China's build up of forces was severely hampered by American naval and airborne assets, which were able to inflict heavy casualties on the Chinese invasion armada. Several missile strikes were conducted to take out Taiwanese defenses, leading Taiwan to declare war on China. Chinese forces conquered the Taiwanese islands off its shores, while also invading the Taiping Islands. Taiwanese air and naval forces conducted several hit and run raids, while mobilizing its Population.
But Taiwanese defenses were steadily thinned out by Chinese missile strikes, which were paving the way for waves of air attacks. Taiwanese ground defenses though were strengthened by the insertion of Japanese reinforcements. Due to being pre-occupied with China in Okinawa and the East China Sea, as well as Korea, US forces were not able to support Taiwan in any significant way, leading to the fall of the Penghu islands. Taiwan's fleet battled with the Chinese in the strait of Taiwan to prevent the loss of the islands, but only managed to damage and destroy a few dozen Chinese ships. With the Penghu islands being taken, China prepared the invasion of mainland Taiwan, while Taiwanese rocket artillery kept on hitting the makeshift Chinese bases on the occupied islands. Chinese drones were used to draw out Taiwanese anti-air defenses, while the Chinese recon assets kept track of Taiwanese troop movements.
While the landing forces embarked, China conducted a series of airborne surprise landings, further dispersing the Taiwanese defenses. The airborne assault managed to capture a port in Taiwan's rear, forcing Taiwanese troops in the area to retreat further into the mountainous interior of the island. Dozens of Chinese landing ships were sunk, but a large portion of the invasion force remained operational, leading China to land troops on an area comparable to the Normandy landings in terms of distance. Taiwan concentrated its mobilized population in the landing area, using its artillery to deny the Chinese from securing airstrips and further beachheads. The Chinese advance was halted due to Taiwanese numerical superiority, forcing the Chinese to impose a naval blockade against Taiwan, while continuing to send supplies to the landing force. Meanwhile, after a week long blockade and intimidation with build up of force, China annexed Hong Kong despite massive protests from its population.
The Second Battle of the Spratly Islands though remained inconclusive, with both the US and China losing several ships and thousands of troops, even though China suffered heavy damage of its bases on its artificial islands. In Korea, the Allies struggled to push back against the Revisionist Powers, due to the increased numbers of troops that China kept sending in. With the US bases in Japan being constantly harassed, the Allies lagged behind in bringing in more soldiers and supplies until the Australians arrived, forcing them to retreat back to the line from Kaesong to Hoeyang. The small size of the Korean Peninsula, as well as the dense urban population, led to heavy civilian casualties which resulted in more than a million deaths in just 2 months of the war. The first wave of large scale support and reinforcements for the Allies was sent from Australia, Hawaii and Guam, in the midst of constant attacks from Chinese and Russian submarines. Submarine launched missiles hit targets in Guam and coastal Australia, and although many of the enemy vessels were identified and destroyed, Australia was forced to increase its anti-submarine effort in the Pacific, the Timor sea and Arafura sea, leading to increased tensions with Indonesia, which claimed that allied vessels were entering its waters illegally. The attacks on Australia's coastline, as well as multiple assaults on military and merchant shipping in the Southern Pacific, led Australia and the US to increase their military presence not only in Guam, Hawaii, American Samoa and Australia itself, but also in Papua New Guinea. In order to deter Chinese aggression in the southern Pacific, a higher number of warships were stationed at the Lombrum base in Papua New Guinea. The heightened presence of Australian, American and New Zealand troops in its neighbors' territory also created tension with Indonesia, leading to a new flare up of Indonesian paranoia, accusing Australia and the Allies of planning to support freedom fighters in West Papua, against which Indonesia conducted a year long attack of isolation and offensive action.
=== The Southern Front: Mayhem in the Middle East ===
With both Europe and East Asia falling into chaos, the regional powers of Saudi Arabia and Iran, which enjoyed a numerical advantage over Saudi Arabia, struggled to utilize the war to claim dominance in the Middle East. The Arab coalition of Jordan, the UAE, Egypt and Kuwait, led by Saudi Arabia, managed to push forward into revisionist territory but were halted in a line from Damascus, over Fallujah to Basra, leading to brutal fighting in urban territory with both sides showing no regard for civilian casualties. Iran, meanwhile, followed an anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against the Allies.
By using recon assets like coastal radars, UAVs and civilian vessels, Iran managed to track down and target allied surface vessels in the Persian Gulf, before initiating a concentrated attack against US ships in narrow waters. Iran also launched a massive number of rockets to overwhelm the US' Aegis naval combat systems, while also luring the vessels towards pre-laid mine fields. These attacks were supported by shore based ASCM missile systems, and Klub-K missiles launched from apparently civilian ships. Meanwhile, US airfields in Saudi Arabia were targeted by salvos of Iranian missiles, before the Islamist republic launched waves of precision strike SRBMs armed with more accurate submunitions that hit unsheltered planes and US assets. Iranian proxy forces then also assaulted US bases with guided missiles and pre-sighted mortars.
Israeli troops, which were indirectly coordinating their attacks with Saudi Arabia, entered both Lebanon and Syria, although they were met with heavy resistance from Syrian troops dug in into the Golan heights. The Hezbollah militia, as well as Iran, launched a wide series of missile attacks against Israel, the majority of which were intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome system. The few missiles that did hit Tel Aviv and Nablus, led to the largest number of Israeli casualties in more than a decade. Israel also used the war to pursue their own anti-Iranian agenda. They aimed for Iranian targets tied to the nuclear program of the Islamist state, using jets to strike Iranian nuclear facilities, like power plants and possible bunkers, while delivering a fatal blow against Iran's nuclear capabilities. As a result of the destroyed nuclear sites, large areas of rural Iran were polluted by radioactive fallout, exacerbated by wind and sand storms, causing Iraq and even small areas of Turkey to be affected. Iran, in retaliation, conducted a massive wave of missile and air attacks against both Israel and Saudi Arabia, hitting important bases and oil refineries throughout the entire Arabian Peninsula. The Iranians where able to hit more Saudi aircraft with their strike, due to lower numbers of overall Saudi bases and therefore higher concentration of assets on these facilities. Iran also closed the Strait of Hormuz, leading to another international oil crisis, as well as the First Battle of the Hormuz Strait, since US navy vessels and aircraft, with the support of the French, British, Saudi and even Japanese, tried to break through the blockade. In order to fully seize control of the strait, Iran deployed various influence sea mines, along high quantities of surface contact mines. The influence mines were laid out covertly by Iranian submarines, while less sophisticated mines where deployed by surface vessels to deny passage for any US ship. Saudi air forces assisted the US in its mine countermeasures by targeting Iranian vessels, but this tied down important airpower which was needed in the ground war. Iran launched land-based ASCM missiles from its islands in the Strait, complicating US counterattacks in the process.
Meanwhile, French, British and American air forces kept on clashing with their Russian counterparts, but received no support from their Arab allies, due to the close ties of many middle eastern nations with Russia. On the ground, the western allies engaged with the Arab coalition against Iran and its revisionist partners, who were supported by various radical Islamist groups, conducting terror attacks to slow down the allied approach. Turkey invaded the northern territory of Syria and Iraq to exterminate Kurdish forces and minorities using anti-terror ambitions as an excuse for its operations. The Turkish dictator Erdoğan saw this war as the perfect opportunity to play both sides and prevent the Kurds from forming an independent state at Turkey's border, leading him to order massive aerial attacks against Kurdish strongholds in the region, resulting in heavy casualties. The increased Turkish attacks led to new waves of PKK terror attacks against Turkish police and military facilities, which were then used to justify increased military force against Kurdish regions in the southeast of Turkey. First, reports of Turkish troops actively targeting Kurdish civilians arose but were muted by both the Turkish controlled media and the Allies, since they continued to support Turkey's war effort against Syria and Iraq as part of their appeasement policy, unaware that Erdoğan had already colluded with the Revisionist Powers. The Turkish operations also forced the YPG and Peshmerga to increasingly join forces with Bashar al-Assad, as they did in October 2019, while allied troops reached the outskirts of Damascus. Syria and Iran resorted to chemical weapons use, while digging in, which slowed the allied advance to Damascus down. The ongoing hostilities in the Middle East also resulted in a global oil crisis. Since the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the revisionist attacks against allied oil refineries and the harassment of tankers led to extremely high gas prices and shortages of gasoline, causing many gas stations in the west and other regions of the world to be partially without supplies for weeks on end.
=== Revisionist moves in Central Asia ===
In order to support the allied war effort in the Middle East, the US tried to redeploy a smaller Reaper and Global Hawk Drone fleet from Cyprus to potential theatres of combat in Central Asia in order to assist with the evacuation of diplomats and civilians in the now hostile, yet still rather passive Central Asian republics, but a large portion of drones were destroyed or damaged following the destruction of the Ramstein airbase in Germany, from where they were operated. Smaller drone squadrons, as well as aerial transport units flew over neutral Turkmenistan in order to avoid Iranian air forces. Over the Caspian Sea, the US transport fleet suffered heavy attacks from Russia's Caspian Fleet, as well as Iranian ships and planes, which was later dubbed the Battle of the Caspian Sea. The Revisionist Powers also feared that the Allies might use the last few remaining anti-Taliban fighters as a foothold to potentially open a second front into Iran and Pakistan, while stirring up insurgencies in China's Xinjang region, in order to relieve pressure from Saudi Arabia and its coalition. Although western allies only had a negligible military presence in Afghanistan, it was feared that American surveillance drones, like the already mentioned Global Hawks could use their high altitude capabilities over afghan airspace in order to gain intelligence about Iran, China and Pakistan . That was the reason why a joined surprise operation was launched at Afghanistan to counter any pro-western movement, while also gaining a foothold in Afghanistan to secure revisionist borders, leading Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan, as well as forced troops from the central Asian republics to simultaneously invade a few kilometers into the border regions of Afghanistan equipped with anti-air defenses. The Revisionist Powers also received support from the ruling Taliban, who negotiated with the Revisionist Powers that they would tolerate a small Revisionist presence along its border perimeter in exchange of them not supporting anti-Taliban resistance fighters, while also assisting the Taliban in preventing allied incursions into Afghanistan and help them fight against hostile rivaling terrorist groups like ISIS-K. However, the tense situation in Central Asia, as well as the unprecedented mobilization of forces in the region also facilitated a series of border clashes between the revisionist partners of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, who engaged in occasional skirmishes over unmarked border areas, as they did in 2022 already.
Allied forces launched a few long range strike against revisionist forces along the afghan border regions, leading to heightened tensions with the Taliban who already supported revisionist efforts against allied countries. Turkish troops, despite being occasionally caught in the crossfire, were able to secure their positions around the Kabul airport, while additionally negotiating with Taliban representatives to stay for geo-Strategic reasons, offering them support similar to they did after the Fall of Kabul in 2021. The Taliban therefore were able to consolidate the power they took in most of Afghanistan since the year prior. Most of Afghanistan therefore remained under the control of the Taliban, who were left mostly unchecked by the revisionists after their victory over the western military presence in the central Asian state. Afghanistan therefore stayed isolated and under Taliban tyranny throughout the remainder of WW3 and only saw minor military moves along its most eastern borders during the allied invasion of China, as well as ongoing fighting between the Taliban and Tajik resistance fighters in the Panjshir Valley region, which was historically infamous for being able to repel invaders, despite the bulk of the resistance being crushed by the Taliban in 2021. While therefore the only Main military activity in Afghanistan became a series of guerilla battles organized by local forces, the only other acts of war where the sieges and captures of western military and civilian equipment and personnel, mainly military and civilian transport aircraft and crews stationed in central Asian countries like Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, which was present because of evacuation flights from the region by western countries. As a result, a couple of thousands of western diplomats and civilians remained stuck in Central Asia and struggled to get back to their home countries due to the ongoing fighting in the Caucasus, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. In Kazakhstan, civil unrest began to spread again out of a rejection of the former soviet republic going to war at the behest of Russia and other Revisionist Powers, leading Russia and other central Asian republics to increase the CSTO military presence inside Kazakhstan, in order to squash the uprisings. Once again, there were dozens of Kazakh civilians killed by regime forces who were authorized again to shoot without warning, while receiving support from Russian troops. Later on, reports were made about provisional training camps being installed by the Taliban in the Pakistani border region, leading to suspicion in India that Pakistan is gathering its own guerilla force of radical Islamists in the case of conflict with India, should the latter join the Allies.
=== Allied struggles on the Western Front: The Battles for Warsaw, Helsinki and Kiev ===
After the fall of the Baltics, Russia continued to focus its operation against Europe by sending its troops in Poland further to the West, taking Lublin and threatening to encircle Warsaw. The Polish army, while being forced into steady retreat until the allied reinforcements can fully engage, prepared itself to defend its capital against Russia. Fierce fighting emerged, with both sides pounding each other with heavy artillery and missile strikes. Thanks to the incoming support from the Europeans, Canadians and Americans, the Allies were able to increase their advantage in the air, heading towards air superiority. As a result, the Russian air force played rather defensively, while also deploying their anti-air weapon systems closer to the Western Front, leading allied losses in the air to mount rapidly. Meanwhile, Russia send the bulk of its tanks and armored vehicles into Poland, to further push towards Warsaw, leading to the biggest tank battles since WW2.
In the Baltic Sea, allied attempts to break through to the Baltics failed, due to Russia's Baltic Fleet mining large portions of the sea, while sticking close to the chores. The allied reinforcement from Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Montenegro, Spain and Canada finally consolidated itself enough to catch up with their Polish co-belligerents, while the US support arrived in the ports of Germany, although lacking severely in manpower needed at the Western Front. Following the Pentagons "Assault Breaker II" strategy, the US deployed 12 B-52H Bombers at the Western Front, armed with Assault Breaker standoff missiles, which were able to release swarms of smaller submunitions with infrared sensors, in order to hunt down and destroy enemy tanks behind the frontline. The US also brought in several JSTARS aircraft to guide the 52s. In the same time, Russia and China forced conscripts from Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Mongolia to be deployed at the Western Front to support the Revisionist Powers, while Russia ordered the mass mobilization of its population. Revisionist forces were able to take Pulawy, and a few days later Radom, due to constantly harassing allied supply lines, while also using its advantage in tanks and anti-air capabilities, but lost thousands of troops in the process. The Allies started to increase the defenses in and around Warsaw, while taking position to stop the Russian approach from Mlawa and Siedlce. Allied air forces were able to install a certain level of air superiority, leading to some of the largest dogfights in history.
On the ground, the Allies struggled to bring the Russian advance to an end: the UK and France had not only to concentrate on Poland, but also the support for Scandinavia, as well as the Middle East and the Eastern Front, thus limiting their overall capabilities. Germanys army lacked severely in operational equipment, and trained personnel, due to years of heavy mismanagement and underfunding of its military, making it effectively unable to provide considerable support to the Allies. This, along with lacking support from the US and the limited strength of smaller NATO Partners, lead the Allies to be pushed back to Warsaw. The Russian army, and its ally Belarus reached the outskirts of the Polish capital, while suffering massive air, missile and artillery strikes, and with its counterattack, the casualty numbers on both sides mounted massively in a very short time, similar to the opening phase of WW1. After the mass evacuation of Warsaw, the Allies dug into the city, hoping they could hold their ground until further reinforcements could be consolidated.
In Scandinavia, both the Allies and the Russians used the network of lakes in Finland as natural barricades to strengthen their positions, leading the Finnish front to become the next part of the frontline that went static, after Norway. Russians troops were closing in towards Helsinki thanks to both aerial attacks and missile strikes coming from the waters around occupied Estonia, forcing the Finnish government to flee to the islands in the Bothnian Bay. The geography of Finland, with its forests and vast network of lakes narrowed the routes of the invading Russian armored divisions down a lot in the south, allowing the Finnish to hold on to Helsinki for a fairly long time. The usage of portable anti-armor missiles from the Scandinavians forced the Russian artillery to flatten vast amounts of terrain to allow its armored units to move towards Helsinki as safely as possible, creating massive casualties. Due to continuous bombardment, the civilian population of Helsinki started to seek shelter in the underground bunker systems of the capital, while on the surface, Russian troops were besieging Helsinki. In Ukraine, the troops of Zelensky received one defeat after another, and after weeks of brutal bombing and trench warfare around Kiev, the Ukrainian capital fell into the hands of Russia and the Donbass rebels. The occupation proved to be troublesome for the Revisionist Powers, due to fierce civilian resistance and pockets of fortified defenders, resulting in brutal revisionist counter-measures and massacres against civilians, who were portrayed as „Nazi-puppets“ of the West. Pro Russian Ukrainians sabotaged the war effort of the pro-western army of Zelensky, leading to civil war like uprisings in various areas of the free parts of the nation. Tens of thousands of refugees entered Romania, Moldova, Slovakia and western Poland, hoping to find shelter. The remaining population then saw some form of total mobilization and partisan resistance, due to many Ukrainian citizens being armed with black market weapons following the war of 2014. During the first months of WW3 in Ukraine, revisionist troops from Belarus and Russia once again targeted the Ukrainian military positions around the disaster site of Chernobyl, in order to take out the Ukrainian military presence there, as well as securing the location itself. The small military presence and outposts of the imposed safety perimeters soon fell under revisionist control, however, during artillery attacks between Ukrainian and Belarusian forces, the latter accidentally hit the concrete sarcophagus of reactor 4, which caused the nuclear disaster in the first place. As a result, the concrete sealing of the reactor was so damaged, that once again critical amounts of radiation were exposed into the environment, leading to the second nuclear catastrophe of Chernobyl. Romanian troops meanwhile entered Ukraine as the first NATO forces in the area, while suffering missile attacks from the direction of the now Russian controlled Black Sea, targeting the NATO anti-missile shield there. Many of the missiles were intercepted, but the Romanian capital still received some hits. The allied troops then used the swamplands in Ukraine as natural buffers to slow down the revisionist advance, while strengthening their defenses. After a month of non-stop fighting, as well as tens of thousands of casualties in both military personnel and civilian life, Warsaw fell into the hands of the Revisionist Powers.
The allied defeat at Warsaw brought the Allies to the realization that this war would not stop any time soon, that is why the nations of France, the UK, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Finland ordered the general mobilization of their population, for the first time since WW2. Especially Germany was reluctant to add more manpower to the allied war effort, due to its lack of equipment, trained personnel and the widespread antiwar sentiment of its population, leading Germany to conscript individuals that were unfit for the regular standards of the Bundeswehr. While most of Europe mobilized its citizens for a possibly long and bloody war, the Allies prepared themselves for a big offensive targeting Kaliningrad in the upcoming year. Russia also prepared for further offensives, that is why it deployed its new Armata tank fleet, as well as a Tupolev squadron in Poland against the Allies. Meanwhile, as a symbol of peace and solidarity, artists from all over the world joined together both in person and through video in order to perform a new „Live Aid“ Event, aimed at gathering donations for refugees in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Singers, bands and songwriters managed to organize multiple simultaneously occurring concerts in London, Paris and Vienna, with another one taking place in New York, making it the largest beneficial concert in human history, which was able to gather around 100 million dollars for humanitarian causes. Meanwhile, just like in Kiev, civilian and paramilitary resistance in the occupied capitals of Helsinki and Warsaw kept on continuing until their ultimate liberation later on in the war, causing unprecedented bloodshed among the urban population of those cities.
== 2026 ==
=== India joins the war ===
With both its main rivals, Pakistan and China, siding against the US, the Asian powerhouse of India, originally a SCO and BRICS member, faced increasing pressure to end its neutrality and join the war against China and Pakistan. Indian troops were already in a state of heightened alert, while being deployed at the Indo-Pakistani border, where they had several standoffs with the also mobilized Pakistani army. While Indian troops clashed with Pakistani forces in Kashmir, where both sides were engaged in a tense conflict in 2019 and after, India mobilized its forces against China in the Himalayan mountains. China increased its presence at the Sino-Indian border since hostilities in East Asia started, due to Chinese speculation of a potential Indian entry into the war. Similar to summer 2020, Chinese and Indian forces clashed in remote areas of the mountainous border, but unlike 2020, Chinese forces were equipped with lethal military weapons, which violated joint agreements of border security. With Pakistani forces clashing with Indian soldiers in Kashmir, and Chinese soldiers now killing Indian forces in the Himalayans, India finally decided to declare war on China and Pakistan. The original position of bases and troops favored India, since the majority of Chinese bases and missiles where aimed to the East. Indian troops entered the Himalaya and enjoyed a numerical advantage against the Chinese, but due to the harsh terrain and large altitudes to cross, 
India struggled to bring in much of its attack helicopters, tanks, self propelled artillery and aircraft. Since only a small fraction of roads was available for larger armed formations due to topography and brutal winter conditions, China managed to await the Indian forces in various choke points with its guided missiles fired from the mountains, leaving both sides with only light infantry troops and smaller portions of artillery to fight the enemy. The artillery and missile bombardments in the mountains created a multitude of avalanches, which killed thousands of people, not only in military personnel but also civilian life. China managed to hit several Indian bases in Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir with its bombers, thanks to its superiority in recon satellites. Since China was only able to station a rather small fleet of aircraft in the few bases in the inhospitable plateau of Tibet, India managed to perform a series of aerial incursions all over the Front, with focus on Kashmir. China established some balance of airpower by using commercial airfields in the Plateau of Tibet as long as it took to redeploy more troops to the west. Both sides struggled to use their long range Radar systems, due to the Himalayan mountains, leading the majority of fighting to be done by regular infantry units. The Invasion of Pakistani Kashmir, where both sides already had around 700,000 soldiers stationed lead to massive casualties in just about a Week. The mountainous geography of Kashmir made it Impossible for larger armed formations to break the defenses of either combatant, leading this part of the Front to become quite static. Both India and Pakistan tried to neutralize enemy airfields with missiles, but Pakistani lacked in missiles, compared to India, and the larger distances the Pakistani weapons had to cross, lead to a minor Indian advantage.
India's superiority in intelligence assets, like UAVs allowed it to monitor Pakistani air and ground movements, which lead to the neutralization of a large portion of Pakistan's air force by the end of the first month. Following the constant harassment of Pakistani airfields, India started to use its multi-role aircraft in ground striking operations, in order to support its ground forces for upcoming invasions of Pakistan. While India continuously concentrated its troops for a full scale Invasion of Pakistan, said Revisionist Power on the other hand attempted to invade India where its defenses were the weakest, which was in the area of the Thar desert, but the harsh terrain made it impossible for larger armed formations to cross into India, allowing the defenders to bring the Pakistani push to a halt. Pakistani troops then used the widespread desert to draw out Indian forces, inflicting somewhat heavy casualties on the defenders. In a first invasion wave aside from the Kashmir campaign, India started an offensive into the flat Punjab region, leading to some of the biggest tank battles in History. Since India only had a limited number of roads available for its troops in this narrow area, it also prepared an invasion of the Thar desert, despite the risks, while also staging everything needed for an amphibious assault on the Pakistani coastline. The Pakistani navy, supported by the air force stayed close to the coastal area, due to numerical superiority of India's navy, but it was able to keep the enemies fleet at distance with its relatively modern anti-ship missiles. In order to keep up with Indian forces, Pakistan also received forced conscripts from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, just like Russia did in the West.
=== The Battle for Europe's seas ===
While Europe prepared more and more fresh recruits as a result of mass mobilization for the battle against Russia, the war on the European seas was heating up. In the Baltic Sea, Russian vessels continuously laid out sea mines to deny access to the Polish and Baltic coast for allied ships, while using their Kalibr missiles to disrupt allied supply lines from the sea. The navies of Finland, Sweden, Poland, Denmark and Germany tried to break through Russian naval defenses, but due to continuous submarine attacks, air raids from the occupied Baltic coastline and anti-ship missile attacks, said navies suffered heavy losses, without reaching the Polish coast. The Danish navy also patrolled the entrance of the Baltic Sea, and its own shores, while remaining far enough from the open sea to avoid direct clashes with Russia's fleet. Since the allied fleets dwarfed Russia's Baltic Fleet, Russian vessels stayed close to the coastline and the Baltic Sea entrance close to the Danish defense lines to play more defensively, supporting the Russian air force by sea. Russian Tupolev bombers in the northern Atlantic were able to perform several incursions into the north sea, using long distance stand off missiles to hit allied ships that tried to sail further north. A few American surface vessels and submarines were also sent into the Baltic Sea, in order to give additional support to allied forces in the air, sea and on land. The US navy also conducted several missile strikes against Russian positions around Kaliningrad and the Polish-Baltic coastline, while using its submarines alongside Polish naval aircraft to pinpoint russian special ops forces in the Baltic Sea, trying to sabotage once again gas pipelines and undersea cables in the region. 
Allied vessels then patrolled the UK-Iceland-Greenland gap, in order to prevent any Russian attempt to sail further into the Atlantic. While the allied navy secured said gap, the fleets of Britain, France, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and the US then tried to threaten the base of Russia's Northern Fleet in Murmansk, while also targeting the Russian coastline. The result was the Battle of the Barents Sea, which became one of the largest naval battles of the entire war. The Russian Northern Fleet stayed defensively, in order to protect the Russian coast, inflicting damage to the allied fleet through its attack submarines. Allied ships also came under attack by Russian aircraft and anti-ship missiles from the direction of Murmansk, and even though the allied navy slightly outnumbered the Russian fleet, the Allies suffered heavy casualties. After losing many ships and aircraft against the Russians due to submarine, air, and missile strikes, the allied attack was called off. In the Baltic Sea, Russian airborne assault troops were landed on the Swedish island of Gotland and the Aland islands in the Gulf of Finland, taking those in a rather short period of time. Russia used the time it bought by mining the sea to fortify the Swedish island of Gotland, turning it into another base of operation from which it can threaten allied supply lines with additional Iskander missile attacks. In Poland, the Allies tried desperately to slow down the Russian approach, in order to get enough time to fully consolidate its mobilized troops. US bombers and allied fighter aircraft managed to establish some form of air superiority, using their vast missile arsenal to hit Russian supply lines within conquered territory. Further incursions into Russian territory resulted in disaster though, due to Russia's S-300 and S-400 anti-air defenses, which were able to hit the enemy from within Russia's borders. After the fall of Warsaw, Russia started to dug into the city, using it as some kind of fortress against allied approaches, while revisionist troops pushed towards Bromberg and Danzig. Polish troops on the Hel peninsula tried to slow down the Russian approach from Kaliningrad by using artillery and guided anti-tank missiles, but they became trapped by Russian attacks from the sea, and air and missile attacks from the Kaliningrad exclave, leading them to be almost completely cut off from the mainland.
In Ukraine, the fresh reinforcements in form of the Romanian army did not managed to stop the revisionist advance to the west, but were able to prevent deeper incursions from the Revisionist Powers in the North around Lutsk with the support of the Black Sea Fleet, Russia managed to take the coastal town of Odessa, closing in to the Ukrainian-Moldova/Transnistria border. Protests of the Muslim Crimean Tartars against the continuous influx of Russian forces into the Peninsula, which were seen as an oppressing force by many Tartars, where brought to an violent end by the occupying troops. Russia accused the West of encouraging the Tartarian protests, which also lead to some minor acts of sabotage against the Russian military. As a result, Russian troops in Crimea started to use military force against the protesters, leading to days of civil unrest which culminated in a hundred Tartars being massacred by the Russians. Russian troops stationed in the Moldovan breakaway region of Transnistria were already mobilized and ready to engage in combat, When their counterparts in Ukraine reached the outline of the border. Russian troops in Transnistria then allowed soldier movements from Ukraine into Transnistria, without Moldovan permission. The Moldovan government then demanded that Russian troops from Ukraine should leave Transnistria immediately, in order to prevent Moldova from being entangled in the war. The Moldovan demands were ignored and Russian troops crossed Transnistria to prepare an offensive against Starokozache and Russko-Ivanokova in Ukraine, while also taking position in Rîbnița in order to encircle allied troops in Ukraine. Russian forces then occupied not only the airport of Tiraspol, but also the train station in Tighina, which was already outside Transnistria. The pro-western government of Moldova was under increased pressure to take action, since president Maia Sandu was still reluctant to go to war against Russia. But after Russian missiles launched from Transnistria hit allied targets in Ukraine, the counterstrike not only hit the breakaway republic, but also Moldova, leading to a ultimatum towards Russia that any acts of war from Russian troops in Transnistria should be halted. It is ignored, leading Moldova to declare war on Russia. In the same time in Poland, revisionist troops where able to take Thorn and Bromberg, while fresh recruits from all over Europe arrived on a daily basis in Poland.
The US in the meantime kept bringing in new resources for the Allies and the approximate 70,000 US soldiers in Europe, despite occasional submarine attacks. The American EUCOM took over the role as the main allied command in Europe, while NATOs AIRCOM, LANDCOM and MARCOM became the base commands for allied land, air and sea operations overall. The majority of Russian submarine attacks remained unsuccessful, due to allied naval superiority and the vast number of enemy vessels to hit, while allied guarding ships prevented larger Russian breakthroughs through the UK-Iceland-Greenland gap. Among the US weapons delivered to Europe where large numbers of HIMARS and other rocket launcher systems, aimed for hitting Russian targets by long range artillery bombardment. The US also brought in several anti-air and missile defense systems, just like Patriot and THAAD batteries. Meanwhile, the Allies managed to gather and consolidate enough forces to send more reinforcements along the entire Western Front: Troops from France, the UK, Germany, the US, Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Montenegro took position in Poland, while reinforcements from Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Romania, with French and German support, went to the last free areas of Ukraine. Slovakia, which feared the war will reach is borders as well, also send troops to the cross-section between the Polish and Ukrainian part of the front. After weeks of fierce fighting, Moldova was overrun by the Revisionist Powers, forcing the Moldovan government, as well as the remaining Moldovan troops to Romania, while Russian troops managed to conquer the Odessa Oblast. Meanwhile, more and more war crimes were reported from inside the occupied territories, most notably the Baltics and Ukraine, where there were dozens of massacres against the civilian population, as well as reports about sexual violence, torture and widespread looting. Satellite images revealed a staggering number of mass graves being dug up by the revisionist forces, while in many other, mostly suburban areas photos indicated that many dead bodies of civilians were left by the revisionist troops to rot in the streets without proper burials.
=== The Fall of Taiwan ===
At the Eastern Front, both the Allies and Revisionist Powers struggled to gain the upper hand. On the Korean Peninsula, China managed to establish numerical superiority of ground troops, leading to a revisionist push into South Korea through the second battle of the DMZ, allowing Chinese, Russian, North Korean and Mongolian troops to take Dongducheon. Even though Chinese missile and submarine attacks were able to harass the allied supply lines in the Pacific, the troops of the US, South Korea, Japan, the UK, Australia and New Zealand managed to receive further material resources and additional manpower to hold their ground. The American INDOPACOM in the meantime officially became the main allied command in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
The Allies were able to create some parity with the Revisionist Powers in the sky, since both the Russians and Chinese were able to deploy only a fraction of their air force in Korea, while North Koreas air force contained mostly outdated Cold war era aircraft, leading the Revisionist Powers to suffer heavy casualties in the sky due to superior allied air defenses. This aerial advantage was then used by the US to conduct a series of bomber strikes against revisionist targets in Korea, the East China Sea and occasionally the Chinese coast, leading to several losses on both the ground and the sea for China. The middle kingdom decided to neutralize the allied strongholds in the Pacific, starting with Guam. China launched a Wave of supersonic DF-26 "Guam-Killer" and DF-21 missiles, hitting the US bases in Guam and several Nimitz class carriers as retaliation, leading to heavy civilian casualties on the island and among the US Navy and air force. China then also launched various DF-10 990 pound missiles against Japan and Taiwan, hitting targets on Kyushu and the Senkaku and Tsushima Islands, as well as all over Taiwan. Months of naval blockade and increasing numbers of Chinese landing troops, supported by waves of airstrikes and missile attacks, lead most of Taiwan to fall under Chinese control. Taiwanese forces fell back to Taipei, where they intended to launch a campaign of local counter attacks in order to hold at least some portion of the country until reinforcements arrive. Since the majority of the Taiwanese population was mobilized and armed, the Chinese invaders were still met with pockets of resistance, leading to several massacres against Taiwanese civilians.
Chinese forces swept the cities and shot every civilian that refused to obey, or otherwise opposed the Chinese advance, while the Chinese air force, supported by China's larger network of recon satellites, specifically bombed any civilian area where it suspected any kind of resistance. Through these massacres alone, 10,000 Taiwanese would die until the end of the war. After successfully taking Taiwan and the Senkaku and Tsushima Islands, Chinese forces landed in Okinawa, after months of bombing and missile strikes. Despite heavy resistance from the Japanese brigade and the US forces stationed in Okinawa, China managed to take the majority of the island in a few weeks, due to Chinese ships and submarines preventing any allied reinforcement to through. With both Taiwan and Okinawa as new bases of operation, China prepared for more land grabs by planning to perform Island hoping towards Kyushu. China then stationed multiple A2/AD systems on the conquered islands, creating a new chain of defenses against the Allies. Since the Allies managed to dominate the sky over the Eastern Front, the US kept on interfering with the Chinese advance by performing various B-52 stealth bombing campaigns, which demolished many makeshift bases of the Chinese on conquered territory while also damaging Chinese vessels in the South and East China seas. In the meantime in Korea, the revisionists were able to push further through allied lines, since reinforcements were constantly harassed, allowing the revisionist troops to break through and take Uijeongbu, Chuncheon and Gangneung. This allowed Chinese, North Korean and Russian troops, with Mongolian support to encircle Seoul, leading to fierce urban fighting. In Japan, Russian aircraft performed several incursions and missile strikes on Hokkaido, while the Russian Pacific Fleet battled Japanese vessels in the Sea of Japan.
The Russian navy was pushed back and suffered several casualties, forcing it to take a more defensive position further north, while submarines hunted allied vessels in the sea of Japan and conducted a series of missile strikes against targets on Hokkaido, in order to prevent a amphibious invasion of Russian islands. In the Himalayan mountains, both Indian and Chinese forces were still caught in a deadlock, since neither side was able to bring enough soldiers and heavy equipment over the mountains. China managed to increase the numbers of aircraft on reconverted civilian airfields, so it was able to inflict more damage to incoming Indian planes and attack helicopters. Since China was building up forces in the West for almost two months, the Revisionist Power pushed for an offensive into Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Kashmir, leading to heavy casualties on both sides due to the difficulties of mountain warfare. Both sides were only able to use parts of their missile arsenal against the enemy, since they were stationed in opposite directions. Still, Chinese edge in fighter jets and recon satellites, as well as a slight advantage in attack helicopters, allowed China to successfully push into Indian territory during the battles of said areas. But the Indian part of the Western Front remained static, since the Chinese advance came to a stand-still due to Indian numerical superiority on the ground. In order to successfully take on India, China knew it would need to bypass the Himalaya, leading to Chinese demands to India's neighboring countries for free passage, as well as traditional Chinese allies, and Indian adversaries, to join the revisionist cause. Many nations were reluctant to comply to these demands, although small nations like Nepal and Bhutan were basically forced to join either side, since both of these nations were wedged between China and India. Nepal showed willingness to grant free passage to the Chinese in order to prevent aggression from the Middle Kingdom, while hoping for economic gains. Nepal assumed the vast mountains would provide enough protection against possible Indian retaliation, that is why Nepal allowed Chinese troops to cross its territory towards the Indian border.
Bhutan on the other hand denied China access to its territory and declared its neutrality, while Myanmar also refused to obey to China. The Burmese military junta that took control of Myanmar in 2021, despite being at odds with western democracies, was always weary of China's influence in Myanmar even prior to the war, despite alleged Chinese assistance in its coup, due to China supporting various guerilla groups in Myanmar against the government, which was the reason why the Burmese military chose to oppose the Chinese demands. China namely supported anti-junta rebel forces in the bordering Shan-Staat region, due to the unwillingness of the military leadership to tackle fraudulent companies in the area which hurt Chinese economic and strategic interests. After Myanmar's refusal to allow Chinese troops to encircle India through its territory, immediate hostilities followed soon, while the Burmese military junta signaled willingness to cooperate with allied forces, despite western nations in particular condemning its rise to power in 2021. In the pacific, the Philippines finally declared war on China after the Invasion of Taiwan and Chinese grabbing of islands throughout the region. The president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marco Jr. , after succeeding the authoritarian Rodrigo Duterte a year prior, was rather reluctant to join the Allies, despite the Mutual defense agreement between the Philippines and the US, since the Phillipines, despite tensions with Beijing, was more pro-Chinese than other Asian US Allies, leading the Philippines to play both sides prior to the war. Nonetheless, the Philippines became part of the Allies and brought in naval and air power against the Chinese in the East and South China Sea, while allowing allied forces to come to its territory as another base of operation in addition to Australia. The increasing influx of allied ships from the Pacific to the seas of the Eastern Front lead to massive tension with Indonesia, that followed a more pro-Chinese stand in the years before the war and was already engaged in tensions with Australia due to its aggressive stance against Indonesian refugees on the seas, while also granting asylum to west Papuans. Indonesia used the war to intensify its fight against west Papuan freedom fighters by utilizing brute military force against the separatists. Indonesian troops, that were already more present in this area to protect its neutrality in the world war, were even landed on West Papua to attack the rebels, while being supported by local Islamist militias. Indonesian warships came extremely close to allied vessels, that were stationed on the New Guinean island of Manus, leading to new accusations from the Indonesian government, that the Allies would support west Papua in the way Australia did with East Timor in the 90s. There were also several incidents where Indonesia claimed that allied ships and aircraft were violating its seas and airspace without permission, leading Indonesia to increase the presence of its navy in opposition of allied supply lines. This lead Australian and US ships to almost clash with Indonesian vessels, which were closing in on them. Tensions escalate when Indonesian jets were scrambling allied aircraft on their way towards the Philippines, forcing those to conduct warning shots against the Indonesian assets. Indonesia responded by shooting warning shots against allied vessels that were perceived as being to close to Indonesian waters.
These warning shots were seen as offensive actions, leading allied vessels to hit Indonesian ships and slightly damaging one, which ultimately forced Indonesia to declare war against Australia. The much larger Indonesian navy then cut off allied supply lines in the seas around Australia and its own Islands, while both the Australian and Indonesian navies and air forces engaged in first smaller battles in the Sea of Timor. Indonesia dispersed its navy on a wide Front in the Sea of Timor and Arafura, while keeping its air force closer to the shores of its smaller islands. Australia, supported by its advantage in surveillance planes and radar systems conducted several air raids against the Indonesian navy, as well as Rote island, the Moa and Babar islands and Tanimbar islands, which destroyed several potential airfields and set Indonesian jungle forests ablaze. These airstrikes did not killed many people though, since said islands were not densely inhabited. Meanwhile, Nepal's free passage of Chinese troops lead India to declare war on Nepal, while Bhutan joined the Allies, after Chinese troops where entering its territory without permission. Myanmar also declared war on China, after it also saw Chinese troops crossing the border without the Myanmar government agreeing to it. Bangladesh, a neighbor nation of India, which also had its conflicts with said Asian powerhouse, joined China in opposition of India, as well as out of hopes for economic gains from China. Chinese troops then managed to invade Myanmar and create a corridor towards Nepal, while Bangladeshi troops invading West Bengal also closed in to Chinese troops in Sikkim. Sri Lanka, which hosted a Chinese submarine base as part of the "One road-one belt" initiative also declared war on India due to Chinese pressure.
=== The Southern Front: War against humanity ===
In the Middle East, the Allies were able to manage small successes, compared to the other fronts, but the Hormuz campaign still remained in a deadlock. Well armed Iranian speed boats and fast-attack craft performed several surprise attacks against the US Navy, while covert mines, occasional Iranian quiet submarine assaults and mobile shore-based attacks, leading to steep American losses which turned the strait into a naval no-man's land. In Order to counter this Iranian asymmetric warfare, the US deployed several Littoral Combat ships, which were able to operate at high speeds and could fight close to the beaches, while also being capable to launch attack helicopters and submarines. At the Lebanese part of the front, the Shia militia of Hezbollah, supported by Iran, managed to lure Israeli forces into the steep valleys of southern Lebanon, where they were vulnerable to open attacks. Israeli attempts to destroy Hezbollah's rocket arsenal failed, due to the network of over a thousand tunnels and bunkers Hezbollah has dug over the last years.
The air and missile attacks of Israel lead to many civilian casualties, since Hezbollah placed its strongholds close to the Lebanese population, that why Hezbollah's forces were intermingled among civilians as a form of human shield. Although the Trump administration backed Israel, which blamed Hezbollah for the civilian casualties, many nations of the world still blamed Israel for these losses. Israeli ground troops, supported by American special forces managed to take Tyros and Dibbine, while a few days later, Sidon also fell into Israeli hands, allowing the Allies to threaten Beirut. The Lebanese armed forces, being dominated by Hezbollah for decades, showed only little resistance, since they severely lacked morale and hoped the Shia militia would be exterminated, or at least heavily weakened through this war. Israel suffered several missile strikes from multiple directions, launched by Hezbollah, Iran, and Iranian proxy forces in Syria and Iraq, and even though the advanced Israeli iron dome missile defense intercepted many incoming missiles, Israel still received many hits, due to the enormous numbers of missiles fired. Since the Allies dominated the sky, the Revisionist Powers struggled to manage any forms of land gains, Even though they heavily relied on artillery bombardments, which flattened many allied held population centers, with no regard for civilian life.
Iranian infrastructure and bases along the coast were hit by air-to-ground missiles and the superior Saudi and US air force, although these did not managed to perform any deep incursions into Iranian territory. Iran tried to counter, using its own ballistic missile arsenal, and even though the Saudi patriot missile defense systems provided some protection against the attack, Iran still was successful in hitting strategic Saudi infrastructure and population centers. On the ground, the relatively flat desert fields around Kuwait and Iraq allowed both sides to bring in large armed formations and heavy artillery, leading to the devastation of large inhabited areas, especially since neither side showed regard for civilian life. Even though the Allies had the upper hand in terms of technology, the Revisionist Powers enjoyed numerical superiority, making the allied advance very difficult.
Nonetheless, troops from Israel, Egypt and Jordan, with the help of French, British and American forces were able to break through Syrian defenses and encircle Damascus. In the meantime, Arab troops lead by Saudi Arabia pushed deep into the deserted areas of Iraq, allowing them to threaten Bagdad and moving closer to the Iranian border by taking Basra, forcing Iran to strengthen its defenses on its southwestern border. In the same time, both sides were engaged in the worst war crimes of the 21st century. Saudi troops, accompanied by Sunni militias swept every city they conquered and gathered Shia boys and men, who were then mass executed in order to "secure" the conquered territories. Saudi Arabia justified this barbary with religious reasons, as well as "anti-terror" measures, claiming the killed individuals where either Iranian spies or fighters. This was met with loud outcries from the population of western Allies, while their governments to stayed silent in order to prevent losing Saudi Arabia as an Ally. In Iran, oppressed Sunni minorities started to demonstrate against the regime, while Iranian forces also committed several massacres against Sunnis in Iraq, Syria and Kuwait. The mullah regime blamed the enemy for this civil unrest, and therefore declared those who demonstrated as enemies as well. As a result, the Iranian revolutionary guard started to fire into crowds of Sunni protestors, while arresting and deported those who survived. Iran build several prisons/labor camps in its more remote areas, where they incarcerated Sunnis and forced them into labor as POWs, even though those were Iranian citizens. Many Sunnis, but also western nationals and other minority members where executed and tortured in these camps, which was exploited for allied propaganda.
Turkey, an official ally who secretly collaborated with the Revisionist Powers, also followed through with its campaign against Kurdish regions in the north of Syria and Iraq. The troops of Turkish dictator Erdoğan marched through every single Kurdish city and bombarded those with no regard for civilian life. Despite heavy resistance from the Peshmerga, SDF and YPG, Turkish forces were able to conquer the majority of Kurdish cities north of the Euphrates. While continuing with their conquest, Turkish troops committed countless war crimes against Kurdish fighters and civilians. Kurds were mass killed and tortured, while men and boys where forced to dig ditches to dispose their own bodies after being executed by the Turkish military. Women and girls where often abducted for weeks and raped, before most of them where ultimately killed as well. Turkey denied any claims of these massacres, calling them fake news and anti-Turkish propaganda, while also insisting that every measure taken in the conquered areas was only against "terrorists" and righteous. Reports came up about Iranian forces launching missiles against the Turks in Iraqi Kurdistan, and while this was used by allied politicians as an proof of Turkish commitment for the alliance, the reality was that this was a joint Iranian-Turkish offensive against Kurds in northern Iraq, disguised as a confrontation between the two nations. Nonetheless, rifts in the covert Turkish-revisionist alliance became obvious, since Turkish troops clashed with Russian and Iranian forces, leading to various casualties for these Revisionist Powers, who were still enraged by the fact, that Turkey refused to refrain from delivering weapons to revisionist enemies like Ukraine, Azerbaijan and others. 
=== Onslaught in the Caucasus ===
While both Europe and Asia continued to plunge deeper into chaos and destruction, the Caucasus, as a cross-section between those continents, also saw increased actions of war. While Georgia engaged in combat against Russian backed forces in the self-proclaimed republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, both Armenia and Azerbaijan once again went to war against each other. Tensions remained high between the two nations since the conquest of Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan in 2023 and the following mass-displacement of almost all Karabakh Armenians. Tensions between the two Caucasus republics remained therefore high, not only because of armenian insurgents clinging on the existence of Nagorno-Karabakh, but also because of expressed azeri ambitions to take land from Armenia proper, namely the Zangesur-corridor which would connect Azerbaijan with the azeri enclave Nakchivan. Despite having a numerical superiority against Armenia, the positions of troops at the beginning of hostilities did not completely favor the Azeris. The autonomous Azeri region of Nakhchivan was almost completely surrounded by Armenian troops, despite Azeri earlier advances during the conquest of Nagorno-Karabakh, while the mountainous terrain of both nations only allowed their armored formations to act as direct infantry support.
Occasional clashes along the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan were reported in the weeks and months earlier, during which both sides accused each other of trying to open new hostilities. Azerbaijan claimed that armenian „terrorists“ conducted attacks on azeri forces along the border and the conquered Karabakh region, using this as justification to launch a new military offensive against Armenia itself. During the initial hostilities, armenian troops, supported by former Karabakh fighters attempted to cross into Azerbaijan through the formerly disputed territory, while Armenian troops attacked Nakhchivan, using artillery to shell this relatively isolated part of Azerbaijan. Through this intensive bombardment, Armenia managed to take Dyudengya and Shahbuz, while further north pushing towards Tovuz. The Armenian offensive into Nagorno-Karabakh only saw minor successes, while insurgent activities and clashes with azeri forces were reported in the Shusha and Mardakert districts of the Karabakh region. The Armenian lack of fighter jets on the other hand allowed Azerbaijan to establish air supremacy, using Israeli Jets and drones for both surveillance and offensive operations. Azerbaijan also used its arsenal of ballistic missiles to stop the Armenian push, but due to both sides relying mostly on infantry units entrenched in the mountains and hills, these missile strikes remained rather ineffective. Armenia's inventory of anti-air defenses lead to increased Azeri casualties, although Azerbaijan's advantage in fighter aircraft and its inventory of Turkish attack drones allowed it to hit several anti-air batteries in counterstrikes. Due to the mountainous terrain, the movements of both sides were heavily slowed down, while Azeri jets used Turkish standoff missiles to hit Armenian targets all over the front, allowing it to increase the pressure on central Armenia. Azerbaijan was able to add a large portion of its reservist pool into the army, which enabled it to retake the small territory Armenia was able to capture in the opening stages of the conflict. Attack helicopters were used by both sides to maneuver smaller concentrations of troops over the hills, while Armenia pushed further into Nakhchivan.
Iran supported Armenia by conducting some smaller airstrikes against Azeri targets close to its border. Turkey on the other hand used the aggression against Nakhchivan to justify a declaration of war against Armenia. Turkish troops stationed in Nagorno-Karabakh after the war of 2020 joined in on the Azeri offensives and provided additional man and firepower. While Turkey launched a full scale invasion and bombing campaign against Armenia, Turkish proxy forces, which were comprised mostly of jihadist mercenaries from Syria and Libya, also joined the fighting against the Armenians, leading to the first reports of war crimes being committed against ethnic Armenian civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia proper. Reports came up about Armenian civilians getting beheaded both alive and post mortem, getting their ears mutilated whilst being alive, getting impaled, raped, tortured and murdered in various gruesome ways while many atrocities were filmed and shared among Azeri, Turkish and Syrian media . Armenia wasn’t free of committing war crimes either, due to many captured Azeri soldiers being unlawfully executed without a trial, while Armenia was confirmed to have used forbidden cluster ammunition missiles, although this came after Azerbaijan used said cluster ammunitions itself first against civilian and military targets. The approximately 5000 Russian soldiers in the Armenian capital of Yerevan where concentrated in the North of Armenia, to open another front against Georgia, while also avoiding confrontation with Turkey over Armenia. The Russian peacekeeping forces stationed in the border region close to Nagorno-Karabakh after the war of 2023 were left unharmed by the Turks and for the most part by the Azeris, and gave way to their joint offensive, effectively abandoning Armenia in the process. In Georgia, pro Russian insurgents from the rogue regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia continued to attack Georgian forces gathered around the disputed borders, supported by more than 3000 Russian soldiers and Russian medium-range aircraft and artillery. Georgian troops were able to break through barricades around Ghogethi, and the Tsitelubani and Orchosani region, which were used over the years to take additional Georgian territory through creeping annexation. While Georgian forces advanced towards Akhalgori and shelled Tskhinvali, the push into Abkhazia was halted by incoming Russian soldiers. Russia launched a series of missile attacks against targets all over Georgia, including Zugdidi, Gori, Agara and Kareli, while the Russian Black Sea Fleet started to shell Georgian positions around Abkhazia. The Russian forces at Georgia's southern border were able to either take or destroy important infrastructure around Amamlo and Naghvarevi, relieving the pressure on South Ossetia. Turkish troops agreed to stay out of Georgia, while Russian forces on the other hand did not interfered with the Turkish offensive against Armenia, due to the mutual cooperation agreement Turkey had with the Revisionist Powers.
=== The Battle of Kaliningrad ===
With the Scandinavian part of the frontline being static, and the Revisionist Powers almost completely taking Ukraine, the Allies were desperate to stop the revisionist advance in Poland. More and more recruits are streaming into the war zone, while allied aircraft and anti-air defenses were able to further install supremacy in the sky, despite constant Russian harassment of allied airfields all over Europe. After the last Polish troops from the Hel peninsula have been rescued, and civilians have been brought into the safety of refugee camps along the Polish-German border, allied forces started the offensive against the Russian stronghold of Kaliningrad, from where a lot of Iskander-missile attacks against central Europe have been conducted.
Since the Revisionist Powers focused their strength further south after the fall and fortification of Warsaw, the Allies hoped to neutralize the comparatively small exclave of Russia, in order to stop the revisionist advance. Allied surveillance aircraft and satellites helped them in their local build ups of forces, while smaller offensives all over the Polish front occurred as an diversion. Troops from Poland, Germany, France, the UK and to an smaller extend the US and remnants of the Lithuanian army started the offensive against Kaliningrad by launching several air and artillery strikes against the exclave, while allied navy assets conducted missile attacks against the Russian Baltic Fleet and its base. It was the first time in the entire war that official Russian territory became the target of actions of war, leading to a fierce counter attack from Russian and Belarusian forces. Due to the numerical advance of allied troops, the European offensive did managed to push into the territory of Kaliningrad, while allied air losses mounted rapidly because of Russian S-300 and S-400 systems stationed in the exclave. Russia reinforced Kaliningrad by deploying its airborne brigades, including air droppable armored vehicles. Russia's Baltic fleet then launched several Kalibr missile strikes against allied targets on the ground of Kaliningrad, with no regard for their own soldiers there.
The Allies also managed to perform a series of airborne landings due to still being superior in the sky, which lead Russia to use its Iskander inventory with the shortest range possible, creating hundreds of casualties in both allied and Russian personnel. Allied air superiority though allowed the attackers to track down several mobile Iskander launchers, leading those platforms to be neutralized. The allied advance soon started to slow down due to increasing Russian bombing campaigns against the front line, as well as the inexperience of the new allied recruits. Especially the German forces suffered huge casualties, since Germany conscripted thousands of unfitted recruits with an absolute minimum of training. Russian Spetsnaz special forces were deployed in order to interrupt allied communications, along with electronic jamming systems, just like the Krasukha-4 which was able to blind ISR platforms. In order to stop the allied attacks against Kaliningrad, Russia resorted to the use of rather inhumane conventional weapons.
Russia decided to deploy its arsenal of TOS-1 MLRS weapons, which fired rockets with fuel-air explosive warheads en masse against allied targets. The warheads spread a chemical cloud in the air, that seeped into buildings and every Open space, before being ignited by a secondary explosive. The heat of the long lasting explosions caused lethal burns, the overpressure created lead to the creation of a partial vacuum due to the sudden combustion of air, killing hundreds to thousands of soldiers in grotesque ways. The explosions and resulting fires caused the victims to suffer bone fractures, internal hemorrhaging and suffocation, due to the air that was being sucked out of their lungs. Russia also used Smerch and Uragan MRLS platforms that were using incendiary warheads as well. In order to neutralize Russian mobile artillery pieces and anti-air defenses, NATO deployed several long range LRA-B bombers at the Western front, which were able to jam even low frequency VHF radars. Germany deployed a huge line of Leopard 2A7 tanks, which saw some minor successes while supported by allied air forces, but since the Bundeswehr only used tungsten ammunition, they were often unable to break through the armor of Russia's T-80, T-90 and the superior T-14 Armata tanks. France on the other hand deployed its Leclerc tank brigades that were using autoloader systems capable of shooting up to 12 rounds per minute. The allied tank offensives were also supported by several attack helicopters, like the American Apache, that were using hellfire missiles, as well as the Eurocopter Tiger armed with Hellfire, PARS 3, HOT 3 anti-tank missiles, as well as Spike missiles. The Israeli made 31-pound spike missiles were able to hit targets from a distance of 800m-8 km, piercing through tank armors after the detonation of the tanks own reactive armor, leading to heavy losses on the Revisionist side.
With both sides throwing in the bulk of their most destructive weapon systems, the fighting started to turn into a war of attrition, leading to enormous losses on both sides. With the battlefields being engulfed and devastated by explosions and terrible fire storms, those who survived the carnage would remember the Battle of Kaliningrad simply as "Kalinin's Hellgate". After almost a month of brutal fighting, the Allies were forced to call off the attack. At this Point, the Battle of Kaliningrad was the worst Battle of the Western Front so far. The Allies realized that at this rate they would not be able to stop the Revisionist Powers from overrunning Poland, forcing them to change their strategy completely. They started to dig in and fortify the entire Front, leading to a network of trenches, barricades and other fortifications along a line incoherently stretching from the Baltic Sea to Moldova. This was possible due to allied air supremacy and technological advantage, while Russia also fortified multiple of the conquered cities in Poland. The area between the lines became the battlefield of tank, infantry and artillery attacks, leading it to be nicknamed the "New No-Mans Land".
=== Slaughter in South Asia: the Indo-Pakistani Front ===
While China saw some success against India in the Himalaya, India itself was on the advance against its year long nemesis Pakistan, which was supported by the former Soviet republics in central Asia. Indian forces kept pushing through the Thar desert, but the harsh terrain lead India's armored vehicles to break down, while the Pakistani defenders used the wide landscape to their advantage, pursuing a guerilla tactic against the invading Indians.
At the same time, Indian naval assets initiated several operations against Pakistani forces, which were kept close to Pakistan's shores, due to India's far more superior fleet, while Pakistan's batteries of modern anti-ship missiles kept the Indian fleet at bay for as long as possible. On the ground, the war in South Asia saw only minor progress. The Indian offensive through the Thar desert kept slowing down, since the lack of infrastructure and the harsh conditions in the desert lead the armored vehicles to become increasingly inoperative in larger quantities, while the lack of natural obstacles, like trees, allowed the Pakistani defenders to inflict somewhat greater casualties to the Indians by using the more urbanized areas of this region on the Pakistani side of the border as defenses. Further south, the wetlands of the Indus Delta prevented any larger Indian formation to cross significantly into Pakistan, leading to brutal guerilla warfare in the swamps. Due to the fact India kept harassing Pakistan's airfields and bases over the year with missile strikes, while overwhelming Pakistani fighter jets with the quality and quantity of their airpower, India managed to neutralize the majority of Pakistan's air force as a threat until the end of 2022, leaving Pakistan to only perform occasional harassment strikes from bases further in the west.
While the fighting in Kashmir was still in a deadlock due to the mountainous terrain in the north, the battle of Punjab intensified even more. After months of intense tank fighting, India managed to push through the flat spaces of Punjab into Pakistan, allowing it to take Lahore. This forced Pakistan to increase the defenses around Islamabad significantly, since the Pakistani capital was very close to the front in Kashmir. Chinese forces entering the battle through the Chinese part of Kashmir managed to relieve a bit of pressure on Pakistan, but this was not enough to prevent the Indians from further advancing into Punjab. The invasion of Pakistan created a rift between the Pakistani military leadership and the government, since the generals threatened to use nuclear weapons if deemed necessary, even without authorization from the government.
== 2027 ==
=== The Eastern Front: China's conquest continues ===
At the beginning of 2026, China occupied Taiwan, the Senkaku and Tsushima Islands and Taiwanese islands in the South China Sea. With the new year came a new wave of Chinese offensives against allied Islands. Chinese missile strikes from the continent kept targeting Japanese bases around Kyushu, allowing China to neutralize a large fraction of Japans anti-submarine Aircraft. This then lead to a increased numerical advantage of Chinese submarines in the waters of the East China Sea, causing the majority of Japanese submarines to be destroyed. While China used its submarines and naval missile and anti-aircraft assets to keep pressure on Japan around Kyushu, Chinese troops in the South managed to use the conquered Senkaku and Sakishima Islands as staging grounds for amphibious and airborne assaults against Okinawa.
The months of continuous missile strikes and the harassment of allied reinforcement routes allowed China to successfully overwhelm Japanese and American forces on Okinawa, despite US air support. Since the supply lines of the Allies coming from Australia has been interrupted by the fighting between Australia and Indonesia, and reinforcements from Japanese mainland are hindered by Chinese forces in the East China Sea, China was able to use more of the taken territory to perform island hopping. As soon as Chinese forces kept closing in on Japanese mainland, the Islands taken from Japan were not able to sustain enough forces to realistically threaten Kyushu. American forces coming from the Philippines managed to slow down the Chinese advance by inflicting heavy casualties on the invading forces from a distance. While the revisionist advance on the Korean peninsula was slowed down due to the combined effort of American, South Korean, Japanese, British and Australian troops, Seoul remained encircled and under siege as one of the last allied bastions in the north of South Korea. American bomber raids against Chinese coastal targets came to an almost stand-still, since the continuous attacks on allied bases in the Pacific and the newly deployed Chinese anti-access defense systems on conquered islands heavily disrupted the US-led approaches.
Seeking a different strategy against China, the Allies attempted to increase their effort to strangle China economically by creating multiple naval blockades, since China was very reliant on marine trafficking. The Indian navy, despite being in preparation of an amphibious invasion of Pakistan and probably also Sri Lanka, supported the allied blockades by sailing into the Malaysian strait of the South China Sea, attempting to cut off merchant shipping lines, while also increasing the pressure on the Chinese navy. Since the Indians had to cross larger distances to reach the more narrow waters of the strait, China managed to prepare an ambush against the Indian navy with Indonesian support, using their submarines and long range naval missiles to inflict damage to the approaching forces, although losing several vessels itself in the process, weakening its positions in the South China Sea. The fighting still caused a massive disruption of marine trading, leading to heavy tensions with the southeast-Asian nations bordering the South China Sea. In Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam voices became loud to stop the Chinese expansionism in favor of the Allies, while those also increased the political pressure on Thailand and Brunei to join as well. In China itself, various protests of young Chinese and the Uighur minority erupted around the date of the Tiananmen massacre, causing civil unrest and brutal countermeasures from the Chinese security forces for the sake of "protecting the peace in China". Xi Jinping accused the Allies of orchestrating the riots in order to destabilize China, which was used as a justification for violence against the protesters. Hundreds of people where killed all over China during the riots, while many arrested Uighurs and regime-critics were transported into Chinese "re-education camps", where they were tortured and forced into labor, while also many of them were executed right away. As an last attempt of diplomatic approach, the UN, which condemned the war since the beginning and deployed blue-helmets along all frontlines called for a meeting to seek a dialogue between the Allies and Revisionist Powers.
While leaders of allied countries gathered in New York to attend the meeting, the Revisionist Powers, like China, Russia and Iran only dispatched a small entourage of diplomats, who arrived in New York under extremely high security measures, in order to avoid unnecessary escalation. While enormous protests of pro-allied and revisionist crowds emerged outside the UN building, inside the representatives of both sides used this opportunity to demonstrate their view of the war, blaming the other side, while claiming to act on a legitimate basis. Multiple non-politicians were invited as well, in order to show the suffering the war has caused. Soldiers who fought at the Battle of Kaliningrad delivered speeches that showed the perspective of the fighting troops of the conflict, while civilians from South Korea and refugees from Taiwan reported about the horrors the non-military population had to endure. Overall, the conference remained inconclusive despite both sides claiming they would want to try to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict. The UN would not gather again for the remainder of the war, while waring nations like the US, China and Russia even left the organization, causing the UN to ultimately crumble apart over the course of WW3.
=== The Western Front: War in the Balkans ===
At the Western Front, movements on both sides slowed down significantly after the bloody battle of Kaliningrad. The Allies kept digging in along the entire front, using razor-wires, trenches, anti-tank mines and several Patriot and THAAD batteries delivered by the US to fortify their positions. The US also brought in waves of heavy firepower deliveries like modified M 134 Miniguns and Browning M2.50 Caliber heavy machine guns, that were used as stationary weapons to further prevent any more Russian advances towards the west. All allied nations of Europe carried in their biggest artillery pieces, causing unprecedented destruction in the so called "No mans land", the battlefields between the fortifications and positions of both sides. The Allies were able to dig in due to their air supremacy, yet Russian S-400 anti-air systems kept causing heavy casualties for the allied air force, preventing any deeper incursions into occupied territories.
Russia was also able to foresee the attack patterns of allied aircraft, especially the NATO F-35-Jets, because of the data it received through Turkish S-400 deliveries, that were connected to NATO software by Turkey in 2019 and afterwards. In the North, Russia was still forced to take the defense in the Norwegian territory around Murmansk, using mountainous terrain to fortify as well, while preventing allied advances towards its Northern Fleet base by using cruise and standoff missiles, accompanied by shelling from the Barents Sea. In Finland, allied troops of Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK and Canada managed to push the revisionist offensive into Lappland back around Inari, forcing Russia to increase its defenses at the northern Russo-Finnish border. With the war raging from the Barents Sea to the Black Sea, tensions also started to rise in the Balkans as well. Since various Balkan NATO-members were at least officially at war with the Revisionist Powers, and Serbia gravitating towards Russia, Kosovo felt right in its ambitions to build up its own young army, in order to protect itself in the case that war breaks out in the Balkans too, especially since nations like Albania and Montenegro could have become targets of Russian attacks. While Kosovo continued its efforts to bolster its own army, as already declared and started in 2018, Albania supported this ambition, and offered to help Kosovo improving its relatively young armed forces.
Despite massive Serbian protest, Albanian soldiers entered Kosovo and started to train its people, while also bringing in weapons and ammunitions. Serbia, which still held a grudge against NATO for its bombing campaign during the Kosovo and Bosnia wars, demanded the Albanian forces to leave Kosovo immediately, accusing Albania to pursuit a "Greater Albania" doctrine in Kosovo. Ethnic Serbs in the North of Kosovo started to rally together and protest against the Albanian military presence and the Kosovarian build up of forces. The heavily armed Kosovo police force took action against these protesters, and arrested dozens of Serbs, leading Serbia to fully alert its armed forces and gather it along the northern border of Kosovo. There, tensions were already high due to both sides having deployed special units and even military forces prior to the war, due to issues concerning Kosovo requiring entering vehicles to use provisional Kosovarian license plates, similar to what Serbia demands entering car drivers to do when coming from Kosovo, although the Kosovarian practice was seen as discriminatory against ethnic Serbs in Kosovo. Serbian troops engaged in several border clashes with NATO peacekeeping forces stationed in Kosovo since the early 2000s and Kosovarian troops that were mobilized at the borders, and as soon as the actions against ethnic Serbian rallies lead to the first victims being killed in fights with the police and Albanian forces, Serbia declared war on Kosovo and Albania, officially joining the Revisionist Powers in favor of Russia. The outbreak of hostilities in the Balkans also lead to a mobilization of the newly built up and foreign support self-defense forces of the semi-autonomous Serbian region Republica Sprska in Bosnia Herzegovina as a sign of support for Serbia, leading to tensions with the central government of Sarajevo.
=== Palestine goes to War again ===
At the Southern Front in 2027, the Allies enjoyed some success in their fight against Iran and its Allies and proxies. Clandestine special operation forces of the US inside Iran managed to destroy and sabotage key assets of the enemy, while also bringing allied insiders into safety outside of the Islamist republic. Iran itself suffered from a depletion of ammunition stockpiles, even though Russia tried to hold up its supplies for its fellow Revisionist Power. The Allies on the other hand managed to use their advantage in the eastern Mediterranean to bring in more resources to deal with the bulk of Iranian, Iraqi and Syrian defenses, while also supporting Israel's effort against Lebanon and Hezbollah. The US brought increased numbers of Patriot missiles, HIMARS Rocket Systems and attack helicopters like the Apache that was already used at the Western Front. The Iranian proxy forces in Syria and Iraq used explosively formed penetrators to deliver damage to American anti-IED assets on the battlefield, even though this was not enough to prevent US-special forces from targeting and neutralizing many of the underground bunkers, from where they received their supplies.
US B-52 stealth bombers, some of which were stationed in the region as early as 2019, were also used to circumvent Iranian air-defenses. Among these air defenses were not only the Iranian made Bavar-373 surface to air missiles, but also Russian S-300 and S-400 systems, which saw great success against allied air forces at the Western Front. In order to cope with these systems, the Allies massively increased their sortie raids, leading to more than 1,500 strikes to be performed per day at the Southern Front. In the gulf, the US used airborne intelligence to detect enemy threats, since the nature of the strait gave the allied fleet only short warning time to react to attacks from enemy assets like Iran's Ghadir-class mini-subs. In order to deal with Iranian anti-ship warfare in the Gulf, the US also brought in Rolling Airframe missiles, Evolved Sea-Sparrow missiles and standard missiles, that kept decimating Iran's own cruise missile inventory. America deployed up to three carrier groups in the Region, although the continuous battle in the Persian Gulf forced the majority of the fleet to operate from the Arabian Sea, targeting Iran's southern coast off the shores of neutral Oman. Despite many Iranian anti-ship batteries along the southern coast being destroyed, the US still lost one carrier in the process, rendering the revisionists in the Middle East a somewhat propaganda success. Further to the West, the Palestinian territories kept being entangled in the war. After the radical Islamist Hamas pledged its alliance to Iran as early as 2022, both Israel and Hamas kept exchanging hostilities since the beginning of the Gaza War in 2023, causing the latter to proclaim that it would not stop attacking Israel until it drops out of the war in favor of Iran and leaves Gaza for good, hoping that this could help Hamas to increase its pressure on Israel to push it away from the Gaza campaign.
After hundreds of Iranian made missiles hit targets all over western Israel, like Tel Aviv, dozens of Israelis were killed since Israel's Iron-Dome air-defenses were worn out and depleted after almost 2 years of fighting. After a radical Palestinian suicide attack in Jerusalem that killed another 100 Israeli civilians, Israel intensified its operations in the Gaza Strip, which was already occupied by Israeli forces since the end of 2024 to wipe out the remains of Hamas. This caused a massive opposing reaction from the Palestinian population, leading hundreds of protesters to gather at the barricades of the israeli occupation force and fight against the outside forces. Civilians threw rocks and used slingshots against the heavily armed Israeli forces, while Hamas members used the crowds as human shields and covers to fire at the Israeli troops. This caused the Israelis to take countermeasures, leading to exchanges of fire between the Hamas, its allied terrorist groups and the Israeli forces between the protesters, which lead to the death of hundreds of Palestinian civilians, exploited by Hamas and Iranian propaganda, as well as allied arab media, which caused rifts between the arab coalition and Israel’s western supporters.
=== The Eastern Front: Fighting in Southeast Asia ===
With fighting continuing in and around India, as well as Korea and the seas of Southeast Asia, more and more nations in the region became entangled in the war. After China invaded Bhutan and Myanmar in 2027, both nations kept on trying to push the Chinese back into their territory. The US managed to land troops as reinforcements in India, along additional forces from Australia, and in smaller quantities the UK, France and New Zealand. While the majority of said troops took position against the Chinese, and Nepalese at the northern borders of India, another contingent supported Indian troops crossing into Myanmar against China's encircling operation. China on the other hand used its political and economic leverage to convince its ally Laos to join the war on the revisionists side.
Troops from Laos and China managed to take Taunggyi, while a push into Myitkyina could be halted. Vietnam suffered under the economic pressure it had to endure due to the battles in the South and East China Seas and the blockades both sides imposed against each other. With the regular supply lines from the sea therefore cut, Vietnam was increasingly dependent on its alternative supply route between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh, which was also heavily interrupted. Since Vietnam became continuously weary of China's influence in the years before the war, while also significantly improving its relations with the US and the West as a whole, this lead more and more anti-Chinese sentiments to become obvious in Vietnam. After China demanded Vietnam to let its troops enter its territory in order to keep encircling Myanmar and India, Vietnam, despite the protest of the remaining pro-Chinese forces of its population, declared war on China and Laos. While Chinese troops invaded Vietnam at the northern border, the Vietnamese air force launched several strikes against the Chinese cities of Gejiu and Qinzhou. Since the majority of Chinese anti-air defenses were concentrated in the East and at the Indo-Chinese border, many of the airstrikes could not be intercepted, leading to the first hits on inner-Chinese targets since the beginning of the war.
The Vietnamese navy on the other hand launched a series of hit and run raids against Hainan in the Gulf of Tonkin, while also attacking Chinese vessels in the South China Sea in order to relieve pressure from the maritime trading lines. While Vietnamese ships closed up with allied vessels in the South China Sea, ground troops were starting to invade Laos, threatening Attapeu in the south, and Sekong further north. Chinese troops battered their way through Vietnamese border defenses, leading the Vietnamese to engage in bloody guerilla warfare against the invaders, which caused staggering Chinese casualties in the jungles of Vietnam. The ongoing fighting in Southeast Asia and the Pacific forced other ASEAN nations to choose sides, in order to prevent being inactively entangled in the war. Pro-Chinese state Cambodia chose to join the Revisionist Powers by declaring war against Vietnam, which on the other hand retaliated against Cambodian incursions by invading its neighbor using its armored vehicles and larger number of infantry troops.
=== Struggle at the Indo-Pacific Front ===
While more and more nations of Southeast Asia got entangled in the fighting between the Allies and the Revisionist Powers, the conflict in the Indo-Pacific saw no signs of easing either. Chinese submarines, now occasionally supported by their Indonesian counterparts, kept attacking allied vessels and the remaining allied economic shipping lines, while also conducting some smaller missile strikes against the bases on the Mariana Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the Manus Island of Papua New Guinea. The attack on the latter, along with the fighting between Australia and New Guineas neighbor Indonesia lead the pacific island state to allow further allied military presence on its mainland for protection.
At the same time, Indonesia intensified its fight against West Papuan freedom fighters, which it still believed were supported by the Allies, by using phosphorus bombs in West Papua. After the territory of New Guinea was caught in the crossfire of Indonesian aggression, while there were also several incidents of Indonesian jets entering New Guinean airspace to target Australian forces on Manus island, Papua New Guinea declared war against Indonesia. The naval war at the same time was also intensifying between the Allies and Indonesia, since the latter dispersed its entire fleet on a large front, effectively cutting off East Timor, while also converting civilian airports on the Sumba, Flores, Sumbawa and Lombok islands, as well as West Timor to stage attacks against northern coastal Australia. Australian intelligence noticed the preparations for the aerial campaign, leading to an early warning for the Allies, while the first wave of incoming Indonesian attack surface vessels was detected by Australia's Jindalee OTH radar. Australian long-range airborne radar platforms then identified the attacking ships, some of which were armed with modern ASuW missiles, which were then attacked by Australian submarines. Due to numerical Indonesian advantage, only the additional sea power of the US, Britain, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea prevented the bulk of Australia's surface fleet to be decimated. Australia did manage to relocate most of its airbases further north during the last few years of the war, leading dozens of Australian and other allied aircraft to always be available to prevent Indonesian incursions.
Australian ships coming from the Butterworth base in Malaysia engaged in hostilities with Indonesian and Chinese naval forces in the Malacca strait, leading Malaysian mainland close to Kuala Lumpur to be caught in the crossfire as well. The aggression in the Malacca strait, and the Malaysian losses of trading and fishing ships due to Indonesian and Chinese attacks, forced Malaysia to join the allied war effort against the Revisionist Powers. Singapore, a traditional US ally saw the escalation in both the Pacific and Southeast Asia with great concern, leading Singapore to also declare war on Indonesia and China. While the allied pressure on Indonesia therefore increased significantly, the island state still managed to take the small Australian Christmas and Cocos Islands, featuring both long runways for potential air force build up of the Revisionist Powers.
=== News from the South: Africa enters the War ===
The escalation in Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific increased the economic pressure on both the Allies and the Revisionist Powers. With both sides imposing blockades against each other, while the most important maritime traffic routes have been disrupted, the belligerents were eager to find ways to replace the resources missing, or other ways to relieve the pressure on them. The Revisionist Powers under China therefore encouraged their regional partners in Africa to take action against allied troops stationed on the continent and their resources. At the same time, allied troops were making plans to secure the oilfields of North Africa, since the flow of middle eastern oil has been heavily disrupted by the war. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt therefore encouraged general Haftar and his forces in Libya to start new offensives against the opposing Libyan GNA government in the West, in order to further cutting it off from the oilfields in the North of the country.
Since Egypt was heavily reliant on subsidized oil from Libya after the First Gulf War, Egyptian troops of el-Sisi joined Haftar's attack and carried out airstrikes on Libyan targets, while Haftar's forces started to shell Tripoli once again like they did in 2019. Egypt justified this actions officially by using terrorist movements through its shared border with Libya as an excuse. The UAE and Saudi Arabia delivered weapons and financial resources for Haftar, while the general also encouraged militias to participate in the conflict from the South. The Libyan government condemned this act of aggression and therefore declared war on Haftar's supporters Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The US provided Haftar with diplomatic cover, after Saudi Arabia and Egypt lobbied over the years in his favor. Ironically, Haftar also enjoyed assistance from members of the Russian paramilitary Wagner-Group, which provided support in form of aerial and artillery expertise. Turkey, as a supporter of the anti-Haftar factions in Libya also condemned the escalation in North Africa, and threatened to protect its interests in Libya with all means necessary, while Qatar, another supporter of the GNA government also declared it will not tolerate this kind of aggression, leading the gulf state to provide more financial aid for its Libyan allies, which in return increased the tensions between Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Haftar's forces, supported by the Egyptian air force also increased their offensives towards Libya's coastline. The coalition of Haftar's army, allied militias, tribal forces and Egyptian troops launched new attacks on Sirte, Zintan and Nalut, while the march towards Tripoli was still bogged down. Many tribes in Libya also engaged on Haftar's side against Tripoli, while receiving diplomatic goodwill from Tunisia, which sought a Libyan-Libyan solution for the conflict and already supported many tribal leaders before the war, causing tensions with Tripoli. Turkish troops already deployed in Libya took position around Tripoli and conducted several ground and drone operations against Haftar's forces, while avoiding direct confrontation with Haftar's backers for now. The UAE, as a important backer of Haftar, also conducted a series of airstrikes along its Egyptian counterpart, using F-16 planes to target pro-governmental militias in the north of Libya. The Tripoli government on the other hand encouraged Toubou tribe warriors in the south, as well as anti-Haftar Chadian militias to operate against the generals coalition, leading to an increased influx of Chadian rebels and extremists flooding through the southern border of Libya.
Chad, which was engaged in clashes with the same rebels that were infiltrating Libya to fight Haftar, accused the government in Tripoli of supporting terrorists in the Sahel, heightening the tensions between those two north African nations as well. Turkey, which hoped to gain access to Libya's oilfields and hydrocarbon resources in the Mediterranean as a mean to counter Egypt, Israel and Greece, delivered weapons and other hardware to the government of Tripoli, while its navy started to interfere with Egyptian vessels delivering supplies for Haftar. The tensions caused between the Allies caused by this lead to the first demands by Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE to disband Turkey from the Allies, while stopping the support for Erdoğan's regime. The western Allies on the other hand were still reluctant to oppose Turkey, fearing it may stops fighting against Iraq and Syria, or maybe turning to the Revisionist Powers, unknowing that there was already a cooperation between the two sides. Algeria, which had deep ties with Revisionist Powers like Russia and China, also positioned itself against Haftar and his supporters in the wake of this new escalation, worrying about Libya's stability and the potential consequences a collapse of its neighbor, while falling under the influence of its rival Egypt. German naval forces, which were guarding the Libyan coastline against illegal weapon shipments coming from sea, where attacked from the land and air, although it was not clear which side was responsible for this. Additionally, to these developments, both the Allies and Revisionist Powers lobbied in all of Africa for support of their cause by promising the respective nations humanitarian aid in form of food deliveries. Since the war broke out, the already tense global food crisis caused by the Ukraine War was intensified by tenfold, causing unprecedented famine and starvation in many nations, particularly in Africa, which made the humanitarian offers of the war parties rather attractive for the members of the African Union.
=== The Western Front: Battle for No Mans Land ===
With the year nearing its end, both sides at the Western Front remained in a stalemate. Since winter was setting in, larger movements of heavy equipment became increasingly difficult, leading Russian logistics to come close to the brink of collapse, due to Russia's forces being overstretched from the Barents Sea all the way to the Black Sea. In the north, the Allies of Scandinavia, Britain and Canada tried to compensate for the deadlock by engaging in guerilla warfare against the Russians. Similar to German stormtrooper tactics during WW1, and Finnish anti-Soviet warfare during WW2, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish troops used the remaining forests of northern Scandinavia as cover in order to perform surprise raids against pockets of Russian defenses.
The allied attack-forces were using new kinds of weapon sights, which combined thermal imaging and image intensifier sights for precision attacks. Since the Russian troops where thinned out due to the large front Russia had to cover, this kind of guerilla warfare proved to be very effective against Russian attempts to break the stalemate. Russia tried on the other hand to compensate for allied raids by executing Iskander missile strikes against the North Cape, which saw increased fortification as well. More missile strikes hit targets around Hammerfest, Alta and Kautokeino, further disrupting allied supply lines from Norway into Finland. The allied defenders were able to remain somewhat mobile though, using ski-mobiles, Viking armored ATVs, unarmored BV-206s and regular snowmobiles, which allowed the Allies to move in pace with their convoys and attacking brigades. In order to protect the allied lines in Scandinavia, the Allies deployed multiple NASAMS air defense systems, which were using American MPQ-64 Sentinel 3D radars to detect both Russian aircraft and missiles, like the Buk-missile. Further south, both the Allies and the Revisionist Powers remained in a brutal fight for the so called "New No Mans Land" in Poland, Ukraine and the Romanian-Moldavian border. While the main front lines remained static, the killing fields between the trenches, barricades and other fortifications saw fierce tank and infantry battles, supported by heavy artillery fire and air-, as well as missile strikes.
Both sides created heavy guarded openings in their lines, to allow their tanks, mobile artillery pieces and their infantry to march towards the battlefield, while the defenses were continuously improved with anti-air defenses and heavy firepower. The Allies lacked in the latter though, and were usually outgunned by the Russians, due to the atrophy of allied artillery units during the years of the „War on Terror“. This lead among others the UK to use cluster missile munitions, to compensate for their lack of heavy firepower. While the Allies also counted on American made miniguns and Browning heavy machine guns, Russia deployed its PKM heavy machine guns, some of which were equipped with ammunition-feeding backpacks, called Scorpios, in order to use a portion of the guns as mobile weapons as well. Since both sides dug in to hold their gains as long as possible, Russia had to bring in its bigger artillery pieces as well, in order to destroy allied fortified positions. Hundreds of Russian 2C4 Tulip self-propelled 240 mm mortars were modernized and brought into service at the Western Front, creating worries of potential use of nuclear weaponry, since the 2C4 had a nuclear mission in the past during the First Cold War. Russia also deployed the TOS-1A Buratino, a thermobaric missile launcher dedicated to destroy heavily fortified enemy positions through emitting flammable gas clouds that ignite the surrounding air. These weapons proved to be incredibly devastating on the battlefield, but due to their short range, they were susceptible to anti-Tank weaponry and allied counterfire. The Russian lead revisionist forces knew that at this rate, a complete occupation of Poland and Finland would be impossible, leading Putin to change the focus of the European campaigns.
Instead of neutralizing NATO forces by occupying as much territory as possible, he wanted to force the Allies to reevaluate the effort the counteroffensives would take, meaning that the Revisionist Powers at the Western Front now followed a strategy of attrition. They thought if they can hold on their gains, while inflicting heavy damage and casualties on the Allies, they would be able to grind the enemies forces down. Russian and Belarusian armored units also utilized a strategy nicknamed „tank-carrousels“, where tanks and self-propelled artillery pieces shell enemy positions, while being in continuous movement between two specialized trenches, in order to avoid enemy counter-fire. Fighting intensified between both sides around Lodz, Russian occupied Lublin, and the cross-section between the Polish and the Ukrainian sector, close to the Slovakian border. A Russian and Belarusian offensive geared towards Rzeszów and Przemyśl was slowed down by allied F-16 Fighting Falcon airstrikes, while German PzH 2000 self-propelled howitzers enabled the Allies to counteract the revisionist attacks through Time on Target barrages.
At the same time, Slovakian troops increased their reinforcements for the cross-section, supporting Ukrainian, French, German, Italian, Greek, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian troops around Stryi, Ivano-Frankivsk, as well as Chernovtsy. The Russians, supported by their allies from Belarus and forced conscripts from the central Asian republics, tried to prevent the allied attempt to break through the cross-section, by starting attack waves of Su-27 flanker family aircraft, aiming at diminishing allied air superiority. Those air raids were supported on the other hand by Russian made S-400 surface to air missiles, leading to heavy losses for the Allies in the skies over Ukraine and southeastern Poland. The combination of flanker airstrikes, Iskander and S-400 missiles lead to allied troops losing air cover in the cross-section, which allowed the Revisionist Powers to improve their defenses in Ukraine and Moldova. Russian movements in southwestern Ukraine remained in a halt though, since neither side was able to break through the enemies defenses at the border of the now frozen swamplands of the Danube Delta. Revisionist artillery in Moldova, supported by Transnistrian militias and the Russian air force started to shell Galati, Braila and Tulcea, in order to disrupt allied supply lines at the Black Sea coast. The Russian Black Sea fleet played rather defensively, staying close to the Ukrainian coastline around Crimea, while conducting several missile attacks against Romanian targets. In the Balkans, the conflict between Serbia, Kosovo and Albania kept on escalating as well. With the Serbian army entering the north of Kosovo, Albania felt fully justified to mobilize its army, while sending it into Kosovo to fight against the Serbs. Serbian artillery and airstrikes managed to disperse the resistance in a way, that allowed the army to threaten Pristina while also slowing the Albanian reinforcements down. Turkey, in support of the muslim population of Kosovo and Albania also sent troops to back up the kosovarian resistance making this the only european theatre of war where turkish troops fought alongside their western allies.
The ongoing war between Serbia and Albania inflamed tensions in Bosnia and Herzegovina anew, leading to massive pro-Serbian protests in the Serbian-dominated Republika Srpska. The new Balkan war lead the people of Republika Srpska to feel justified in their attempts to form an auxiliary and militarized force, while stressing that the dissolution of Bosnia is due. Bosnia, which was already officially at war with Russia, although staying inactive, felt that these protests and the following violent clashes against Bosnian security forces were supported by both Serbia and Russia, and after intelligence reports became public that Republika Srpska talked with Serbia about a possible Serbian presence on Bosnian territory, Bosnia and Herzegovina declared war on Serbia. With fellow NATO member Albania fighting against a revisionist partner, both Montenegro and Croatia decided to declare war on Serbia, while sending their first expeditionary forces towards their respective borders with Serbia. At the same time, the Allies in Europe came together and initiated a wide series of joint programs for the development of new weapons, aircraft, tanks and other systems, in order to deal with this kind of warfare against the Revisionist Powers.
== 2028 ==
=== The fight for dominance in Africa ===
Since the escalation of conflict in Libya continued at the beginning of 2027, tensions in northern Africa started to boil up even more. The allied backed forces of general Haftar saw a series of victories, in form of successfully taking Zintan and Sirte, allowing them to close a corridor between government controlled areas between the Nalut and Jabal al Gharbi region. The ongoing and ever increasing offensives of Haftar and his allies lead to a new wave of refugees trying to seek shelter in Algeria and Tunisia, while migrants from the Sahel faced heavy struggles to reach Libya and its coastline due to the escalating fighting. This new refugee crisis intensified the tensions between Algeria and Haftar's coalition, since the north African state tried for months to mediate between both parties in favor of the originally UN backed government of Tripoli.
France on the other hand deployed new forces in Libya, in order to secure Libyan oil and the Southern Mediterranean coastline. This deployment signaled open French support for Haftar, as well as allied willingness to defend its interests in Africa as well, which was supposed to deter potential revisionist aggression on the continent. But despite this intention, the increased allied activity in North Africa lead to revisionist approaches of their own, especially towards Sudan, Zimbabwe and the DRC. China offered those nations to cut their debts it already used in the past to pressure its will on Africa's nations, in exchange for military support against allied troops stationed in Africa. China planned to use these African regimes as a distraction, in order to tie down allied forces that could have been redeployed at the main frontlines. Pressured by their debt towards China, while also receiving promises of economic benefits after the war, Sudan, the DRC and Zimbabwe started to attack neighboring countries with a western military presence. This lead to Sudanese attacks being carried out towards Chad and South Sudan, while Congo also attacked Uganda over alleged rebel hostilities of the M23 movement coming from ugandan territory. American troops stationed in Congo have been captured as soon as hostilities broke out, although the few remaining forces in South Sudan joined the fight against its northern and southern neighbors. As a result of the escalation, both Chad and Uganda declared war against the attackers, while France and the UK also declared war against the DRC and Sudan due to their ties with the attacked African nations.
Meanwhile in the north, the ongoing operations of Haftar and his supportive coalition lead to once again condemnation from Algeria, and after shells fired from pro-Haftar forces accidentally hit Algerian territory, Algeria decided to intervene on Tripoli's behalf. The Algerian air force attacked allied targets besieging the areas around Tripoli, while Algerian ground troops engaged in first battles with the coalition around Ubari. After Algeria's entrance into the war, the military junta of Niger, a former western partner, signaled its willingness to send troops into Libya as well on revisionist behalf, due to its ongoing conflict with the western backed ECOWAS, as well as anti-western sentiment, stemming from colonial resentment against Europe, most notably France. Chadian and allied troops halted the offensive coming from Sudan, while revisionist reinforcements of the russian Wagner mercenary group started to pour into the Sahel country from Niger. At the same time, the Allies demanded that Algeria should stop its intervention in Libya, which was rejected by the Algerian government. Algeria on the other hand wanted the allied support for Haftar to be halted. Since both sides rejected each others demands, allied troops started to attack Algerian forces in Libya and along their respective borders. 
=== The Eastern Front: The Bloodshed of the ASEANs ===
While another continent was now entangled in the war as well, the conflict in Southeast Asia escalated even more. The Vietnamese attack along the Chinese border came to a halt, and after massive air strike and missile attack campaigns, the Chinese, taking advantage of its by now mobilized population, launched a counteroffensive into northern Vietnam, creating a corridor towards its ally Laos. Further south, the Vietnamese incursions into Laos proved to be successful, leading Vietnamese infantry formations to close in towards the Xe Kong River, taking Ban Bak, Chevan and the outskirts of Attapeu. Cambodia, which joined the Revisionist Powers in favor of China, launched a series of attacks into southwestern Vietnam of its own. But after a day of intense shelling, the Cambodians were forced to retreat, allowing the Vietnamese to push into Cambodia as well.
The first wave of attacks were targeting Svay Rieng and Prey Veng, while the Vietnamese army was also able to push into Cambodia's southwestern flank with the help of its superior navy. As a result, the Vietnamese were able to take Kampot, Sihanoukville and Koh Kong. Meanwhile, the Chinese invasion of Myanmar came to a halt around Taunggyi and Naungpate, due to Indian and American troops entering Myanmar as reinforcements. The Americans were able to convince India to station troops in its territory, in order to stop the Chinese advance into India and Southeast-Asia. In exchange, the Americans agreed to help India against Pakistan, while also refraining from calls that India should join the fight against its close partner Russia. While Australia as a member of the so called "Quad" also started talks with India for troop deployment in Southeast-Asia, the Indian navy engaged with its Malaysian counterpart in smaller skirmishes with the Indonesians, as part of an attempt to clear a path to the South China Sea through the Malakka strait, while also securing the Andaman sea for the Allies. The Kingdom of Thailand, being wedged between the waring nations found itself struggling to maintain its neutrality. While both the allied and revisionist armies were engaging in brutal jungle warfare against each other around Thailand, the Thai economy was facing a total collapse due to both allied and revisionist blockades, while the fighting in Asia and the Pacific lead to a complete breakdown of the tourism industry. Since Thailand was a major non-NATO-ally, and was connected to the US through long lasting defense treaties, Thailand saw no choice but to join the war on the allied side, declaring war against Laos and Cambodia, while still being hesitant to to do so against China. The Thai army decided to support the Vietnamese offensive against Cambodia, by pushing towards the western Cambodian cities of Battambang, Sisophon and Samraong, stopping around the Tonle Sap lake area. The Thai forces also simultaneously launched a invasion into Laos, taking Pak Lai and even overrunning the lao capital of Vientiane, forcing its leadership to escape to Luang Prabang.
With an increasing number of armies fighting each other in the jungles of Southeast-Asia, both sides started to engage in bloody guerilla warfare against each other, mimicking the carnages of the Vietnam-War. The fighting nationas tried to blend into their environment and the local population, while conducting a series of hit-and-run-raids against the respective advancing enemy, in order to inflict massive casualties and disrupt the supply lines of larger unprotected army formations. As a result, casualties on both sides mounted rapidly, leading to an increased domestic outcry against the military operations in Southeast-Asia. The Vietnamese, but also the Cambodians and laotians resorted to arming civilians and turning them into militias against the Chinese and Allies respectively. As a result of this kind of guerilla warfare, both sides started military operations against insurgencies in civilian areas, leading to several massacres against the population, especially in northern Vietnam. In the meantime at sea, naval forces from India, Malaysia and Singapore were able to occupy the Indonesian islands of Banka-Belitung and Natuna Besar after the Battle of the Natuna Sea.
=== The Southern Front: Advance of the Allies ===
While the Allies were still caught in a stalemate in Europe, as well as being unable to break through the Chinese defenses at the Eastern Front, they actually saw more success in the Middle East. After years of relentless fighting and aerial bombardment, the Battle of Beirut lead to a clear Israeli victory, leaving Lebanon as one of the first revisionist countries to mostly come under allied occupation. But the victory was not total. Hizbollah still engaged in urban warfare in several pockets of resistance all over Lebanon, while still firing salvos of missiles into Israel as a terror campaign. Since the years of fighting diminished Hizbollahs arsenal, while disrupting its Iranian supply lines in Syria and Iraq, the Shia militia faced increased material shortages, rendering its terror attacks mostly symbolic in nature. In Syria, the pressure on Damascus remained high, even though the usage of chemical weapons during the siege of the city lead to thousands of allied and civilian casualties.
The Syria campaign of the allied-Arab coalition achieved a series of strategic victories, in form of cutting of the influx of Iranian fighters coming to Syria through Iraq, leading the Iranian forces there to be mostly isolated from their reinforcements. Allied troops were even able to push as far North as Deir ez-Zor, where their advance was halted by the presence of Turkish forces. Turkey was able to conquer the majority of Syrias Kurdish areas, leading thousands of civilians to be either displaced or killed. The last resistance of the SDF and YPG retreated into the now allied controlled Dayr As Zawr region, leading to the first negotiations with western allied forces for peace and protection. Any remaining Kurdish resistance in the Turkish occupied territories, armed or unarmed, was struck down with brute force, leading to several accusations of deliberate massacres against civilians. In Iraq, the Revisionist Powers faced even more setbacks. Allied troops were able to close in to the now fortified Iranian border, after the Battle of Basra. This allied advance forced the revisionists to mostly retreat behind the Euphrates, Shatt al Arab and Tigris rivers, while also fortifying Al Kut and Baghdad. After keeping the majority of its naval assets in a safe distance in the Arabian Sea, the US decided to more offensively support their ships that were already in the Gulf of Oman following some breakthroughs in the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians used their Khalij Fars anti-ship missiles to inflict as much damage as possible to the incoming waves of US vessels, while the Americans started a more aggressive bombing campaign not only against revisionist targets along the frontline, but also against targets in Iran itself.
The US used the British base of Diego Garcia to launch bomber strikes against Iranian targets, while American Superhornet jets took off from the only 2 aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea. The Iranian targets hit included Bandar Lengeh, Minab, Buscher and Borazjan, while the Iranians themselves were able to use their air defenses to nibble away at the US jet fleet. The lack of sufficient numbers of SAM systems, as well as American edge in jamming technology lead to the neutralization of a large fraction of Iran's anti-air defenses, leading to secret talks between Russian and Iranian officials about Iran possibly acquiring the Russian made S-400 system, that was already been used by Turkey, while also negotiating the purchase of Russia's newer S-500 system. The barrages of allied missile strikes, mostly using Tomahawks and similar weapons, lead to the majority of Iranian surface vessels in the gulf being destroyed, forcing the remaining ships to take a defensive stand around Iranian islands in the strait of Hormuz. In the meantime, the Iranian proxy forces of the Houthi-rebels in Yemen managed to tie down relatively large formations of Saudi forces, slowing down Saudi Arabia's progress at the front, while also further disrupting the Saudi flow of oil through the Red Sea. This ongoing assaults lead the Saudis to demand more support from the US against the Yemeni rebels, which was met with heavy resistance from the American congress, since Saudi Arabia's Yemen-campaign was a source of grave criticism in America, even before WW3 broke out.
At the same time, Israel increased its air-, and missile strikes against targets and Gaza, while also sending in ground forces into the West Bank, to prevent additional Palestinian insurgencies and terror attacks. Meanwhile in the Caucasus, most of Armenia was already occupied by the Turkish army, leaving only a small pocket of Armenian resistance in Nakhchivan, which was still held by Armenian forces throughout the last years of the war. While the Azeris, who were able to fully consolidate their gains in Nagorno-Karabakh, started negotiations with Turkey about how much Armenian territory should go to Azerbaijan, Iran made an agreement with the Turks to stop any aggression against Azerbaijan, in order to have more resources for its fight against the Allies at the Southern Front, now that Lebanon collapsed. The remaining Russian troops in Armenia, which were already unharmed throughout the Caucasus campaign due to the Turkish-revisionist collaboration pact, were called back to Russia in order to be used as reinforcements along the Western Front, as well as expeditionary forces for a potential arctic offensives scheduled for later the same year. The Russians retreated through Nakhchivan into Iran, and were brought to Russia with the help of the Caspian Fleet. The Russian retreat was seen as an act of treason by the Armenians, who were left behind to fight the Turks on their own. Civil resistance, as well as Armenian guerilla insurgencies against the Turkish invaders lead to several massacres against Armenian civilians, for which both sides blame each other. The Armenians used these incidents for propaganda, comparing the massacres with the Armenian Genocide.
=== The Western Front: Europes fight for Unity ===
At the Western Front, both sides remained largely in a stalemate. The thousands of casualties, and the lack of of any significant gains lead to growing opposition against the war overall. Europe's capitals were haunted by increasing numbers of anti-war protests, some of which became noticeably critical against NATO and the American war effort, despite only a relatively small American presence in Europe. Passive NATO member Hungary under Right-Wing leader Viktor Orbán offered to mediate between Russia and the European Allies, as some form of diplomatic effort. Italy's Lega party also offered to send a delegation to Moscow, in order to mediate potential peace offers. In the same time, revisionist forces struggled to man the entire frontline because of the length of the battlefield. Logistics proved to be a fragile area for the Russians, leading to shortages of supplies at various sectors of the front. In order to relieve pressure on its forces, Russia once again resorted to a terror campaign, to break the already wavering will of the Allies.
The Revisionists surrounding Russia fired salvos of Iskander missiles against European targets, mostly of civilian nature, creating chaos and confusion among the European population. Especially allied capitals were heavily hit, while additionally a lot of rail and road infrastructure was destroyed as well, in order to cut off European supply lines. Russia also tried to intimidate the US by putting its newer weapons at display, leading Russia to deploy its young Avantgarde hypersonic missiles against the capitals of France and the UK, which was the first time during WW3 that mainland British and French targets were hit. Russia therefore tried to demonstrate that it was able to penetrate even the defenses of other nuclear powers. The hypersonic missile strikes remained very limited though, because Russia did not want to waste too many Avantgardes for conventional attacks, while also preventing the provocation of a possible nuclear counterattack from the French or British. The Hungarian delegation of Orbán in the meantime returned from talks with Russian officials, but instead of pushing for a peace treaty under European conditions, they publicly advocated for peace in Russian favor, calling it a "peace of understanding and common interests".
Right-wing conservative leaders and politicians all over Europe soon adapted this standpoint, leading representatives from Italy, Greece and the already passive NATO members of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, North Macedonia and Hungary to advocate for peace under the current conditions from Russia. They justified this move by declaring that the war was largely the fault of China and the US, and that Russia simply defended its own legitimate security interests, referring to NATOs eastwards expansion as justification. At the same time, the Italians, who became quite sympathetic of the Revisionist Powers in the past because of their support during the Covid-19 pandemic, stopped fighting and remained only defensive in their actions. Other political parties in countries like France and Germany also joined this chorus, meaning that representatives from the French Rassemblement National and the German AfD party proclaimed that peace with Russia would be vital for Europe's survival, while blaming the war on globalists and liberalism.
While right-wing fractions all over Europe received positive feedback from their followers, there were also massive backlashes because of this. New protests emerged alongside the already existing pacifist demonstrations, that criticized the Russia-sympathizers, leading to additional chaos and civil unrest on the continent. The allied leadership in Europe also massively criticized the voices calling for peace in Russian favor, leading to heated political discussions, changes of personnel and even investigations. Some of these investigations, that were described by their targets as "conspiracys" against peace, found evidence of collusion between Russia and right-wing politicians from various nations. One of these investigations lead to the revelation after the war, that Viktor Orbán and his associates received offers during their meetings in Moscow of potentially getting ethnic Hungarian territory in Ukraine and Romania, in exchange for pro-Russian diplomacy and neutrality in the conflict. These political squabbles lead to disunity amongst the Allies, and therefore a slowdown of their overall war effort at the Western Front. At the same Time, a series of terror attacks in Ireland and Northern Ireland occured, all of which were claimed by the so called "New IRA", which already conducted terror attacks on the irish island in the years before the Brexit of 2020/2021. Originally, the New IRA was mostly insignificant in Northern Ireland, but British security agencies noticed increased Russian efforts to support and encourage these IRA dissidents, in order to drag the attention of the UK away from the battlefield.
Multiple car bombs were detonated in front of British security targets, like police stations, and new military sites that were opened because of the world war. Bomb attacks were also conducted against targets in Great Britain, and even though the New IRA took responsibility for these attacks, the British secret service suspected that these attacks were rather committed by Russian sleeper agents, in order to inflame conflict with the irish terrorists. Nonetheless, the UK decided to increase its security efforts in Northern Ireland, leading to the deployment of a token force of a few hundred soldiers in Belfast, as well as a dozen soldiers in Londonderry, where the attacks occurred more frequently. King Charles III, knowing about his low popularity as well as Britain's desire for a fresh leadership during this crisis, stepped down as king in favor of his older son William. This also prevented William from continuing his insisted missions for the Royal Army along the frontlines, while Prince Harry kept serving the british military throughout the war without severe injuries. While the European allies struggled to mantain their unity and focused attention, the war at the Balkan Front was still in movement. Serbia fully invaded the now rogue Bosnian territory of Republika Srpska, in support of local ethnic Serbs, while also attempting to outflank both Croatia and Montenegro. This lead to the Battle of Sarajevo, where the Bosnians lost to the numerically superior Serbs, allowing those to secure their positions in Bosnia and Herzegowina, while also shelling the Croatian and montenergian borders respectively.
The first Battle in Pristina also ended in Serbian victory, forcing the kosovarians to retreat to a line from Pejë to Gjilan. NATO aircraft launched from Montenegro, Albania and Croatia started to strike targets in Serbia, including Novi Pazar, while Sombor and Apatin were hit by Croatian airstrikes. As a response to NATOs bombing campaign, Serbia decided to retaliate by deliberately targeting civilian areas and densely populated with its Sumadija rocket launchers, that were able to hit targets as far away as 175 miles with four-hundred-millimeter projectiles and precision guidance. Therefore, after the initial air-campaign, the Allies launched their invasion of Serbia, which lead the latter mentioned border cities to be taken by Croatian and Slovenian troops, which were supported by Italian reinforcements. Romania also initiated an offensive against Serbia, leading to air-raids not only against the Romanian-Serbian border, but also Belgrade itself. The Romanians received reinforcements from Slovakia, France and to a lower extent the UK, while the pressure on Hungary and Bulgaria to join the Balkan campaign increased. Greece also joined the coalition against Serbia, leading Greek troops to join their Albanian counterparts in Kosovo despite souring relationships between Greece and Albania. Even though Serbia was under pressure from multiple fronts, it was still able to inflict casualties on the allied air force, due to its purchase of Russian S-400 air defenses. Meanwhile, the Allies at the Western Front saw themselves forced to prepare for the worst, meaning a potential Russian breakthrough and advance towards the German border, leading them to extensively fortify the Polish-German border as a last line of defense. This heavy defended line was nicknamed as the „Merkel -Line“, meant as a mockery reminiscent of the Hindenburg-, and Siegfried-Lines of the Germans during the last world wars. Due to still massive outbreaks of COVID-19 among soldiers on both sides, the Allies started to introduce new military gear to wear for their soldiers, like helmets that included visors that covered the mouth and nose area.
=== The Arctic War begins ===
Since Russia was facing more and more pressure due to the stalemate at the Western Front, and first failures at the Southern Front, Vladimir Putin was looking for ways to distract the Allies, while cutting off potential resources for Russia's enemies. As a result, the Russians decided to start a campaign in the Arctic, which was rich in resources and close to allied nations like the US and Canada. While the Americans stationed almost all of their naval forces in the Pacific close to the Eastern Front, the Allies of Europe kept their vessels in the North and Baltic Sea, while also guarding the Mediterranean, meaning the waters of the Arctic were almost defenseless due to the lack of naval assets. Russia, which already occupied the Norwegian island of Svalbard, exploited this by sending ten submarines of its Northern Fleet east of Bear island into the Greenland Sea.
Six of those submarines belonged to Russia's Akula class, and where used to deliver big payloads of cruise missiles to the American Thule base in Greenland. The attack took out an important missile-warning system of the US, while the few Danish vessels present in the Sea of Greenland were destroyed by the submarines as well. These ships conducted coastguard missions, and their destruction, as well as the attack on Greenland overall forced the Danes to take a more aggressive approach against Russia. Royal Danish troops from mainland Denmark, as well as conscripts from the Faroe Islands were mobilized in order to be send to Greenland. With no considerable military forces present to oppose them, Russian special forces were landed on Greenland, leading to concerns about potential operations against continental North America. The Joint Arctic Command of Greenland, Denmark and the Faroe Islands therefore received support not only by Denmark's neighbor Norway, but also Canada. Canadian ground troops were landed in the west of Greenland, while squadrons of the Canadian Royal air force were launched from the Alert airbase in the far north of the country. Russia responded to that by launching its own squadrons of MiG-31 interceptors and Tu-95, as well as Tu-142 bombers from bases in Svalbard and the Russian Nagurskoye airbase. The Russian planes were able to intercept most of the Canadian planes, while still suffering casualties as well. When the Canadian air force retreated back to its own airspace, Russia's Tu-95 bombers attacked the Canadian Alert airbase, completely destroying it in the process. On the ground in Greenland, the Danish Slædepatruljen Sirius elite navy unit was the only military resistance that faced the landed Russian Spetsnaz special forces.
Since this Danish unit only consisted of 14 soldiers on dogsleds, who were armed with WW1 type M1917 Enfield rifles, they were forced into a quick retreat, but put up a very fierce fight against the Russians, which was compared by allied propaganda with the last stand of Leonidas' 300 Spartans during the Persian Wars. The Spetsnaz forces tried to gain hold of the artic inaccessible area, while trying to disrupt Greenland's communication with the outside world. The US saw itself forced to react to this escalation in the Arctic as well, leading it send the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit to Iceland, in order to prepare for counteroffensives with their Danish, Canadian, Swedish, Finnish and Norwegian counterparts. The troops were then flown from ships with the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group, in order to set up safe landing zones in the south of Greenland. Being faced with a now better equipped and numerical superior enemy, Russia decided to call off the Greenland assault in favor of a upcoming arctic campaign in the East. The landed Russian special forces retreated with the help of Russian submarines coming from Svalbard, and left without suffering one casualty. Before they left, the Spetsnaz prepared various traps for the incoming Allies, leading to some military and civilian victims in Greenland.
=== Trouble in India ===
Since the war in Asia kept escalating as well, India saw itself confronted with a multitude of challenges, stretching from the Indo-Pakistani front, over the Himalaya, Bangladesh, Southeast-Asia and the Indian Ocean. While India received more reinforcements from the US and Australia in order to fight against China, Indian forces managed to push back against Bangladeshi incursions in the Bengal region. Bangladeshi forces secretly supplied heavy weaponry to secessionist insurgencies in Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Mizoram and in part even Jammu-Kashmir, leading to guerilla campaigns in inaccessible areas like waterways, jungles and high hill tracks. This Bangladeshi guerilla campaign also included a large series of suicide attacks against most of India's large cities, like New Delhi and Mumbai, while Pakistan also initiated jihadi suicide attacks against Indian targets. Despite these terror strategies, India managed to destroy all of Bangladesh's naval forces, and the majority of Pakistan's navy. Indian naval and air forces also neutralized the Chinese naval base in Bangladesh, which was part of China's Belt and Road initiative, while a couple of Chinese ships managed to escape towards Djibouti and later on Madagascar.
While the Indian army pushed through the wetlands of the Indus-delta towards Karachi, the last batteries of Pakistan's anti-ship missiles were finally destroyed, leading India, to prepare a amphibious invasion of southern Pakistan. The Battle of Punjab became stagnant though, since Pakistani, and central Asian forces managed to turn the urbanized areas of the region into tripwires for the advancing enemies through resorting to urban warfare. Following the bloody Battle of Karachi, the Indian army, supported by American and Australian special forces, managed to consolidate its gains in southern Pakistan. With India advancing on almost all sides, Pakistan's top generals asked increasingly for nuclear release, but were denied by Islamabad. The Kashmir campaign remained in a deadlock though, since India had to face not only the Pakistani army, but also the combined forces of Chinese and central Asian troops. The Indian approach was also slowed down by Muslim protestors rioting against the advancing soldiers. These riots, along with the increasing number of suicidal attacks lead to a violent Indian crackdown against Muslim protestors in all of India. Several hundred civilians were killed during these uprisings, causing accusations of human rights violations and an massive outcry in the Muslim world. The RSS, a paramilitary branch of Narendra Modis leading party, committed several acts of violence against Muslims all over the nation, while thousands of Muslims ended up being imprisoned in Indian detention camps, specifically built for the detention of Muslims and other non-hindu minorities. Many leading political figures of Modis party openly rallied against Muslims and categorized them as threats and „traitors“, leading the RSS to receive a wide array of authorizations, including a greenlight for violence, if it was, quote „necessary for the security of the Indian people“.
While most allied nations remained silent on this issue, Turkey issued a severe warning against India that it would cut back on its economic relations if India did not stop its anti-Muslim actions. Turkey also greenlighted „humanitarian aid“ for Pakistan, explaining that this was supposed to help the Pakistani civilian population. India on the other hand accused Turkey of using this aid as an disguise to bring in military support for Pakistan. In the same time in the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka, which faced almost a year of naval blockade, surrendered to India, leading to an occupation of the island. Many Sri Lankans opposed this surrender, and resisted the occupying Indian forces. This caused additional crackdowns on Sri Lankan rioters, while many people of Sri Lanka suffered from malnutrition and disease because of the naval blockade prior. Despite the increased guerilla effort of Bangladesh, India managed to not only retake the West Bengal region, but also Chittagong in Bangladesh's East, cutting it of from Chinese supplies coming from Sikkim. India planned to use this advance to drive a wedge between Nepal and Bhutan, while hoping to liberate the latter from Chinese occupation. The Chinese tried to react to these Indian gains by deploying long range missiles against several metropoles, that were already under attack by Pakistani and Bangladeshi suicide attacks, in order to create chaos and confusion. This was an attempt to drive India's attention away from from the northern part the front, although China avoided attacking New Delhi, because it feared that any conventional missile attack on India's capital could be mistaken for nuclear strikes. These missile strikes on the other hand remained limited in their scope, because its arsenal suffered shortage, while China's main focus remained on the Pacific.
=== The African Front: the East Africa campaign ===
In Africa, both the Allies and Revisionist Powers kept competing with each other for resources and influence on the continent. While North Africa was already engulfed in a full blown conflict, other fronts emerged as well. In eastern Africa, the D.R.C was entangled in a war with Uganda, because of Uganda's American military presence. Congolese troops were also fighting forces in South Sudan in support of fellow revisionist co-belligerent Sudan. Despite fighting South Sudan in the South, and allied forces in Chad in the West, the Sudanese regime also opened a front in the East against Ethiopia in order to cut off allied supplies of gold, as well as to weaken the financial resources of the Allies, while also targeting US troops in Ethiopia. Another reason for Sudanese aggression was the age-old border dispute between Ethiopia and Sudan over the farmlands of the al-Fashaga region, which was reinflamed at the end of 2020/2021. Ethiopia therefore declared war on Sudan, and received military support from American and British forces. At the Horn of Africa, the Allies and Revisionist Powers tried to secure access to the Red Sea, in order to protect this vital vein of global maritime traffic. With aircover provided by allied forces on the Arabian Peninsula, naval assets from the US, France and the UK, despite being harassed by the Houthi rebels at the Yemeni coastline, managed to enter the Red Sea and engaged in its biggest naval battle of the war, when the allied fleet fought against a minor Russian naval presence at the Sudanese naval base of Port Sudan, destroying the base and most Russian vessels in the process.
China engaged in secret talks with both Eritrea and Somalia, using their huge debts as leverage to pressure them to join the revisionist cause. Meanwhile, the Allies decided to counter Chinese influence at the Horn of Africa, leading to an preemptive offensive against the Chinese in the geopolitical important located nation of Djibouti, which hosted a plethora of foreign bases. This was the reason why the First Battle of Djibouti saw not only American, but also French, Spanish, German and Japanese troops fighting against the forces in China's only foreign military base. The djibouti government remained inactive though, since it was very dependent on Chinese money as well, while the Italians also remained rather passive, due to the increased ties between Italy's right-wing government and China following the Belt-and Road initiative before the war. The Saudi forces in Djibouti also remained neutral due to the close economic relationship between Saudi Arabia and China. After a week of siege and aerial and naval bombardment, the Chinese in Djibouti were defeated by the Allies. This defeat caused the Chinese to once again pressure Djiboutis neighbors to take action again the Allies, in order to deny their access to the Red Sea. China invoked Eritreas grudges against former enemy Ethiopia, as well as territorial conflicts with Djibouti, while also promising economic benefits and a cut down of debts. Somalia was persuaded by targeting its growing anti-American sentiment due to years of indiscriminate drone strikes performed by the US, as well as its own border disputes with Ethiopia over the Ogaden desert region. This lead both Eritrea and Somalia to attack allied forces either in neighboring countries or inside their own territory. Eritrean forces engaged in bloody fighting against Ethiopia as well as Djibouti, where the Allies dug in after the Chinese defeat. Reports came up that eritrean troops in the breakaway region of Tigray where tolerated by Ethiopia, since both Eritrea and Ethiopia were engaged in bloody fighting against the insurgency of the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) as recently as 2020 forward. Somalia on the other hand tried to seize US assets and forces inside its own borders, while also attacking disputed areas in the self-declared state of Somaliland as well as Ogaden, where the Somali forces supported troops of the Ogaden National Liberation Front, a separatist group of ethnic Somalis trying to break away from Ethiopia.
Troops of the U. A. E. evacuated back to the Arabian Peninsula, causing critique from its western allies. Forces of Israel in Eritrea also retreated through the Suez Canal, while Turkish forces in Somalia stayed in the country whilst remaining neutral. This lack of support lead to massive tension between the US and Turkey, leading the Americans to partially stop weapon sales into Turkey, while questioning Turkeys loyalty openly for the first time in the conflict. Somalia's action of war also caught Kenyan, Ethiopian, Burundi and Ugandan troops of the African Union Mission to Somalia in the crossfire, leading those nations to declare war against Somalia as well. Kenya, which was a close partner of the UK and US, while hosting troops of these western powers, decided to step into the fighting in the East, leading Kenya to declare war against the DRC Kenyan troops therefore entered not only Somalia and South Sudan, but also Uganda, in order to support the latter against the congolese. The escalation in East Africa also caused Burundi and Rwanda to declare war against the DRC due to their close ties with Uganda. Meanwhile, Algerian troops in North Africa managed to reclaim the Ash Shati Region in Libya, while allied troops in the Sahel chose to only shell the borders of Algeria and Libya. The pressure on Morocco and Tunisia to join the allied war effort as major non-NATO allies grew with every day of fighting in North Africa, yet the people of both nations remained rather reluctant to sympathize with the West. First reports were published that Turkish troops, stationed in Libya before the war, were attacking the advancing Egyptian, Arab, French and opposing Libyan forces of general Haftar in Libya, leading to calls from the Saudi lead coalition to push Turkey out of the alliance.
=== The digital Battlefield: War of Cyberspace ===
While WW3 raged on the physical battlefields all around the globe, the fighting also reached a front that was yet untouched in the history of global war: cyberspace. Both the Allies and Revisionists were engaging in cyber attacks against each other, but before that, this kind of digital warfare was seen as a way to prevent open hostilities before WW3, as seen during the Iran crisis of summer 2019, as well as the opening stages of the Sino -American conflict following the beginning of the Second Korea War. Now that the war has raged for 3 years, both sides resorted to a more offensive use of cyber operations. While communication systems were constantly hacked and disabled, other aspects of the cyberspace were seen as suitable means of causing chaos and confusion, even at the home front. The disruption of GPS and other satellite systems on both sides resulted in increased rates of traffic jams and accidents, which lead to increased rates of traffic related deaths throughout the war in many countries, especially in the west. Countless online banking services, both on the civilian and state level, were hacked, leading to the disappearance of millions of dollars as well as tens of thousands of civilians not being able to access their online banking accounts anymore. Despite initial fears, transatlantic undersea cables were not destroyed by the russians, since those saw their usage for disinformation campaigns and cyber operations as more valuable, which could be seen through the creation of countless fake social media accounts and the deliberate spread of fake news, conspiracy theories and propaganda which did resonate with a significant amount of people in western countries.
Servers all over the globe were targets of massive hacking operations, leading to the collapse of countless websites and communication services, while also the power grid of both allied and revisionist countries came under digital attack. Russian and Chinese hackers were able to breach through American cyber defenses and caused a series of the biggest power outages in the history of North America. Entire cities along the East-coast of the continent suffered from almost complete blackouts, including New York City, Washington and Portland, as well as Halifax in Canada. The power outages caused chaos and mass hysteria in the affected areas, and lead to the deaths of thousands of Americans and Canadians, due to car accidents because of uncontrolled traffic and blackout in hospitals. These cyber attacks also lead to looting and pillaging in several of the affected cities, causing additional mayhem and deaths in the process. But revisionist cities also suffered from cyber attacks in return, causing the same problems in highly populated areas, like Shanghai, Beijing and even Moscow. While the chaos associated death toll remained rather low in Russia, a cyberattack against occupied Hong Kong caused China's grip over the city to loosen, leading to renewed protests and riots of Hong Kongers, who were met with brute force. Digital systems on the physical battlefield also came under attack through hacking operations, leading to several cyber strikes against missile defense systems of both sides. Whenever these cyber strikes were followed by physical attacks in order to exploit the weakness of the enemies defense, they proved to be very effective. Yet, cyberattacks on their own appeared to be almost useless in the actual combat, since both sides had enough competence in this field to counter many of these attacks. Cyber attacks were also used to disrupt politics in enemy countries. Especially in the west, revisionist hackers and certain kinds of computer viruses were either used to steal and then publish sensitive data on the devices of leading politicians, resulting in suspicion of deliberate whistle blowing and leaking, while the published information often resulted in protests and attacks against the diplomats in question, for example when hackers accessed the uncensored estimates of civilian casualties. In other cases hackers downloaded compromising material on the devices of various politicians, leading to investigations and a loss of public trust, despite the fact that in many cases these accusations were able tobe disproven. 
=== The Invasion of the Aleutians ===
After the short lived Greenland campaign, Russia planned another arctic offensive in order to divert the attention of the Americans, as well as creating additional chaos and panic among the US population. That is why in the early fall of 2027, Russia launched its first attack against US territory, by targeting the Alaskan island chain of the Aleutians. Almost all of Americas naval assets were stationed in the southeastern Pacific, against China, meaning there was only very little maritime defenses around the first islands of the Aleutians. Russian submarines launched direct Kalibr-missile strikes against the US Radar station of Eareckson Air station on Shemya island, accompanied by aerial bombardment from a Tu-95 bomber squadron. The missile launches and incoming aircraft were detected by the Cobra Dane Radar System, but due to a lack of defenses on Shemya island, the attack remained overall successful, leading to the destruction of Eareckson Air station. Ships of Russia's Pacific fleet, that were pulled back to the Sea of Okhotsk and the Kamchatka peninsula during Russia's operations against Japan, launched missile attacks against the mostly uninhabited Attu island in order to destroy potential runways for American planes or spy drones, while several Su-35 fighter and Tu-95 bombers started landing on the remote Alaskan island.
Tanaga Island also saw landings of Russian troops, who started to create makeshift driveways for their aircraft. The Americans, who had to focus their remaining resources and assets in the Arctic in Alaska and the Bering Sea, increased their coastal defenses, but did not attempt to retake the uninhabited islands Russia was occupying. The invasion of the Aleutians still caused massive shock and outrage among the American people, while leading to enormous criticism of the oppositional Democrats, who were questioning Trumps perceived failures against this Russian aggression. This was exploited by Donald J. Trump as propaganda material though, since he accused his late predecessor Biden and the oppositional Democrats of being responsible for plunging the US prior into humiliation, weakness and unnecessary fighting. He blamed the invasion on Biden, whom he accused of weakening the US to such a point that this invasion was possible in the first place, while announcing emergency laws that increase his authority significantly. Despite accusations of the former Obama and Biden administrations of collusion between the Trump campaign and revisionist forces of Russia, Trump still secured the support of his base despite the ongoing Invasion of the Aleutians. The US forces in Alaska were put in a heightened state of alert, while the US air force monitored the Alaskan airspace, in order to prevent Russian attacks on mainland Alaska. The Russian invasion forces in the same time tried to gain momentum, using their initial successes to take as many Aleutian Islands as possible, before facing significant resistance closer to Alaska. The US deployed several interceptor squadrons of bombers and jets itself, leading to the first aerial dogfights in American airspace in postmodern history.
The Americans were able to inflict significant casualties to the Russians, but suffered losses themselves, and since most aircraft was deployed at the frontlines of the Eurasian continent, the US was forced to take a defensive position around the eastern Aleutians and the Alaskan peninsula in the south. Russian submarines managed to fire missile salvos against the biggest islands of the Aleutians, Umnak and Unalaska, leading to the first killed American civilians during warfare on US soil since WW2. With Americas small number of surface vessels being forced to protect the shores of mainland Alaska, the Russian island hopping campaign was able to take Umnak in a short period of time, while engaging in aerial fights over Unalaska. Due to the combined effort of Russian submarines, aircraft and surface vessel, in combination with the thin American defenses, Russia managed to land invasion forces on Unalaska as the last Aleutian island of the campaign. In order to save manpower, Russia forced its fellow Revisionist Power Mongolia, as one of it co-belligerent closer to the Arctic, to free soldiers who were deployed as occupational forces on the uninhabited Aleutians, so that Russia can focus itself on the ones closer to Alaska. China also deployed some special forces to assist the Russians, while using the campaign for propaganda purposes.
=== The Southern Front: The War against humanity continues ===
At the Southern Front in the Middle East, the Revisionist Powers kept struggling against the Allies. The last pockets of armed resistance in Lebanon were struck down, leaving the nation to be occupied by Israel and allied reinforcements. Syria also faced a total collapse, now that the troops of Assad and the last Hezbollah militants were cut off from Iranian supplies. This situation forced the Syrian forces to increase the use of chemical weapons, especially during the still ongoing siege of Damascus, as well as the Battle of Deir ez-Zor, leading to a re-emerging chemical arms race between the Revisionist Powers and the allied Arab coalition lead by the Saudis.
During the entire war, both sides kept improving their chemical weapon stocks, and used them on several occasions, which caused unprecedented human suffrage among the civilian population. Iraqi and Iranian troops resorted to chemical weapon use as well during the Battle of the Euphrates and the Battle of the Iraqi-Iranian border. With this kind of escalation, the war against humanity kept escalating as well. The chemical weapons were not used just for military reasons, but were rather used against specific civilians targets, like the few remaining Shia neighborhoods in Syria, as well as hotspots of the Shia community in Iraq. Both of them came under attack by Saudi Arabia and its allied Sunni-militias, who committed countless atrocities against the civilian population, while reports were made, that Christian and Jewish communities along the frontline were massacred by not only Saudi and Saudi-allied forces, but also Iranian backed militias and even Turkish forces. The Turkish army, and its own allied militias were accused of using white phosphorus bombs against Kurdish targets, including civilian areas, which was dismissed by Erdoğan's leadership as anti-Turkish propaganda, produced by terrorists. In Iran, the mullah regime under the Ayatollah tried to send a message to their enemies, by publicly executing Sunnis, who were accused of being spies of the Allies. At the same time, Iranian and Iraqi troops started to dig in close to the Iranian border and the Euphrates region, in order to slow down the allied approach. Iran also fortify, its entire southern and western border, in preparation for a possible allied invasion. With most of Iran's naval forces being destroyed, except some close to shore defenses, the gulf states of Oman and Bahrain finally decided to officially declare war on Iran, while sending troops to the frontline.
Both of them already supported the Allies more or less directly, but were hesitant to fully join as long as Iran had control over the Persian Gulf. This left Qatar as the last Gulf state not supporting the allied cause, which caused severe tensions with Saudi Arabia and its Arab coalition. Accusations of Qatari financial support for Iran became loud, and allied requests of using Qatar as a staging ground for future amphibious invasions of Iran were denied, leading Saudi Arabia to once again implement a blockade against Qatar. This development not only created tensions between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but also between Saudi Arabia and one of Qatar's closest allies, Turkey. Both nations engaged in rather hostile rhetoric with each other, with reports coming up that Saudi and Turkish forces were allegedly attacking each other in Syria, where their respective spheres of influence met. Meanwhile the western Allies started to experiment with new weapons in the Middle East, including the first widespread usage of flamethrowers in decades. The flamethrowers were used as a way of dislodging Iranian and overall Islamist troops, who were usually ready to engage in suicidal attacks. The choice fell therefore on flamethrowers, due to the fact that these weapons had success against the Japanese in WW2, who were also willing to conduct suicidal attacks, but fled when confronted with fire.
Saudi forces in the meantime started a full invasion of western Yemen, so that the Allies could secure the entrance to the Red Sea. With the help of the air force, the already thinned out Saudi forces were able to march to the outskirts of Sanaa, the main stronghold of the Iranian backed Houthi-rebels, but suffered heavy casualties during the campaign. The Houthis were able to inflict sensitive losses to the invading troops, by using Iranian made missiles and various kinds of drones, which was used by Saudi Arabia as a justification for indiscriminate bombardment of Houthi-held areas, causing mass-casualties among the civilian population. Starvation and disease were spreading in the already war-torn country, causing protests in the West against Saudi Arabia's actions. At the Israeli-Palestinian Front, the israeli campaign in the Gaza Strip was still going slow, due to not only armed resistance of Hamas and the Islamic Palestinian Jihad, but also lightly armed civilians, which forced the Israeli troops to show more restraint in order to avoid unnecessary conflict with the Arab coalition and the western allies. The mixture of armed militias and civil opposition caused hundreds of civilian casualties on a daily basis, while the Israeli air force conducted precision strikes against remaining Hamas associated strongholds. The Palestinian insurgency in the West Bank was met with heightened military presence of Israel, but it avoided large scale airstrikes in this theater in order to avoid casualties in the Israeli settlements. Palestinian militias also increased their bomb-balloon campaign against Israel, which remained only symbolic in nature, since most of the bombs were shot down before reaching populated areas.
=== Advance in the Indo-Pacific ===
The months of fighting in the Indo-Pacific saw new developments at the end of 2027. With massive pressure coming from the North, West and South, Indonesia saw itself forced to relocate most of its air fleet from Java to Sulawesi, allowing Australia and the western Allies to exploit this by using stand-off weaponry against several southern Indonesian islands. After the retreat of the Indonesian air force, Australian planes started a bombing-campaign against Java and Sumba island, while also attacking Indonesian troops holding on to West Timor and West-Papua.
The Allies also began land operations against said islands, leading troops from Australia, Papua-New Guinea, the US and even the UK to cross into West-Papua, while being supported by freedom fighters. Due to the ongoing hostilities of Indonesia in West Timor, East-Timor joined the Allies and allowed allied landings on the island in support of an invasion of the western part of Timor. Due to the continuous warfare in the Indo-Pacific, more and more micro-states joined the war effort against China and Indonesia, leading volunteers from Micronesia, the Marchall islands and Palau to fight alongside the western allies in the tropical conditions of the New-Guinea front. In the north, Malasia also openend a land-front into Indonesia, by attacking into Borneo, while receiving support from Singaporean and phillipino troops. Brunei also decided to declare war against Indonesia as a long allied partner, leading forces from Brunei to join the Borneo campaign. At the same time, Malaysian planes conducted air-raids against Sumatra, while enjoying cover from Singaporean and Indian naval assets, that were patrolling the Malacca strait since the battle of the Natuna Sea. The Indian navy also joined its Australian counterpart in the campaign to retake the Christmas and Cocos islands. The Indian and Australian forces also received reinforcements in form of British and French forces, which were protecting European overseas territories in the Indo-Pacific. Despite heavy resistance from the Indonesian navy and air force, Indonesia decided to abandon the occupied islands, leading the forces stationed there to surrender to the Allies.
Chinese forces stationed on Cocos and Christmas islands refused to surrender though, and after weeks of fighting, while being outnumbered, the Chinese troops were almost completely destroyed, which was exploited for allied propaganda. With Indonesia's occupied territories taken, and the protracted jungle warfare in West-Papua and West Timor further escalating, the first voices came loud for Indonesia to seek for peace with the Allies. The allied air raids and missile attacks on Java in the meantime were leading to a constant harassment of Jakarta, which further increased the pressure on the Indonesian leadership. As part of an joint ASEAN approach, both Vietnam and Thailand also sent naval forces into the Natuna Sea, with the goal to assist the Malaysian, Singaporean, Indian and western navies in attempting to break the Indonesian naval defenses.
=== American constitutional crisis: Trump prolongs his term ===
While the Allies in the Middle East and in Europe were able to celebrate various victories that edged the overall allied war effort closer to success, the domestic political situation remained tense, especially in the US. There, both of the main political parties were waging an electoral campaign that was, despite the ongoing war and the recent allies victories, surprisingly partisan and hostile for many foreign spectators. Especially the oppositional Democrats followed a rather offensive strategy, accusing the incumbent president of military failures concerning the ongoing occupation of the Aleutians, the war against Mexico as well as the rapidly rising number of casualties on the Eastern Front, calling him strategically incompetent. The „Bombshell-Leaks“ of the past, as well as the incarceration of whistleblowers, the harassment of political opponents of Trump under often times questioned excuses, as well as interviews of Trump where he seems to be unpleased by Europes military advance were also used by the Democrats to attack the president. The Republicans however kept accusing their opponents of allegedly working with the chinese and other Revisionist Powers against the US, despite not presenting sound evidence of their allegations. Trump on the other hand claimed the allied advances in Europe and the Middle East for himself and stated that these were only possible because of his leadership of America. And indeed, the polls still favored the republicans due to the deep rift of american society as well as the fact that Trumps followers actually saw him as the only chance for american success in the war, despite the fact that Trump initially pledged to get the US out of war, which was contradicted by the opening of new fronts, may it be by active US choice or because of attacks against the US itself. The neglection of US allies, as well as the political hunt of Trumps opponents which was criticized by the Democrats was actually very popular among his followers, since a majority of them believed Trumps conspiracy theories about the Democrats cooperating with China against America, while many of them expressed animosity towards Americas european and canadian allies, with some republicans even calling for a complete withdrawal from Europe, especially since Operation Goliath. Due to the series of setbacks on the military battlefield, the Revisionist Powers massively increased their efforts on american soil by raising the number of hacking operations, especially targeted against the electoral system, leading to the sabotage of thousands of voting machines, attacks against postal service members by revisionist sleeper agents as well as a massive increase of bombing attacks mainly targeted against politcal, electoral and even in several cases civilian targets. Because of this interference, Trump proclaimed that the integrity of the election is no longer given, while once again accusing the Democrats of concocting these efforts in order to harm America and prevent the republicans from winning the election. As a result, Trump once again declared martial and emergency laws that granted him enough power to declare that he would delay the 2028 presidential election. This cause an unprecedented american constitutional crisis, a gigantic wave of unrest and demonstrations as well as condemnation from allied countries, of whom many hoped for a change of leadership in favor of the Democrats. Since the republicans still maintained the majority in both the Senate and Congress, and many of them being Trump-loyalists who dismissed any constitutional concerns over these measures, the delay came into action without the Democrats being able to stop it. However, this decision multiplied the political division of the American society and is often cited as one of the more immediate causes of the Second American Civil War in 2032.
== 2029 ==
=== The African Front: South Africa joins the frey and fighting breaks out in West Africa. ===
With the new year approaching, the conflict in Africa kept spreading to more and more regions. Due to the Russian military and paramilitary influence inside its borders, the Central African Republic was pushed to join the Revisionist Powers, leading it to send troops to the south Sudanese front, while allowing congolese troops and Russian paramilitaries to encircle the allied forces in South Sudan. For similar reasons as the C. A. R, Bostwana, Angola and Madagascar declared their support for the revisionist cause, which is why Zimbabwe was able to send troops through Botswana into Angola, in order to give reinforcements to the D.R.C as well. On their way, troops from Zimbabwe and Botswana violated the namibian border, causing a heightened state of alert in southern Africa.
With all of these additional forces closing in on South Sudan, while committing countless atrocities on the civilian population, South Africa, which engaged in the past in a peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, decided to once again provide military assistance to the south Sudanese, hoping to be able to stop the escalation. This caused severe tensions in southern Africa, since this increased the chance of South African troops engaging against their Zimbabwean and botswanan counterparts fighting with the DRC and Sudan against the south Sudanese. South African troops were sent through Mozambique and Tanzania towards allied nations close to the central African front, while sending a smaller battalion to Namibia, in order to reassure its neighbor of its support in the case of escalation in the south.
Zimbabwe called for the end of South Africa's involvement in the conflict, and sent troops close to the border as a gesture of intimidation, while Russian paramilitary Wagner Group conducted several acts of sabotage and assault against allied forces all over Africa. Among those targets were South African troops crossing into Tanzania through Mozambique, causing outrage among the South African leadership. Those attacks on the other hand were blamed on Islamists in Mozambique by the Russians, because they tried to avoid direct confrontation with South Africa. As a result, a smaller contingent of South Africa's troops was ordered to remain in the North of Mozambique, in order to tackle potential „terrorist attacks“ against their forces marching through. Mozambique, which only agreed on allowing troops to travel through its territory to reach the allied battlefields further north, protested against the non-temporary presence of South African troops, and mobilized its forces as a gesture of intimidation. In order to avoid the economically and military strong BRICS nation of South Africa to engage more against revisionist African nations on other battlefields, the paramilitary Wagner group conducted a false flag assault against South African troops, causing fighting with forces from Mozambique. As a result, South African troops were authorized to neutralize their mozambique counterparts, leading Mozambique to declare war on South Africa. At the same time, South African and namibian troops were caught in skirmishes with Zimbabwean and botswanan forces violating Namibias territory again. This lead Botswana, Zimbabwe, but also Angola to declare war on South Africa.
In western African, things also remained increasingly tense in the military lead nations of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, as well as Guinea Diego the ongoing conflict with western backed ECOWAS, which opposed the series of military coups in the Sahel out of fear that this trend might keeps on spreading further. Russia exploited this by increasing its ties to Burkina Faso, in order to bolster its overtaxed military against the Islamists, binding them closer to Russia. The increased dependency on not only Russia, but also China allowed the Revisionist Powers to pressure several western African nations to support their war effort against the Allies. Malinese and guinean troops, as well as forces from Burkina Faso, supported by russian Wagner mercenaries attacked french positions inside Côte d’Ivoire, as well as Senegal, while Niger launched a large scale offensive against nigerian and other ECOWAS forces in the region. The attacks were soon repelled, leading most of ECOWAS, except Cape Verde, to launch counterattacks against the military juntas in the Sahel, spearheaded by Nigeria. Senegalese, gambian, Bissau-guinean and ivorian troops, supported by French, American and German forces managed to occupy Kayes and Sikasso in Mali, as well as Banfora in Burkina Faso, while ghanaian, togolese and beninese forces took Tenkodogo, Diébougou and Fada Ngourma. Troops from Guinea-Bissau and Sierra-Leone also took a hold of the guinean coastline and occupied Conakry with the support of French and american air and naval assets. Nigerian forces conducted a massive airstrike campaign against nigrien Junta strongholds in Niamey, while ground troops of the whole ECOWAS coalition took Maradi, Zinder and Tessaoua, accompanied by French, american and german forces. Russian paramilitaries joined in on the combat against allied forces in West Africa, while simultaneously, Algeria sent troops of its own to Mali and Niger to counter the allied offensive in the Sahel.
=== The Eastern Front: China's Advance halted ===
At the Eastern Front, the Chinese advance that lasted for almost 4 years slowly came to a halt in 2027. No significant progress was achieved in Korea, while the Indo-Chinese Front remained static, leaving only the Southeast-Asia Front as the only one that saw still some movement from both sides. The years of allied blockades took their toll on China, which was increasingly confronted with shortages of fuel and other resources, despite Russia and other continental Revisionist Powers trying to help China compensate for that. While China's economy moved to the brink of collapse, a new wave of insurgencies emerged in Tibet and Xinjiang, supported by allied powers. These insurgencies diverted China's attention more to the inside, leading to bloody countermeasures in both regions. Especially Xinjiang saw a new dimension of violence against inner Chinese citizens, in form of several massacres against areas of the Muslim Uyghur minorities. Thousands of Uyghurs were rounded up and brought into China's „re-education“ camps, which became de facto concentration camps for Muslims and other individuals the regime saw as undesirable.
At the same time, casualty rates at the Korean Front mounted rapidly, due to the large armies that were concentrated in comparatively small terrain. Seoul gained the name of being a „meat grinder“, because both sides concentrated large masses of forces in and around the city, leading to unforeseen carnage. North Korean troops, which were facing massive material damage due to their outdated equipment, were forced into the defense in various sectors of the front, forcing the Chinese and Russians to relieve pressure on their reluctant allies, by increasing their attacks on Cheongju and Andong. The Mongolian troops, that were reluctantly drafted during the war by the revisionists, were used as additional cannon fodder to slow down allied troops in Korea. The Allies on the other hand were able to inflict severe damage on the Revisionist Powers during the Battle of the Sea of Japan, rendering most of North Koreas navy useless, while leaving only the Russian Pacific Fleet and the Chinese submarine forces to fight off allied vessels from the eastern Korean coastline. Long range missile attacks against Japan and pacific American territories became less frequently, due to shortages in China's arsenal. Russian anti-air defenses were able to keep the allied air force at bay, but the additional fronts that were opened by Russia in the Arctic forced the missile and air defense forces to increasingly focus on the protection of Russia's coastline.
This created enough openings for the allied air force to harass the revisionist lines in Korea, leading to heavy casualties among the North Koreans. North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un faced not only immense pressure on his troops coming from the Allies, but also the Chinese leadership demanding Kim to hold the line no matter what, while the North Korean population suffered from mass starvation and disease. As an act of desperation, Kim authorized the use of chemical weapons of mass destruction, causing suffering among civilians and soldiers alike. Meanwhile, Chinese troops in Southeast Asia were bogged down in costly jungle warfare with the Allies, who were able to prevent a Chinese breakthrough during the Battle of Hanoi. Allied troops from Thailand, Vietnam and the US almost completely overrun Cambodia, while cutting it off from Laos. Simultaneously, allied air, missile and long range artillery attacks against Hainan became more frequent, causing additional upheaval and protests in China. Due to the war entrance of Vietnam and Thailand, China had to pull back its „9-Dash line“ further away from the continental Asian coastline, which threatened to create an opening between the Spratly and Paracel islands. With the combined effort of American, Malaysian, Vietnamese, Thai and Indian naval forces, the Allies managed to exploit the situation by conquering the Royal Charlotte Reef and the Ardasier Reefs. The Chinese navy also suffered casualties during the Battle of Rifleman Bank, leading the Chinese leadership to decide for increased mining of the South China Sea, as well as additional fortification of the Paracel islands. The conquered islands in the South China Sea then were repurposed by the Allies, who deployed their own anti-air and anti-ship defenses on these islands, which increased their range significantly.
Among the systems deployed were also the first batteries of the new US Strategic Long Range Cannons (SLRC), which were able to deliver massed fires at a strategic range of up to 1852 km (1000 miles). These cannons, which were firstly introduced in 2024, proved to be effective against revisionist A2/AD capabilities and enabled allied air forces to penetrate deeper into enemy airspace, and were therefore also deployed in Korea, where they were used against Russian S-300 and S-400 units. The US also added additional GLMRS launchers with an extended range into their arsenal, leading more and more revisionist targets in North Korea, occupied Taiwan and coastal China to come into the range of allied fire. South Korea at the same time faced one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in history. Millions of refugees were fleeing the bloodshed in the North of the country, but due to the geographical limits of the Peninsula, the gigantic armies assembled in Korea, and the range of both sides weaponry, tens of thousands of civilians fell victim to the fighting, despite trying to escape.
=== The Western Front: Allied Breakthrough in the Balkans ===
With Africa being more and more entangled in the war, the US facing an invasion of its Far East territories, and the Eastern Front seeing a slowdown of Chinese progress, Europe still struggled to break the stalemate at the Western Front. While the deadlock along the Western Front seemed to be ironclad, the war at the Balkan Front saw far more movement. Despite its successes in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Kosovo, Revisionist Power Serbia faced severe problems due to being almost completely surrounded by enemies. The Allies finally managed to consolidate enough forces around Serbia to attempt breaking through the enemies lines. While Croatian troops, supported by the Slovenians, were already invading and occupying several border towns in Serbia, Serbia itself launched an invasion of Croatia, leading to heavy fighting in the region of Vukovar.
The Albanians, kosovarians, Greeks and Montenegrins pushed back against the Serbs in Istok and Gjilan, while a Montenegrin attempt of crossing into Serbia through the Serbian-Montenegrin border failed. The Romanians on the other hand, supported by the French, British, Slovakians and to a smaller extent Germans, managed to perform a successful invasion of Serbia along their entire shared border, despite missile attacks launched by the Russian Black Sea Fleet, leading Baćka Topola to be captured by the Allies. At the same time, allied aircraft intensified their bombing campaign of Belgrade and important Serbian infrastructure, leading to heavy casualties not only among the Serbian armed forces, but also the civilian population of Serbia, causing outcries in both revisionist and allied countries. Meanwhile, the Allies of Europe increasingly banded together for the development of new weapons and other systems. One of the main focuses was additional and improved fire power, which was heavily needed in order to destroy Russian anti-air defenses, while smashing through their own fortifications. Additionally, the Allies tried to develop ways of countering Russian satellites, which gave the revisionists advantages in monitoring allied operations and movements. There were also projects for new 6th generation fighter and bomber aircraft, which saw support from the US as well. Especially Germany became increasingly dominant in the development of new weapons, leading to the production of various new artillery systems, improved tanks, rifles, aircraft and even submarines. Meanwhile, after intense diplomatic effort, Italy declared its support for the Balkan campaign, leading Italian troops to be landed in Albania and Bosnia, where they engaged against Serbian troops and their allied militias in ethnic Serbian territory. Allied surface vessels in the Adriatic conducted several missile strikes against Serbia and Republika Srpska, causing a Serbian setback in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Main targets of the allied missile attacks were Serbian ammunition depots and radar stations, while the air force conducted waves of air raids against Serbian supply routes and artillery positions. Bulgaria still remained neutral, but increased its defenses along its border with Serbia, in the case of a potential attack. It also granted the Allies logistical support, as did Hungary, but this was not enough to stop allied frustration with those uncommitted NATO members, leading joined allied military funding in Bulgaria and Hungary to be partially frozen. As a result, Hungary mobilized a large portion of its army as a show of support, but while Hungarian volunteers went to Poland to support the Allies, the mobilized Hungarian forces themselves seemed to be geared more against Romania and Ukraine, instead of Russian forces in the region, which increased tensions between those nations. Due to the ongoing struggle on the continent, the Europeans made a request to Washington, asking the US to send more troops to the Western Front, which was denied. The official explanation for that was, that the US would lack enough troops to follow that request, but at the same time, thousands of newly drafted and trained US soldiers were sent to the Eastern Front, in order to force a victory against China. What made things worse were public comments of Donald J. Trump, who claimed that the Europeans would been able to defeat the Russians, if they would have spent more on defense before the war, as the US demanded. Trump also publicly stated, that the Europeans would perform very badly, and that they should seek peace with Russia. These comments were met with harsh criticism throughout Europe, while there were also loud critical voices in the US condemning Trumps statements. Almost simultaneously, 2000 US soldiers were ordered to be pulled out of Europe, in order to fight at the Eastern Front, causing anti-American protests all over the continent. Especially Poland, which was very pro-Trump before the war, felt betrayed by this move, and moved closer to its European allies for joined defense plans and weapon programs. Russian mis strikes on the other hand got less frequently, because Russia wanted to prevent missile shortages. These remaining strikes were still able to destroy a lot of allied highways, runways, roads, airfields and railways though, affecting central and northern Europe the most, due to eastern Europe largely being occupied by Russia.
As compensation for the destroyed infrastructure, the Allies of Europe came up with new, innovative ways of transporting soldiers, supplies and equipment, that is why they introduced a new class of large airships, as a way of not having to rely on airfields and railroads. At the same time, Serbian forces started to dig in and fortified their positions, creating several lines of defense against the invading troops in the north and northeast, by taking position along the Sava and Danube rivers. This on the other hand meant, that Serbia had to effectively abandon Vojvodina as a whole, in order to assure Belgrade's security. traditionally pro-Russian state, and newest NATO member North Macedonia remained rather passive, but tried to move the Allies towards a rather revisionist leaning peace diplomatically, since close ties between Russia and the Balkan nation remained present throughout the war. North Macedonia still mobilized parts of its army for the case that conflict would spread, but instead of mobilizing towards the Serbian border, most of the troops activated this way were sent much closer to Greece, Kosovo and Albania, causing tensions with allied nations. Despite these frictions with local Balkan players, the allied campaign against Serbia seemed to be more successful than the ones against Russia, which saw nothing but the devastation of large parts of northern and eastern Europe. Many nations in the world eyed on Europe, asking themselves if the fate of the Allies may be determined by victory or failure of the Europeans against Russia and its revisionist allies.
=== The Southern Front: The Kurdish Genocide and the Bombing of Gaza ===
The war in the Middle East meanwhile showed no signs of becoming less bloody, especially for the civilian population. While the Iranian and Iraqi lines were on the brink of collapse, Syria, after many years of bloodshed and destruction, finally was defeated with the Fall of Damascus. Allied troops from the Arab coalition, the UK, America, France and other western aligned nations marched into the city after one of the largest sieges in history, leading to weeks of urban clashes with hostile insurgents and snipers. Nonetheless, most of the city was conquered in a month, followed by an allied hunt for Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad. With only some small pockets of Syrian resistance being scattered all over the country, the Allies increased their effort to fulfill their respective agendas. While Israel fully consolidated its gains on the Golan heights, Turkey began with the forceful resettlement of millions of Syrian refugees housing on its territory. Erdoğan's plan was proposed as a „final solution“ of all of Turkeys main struggles: the refugee crisis and the „Kurdish question“.
Most of Syrian and Iraqi Kurdistan was already under Turkish occupation, but resistance of both Kurdish militias like the YPG and SDF, as well as Kurdish civilians remained present, which was accompanied by a new wave of Kurdish related terror attacks inside Turkey. Sympathizers of PKK and the „Freedom Falcons Kurdistan“ committed a series of bombings against police stations, military security posts, and bases, leading to the death of dozens of Turkish soldiers and policemen. A Kurdish-related terror attack during a AKP rally additionally killed several civilians, causing Erdoğan to proclaim the beginning of Turkeys „final solution“. This plan included the resettlement of Syrians, Arabs and assyrians in Turkeys conquered territories in Iraq and Syria, for which Erdoğan wants to completely dissolve Kurdistan, while „neutralizing“ all terrorists in the region. Turkish troops marched into every Kurdish majority cities, and captured all males older than 14, many of which were rounded up and executed on sight, under the justification that they were terrorist fighters who allegedly attacked Turkish forces and civilians. The Turkish air force increased its indiscriminate bombing campaign against Kurdish strongholds, in order to evict Kurds who refused to abandon their cities. Kurdish civilians who did not flee the scene, despite the aerial bombing and shelling, were gathered and forcefully deported further into the Syrian desert, which was reminiscent of the Armenian Genocide during WW1.
Because of this, many Kurdish civilians, especially women and children, were left in harsh conditions, without sufficient supplies of food, water and medicine, leading to the death of hundreds of civilians. These acts of violence could not be denied any longer by allied leadership, especially because reports about what has now become a Kurdish genocide became more and more widespread. As a result, protesters in Europe and the US called for the eviction of Turkey from the alliance, while Israel and the GCC joined in verbal condemnation of these actions. Any demands for Turkey halting its attacks were met with aggression and dismissal, leading the AKP regime to call its official allies as supporters of terrorism, saying it will never stop to do whatever it takes to eradicate it.
After increased violence between Kurds and Turks in the southeast of Turkey, the Turkish army even „occupied“ Kurdish dominated areas in its own territory, leading to civil war like uprisings and the incarceration of almost all male Kurds in the region, who were brought into detention camps in Turkeys north. Overall, one and a half million Kurds would be killed throughout the entire war. At the same time, violence between Israel and the Palestinian Territories escalated as well. The Gaza campaign remained in a kind of deadlock, meaning Israeli forces focused on attacking and destroying Hamas tunnels and weapon depots, while marching deeper into the Gaza Strip. After the death of Palestinian leader Abbas through targeted assissination, Hamas and the Palestinian jihad vowed to retaliate in the biggest fashion possible, while a general uproar went through the Palestinian public. That is why, during the high Jewish holiday of Pessah, Hamas-related extremists and militant Palestinians committed the one of the worst acts of terrorism in Israel's history. Extremists in the West Bank stormed houses of Israeli settlements at nightfall and massacred dozens of Israeli families during their celebrations, while multiple synagogues were attacked by suicide bombers and crude missiles.
In Jerusalem, almost a hundred militant Palestinians killed bystanders in the streets with knifes and improvised explosives, while a series of car bombs and suicide attacks lead to more deaths and chaos in the city. At the same time, hundreds of missiles were fired by Hamas and other terrorist organizations from the Gaza strip, and despite many being intercepted by Israel's iron dome defenses, the ammunition shortages of the last year still lead to many Israeli cities to be hit, although the casualty number of these attacks remained rather low. Israeli soldiers and security forces in Jerusalem engaged in street fights with Palestinian extremists the whole night, causing both Israeli and Palestinian civilians to be killed in the process. During this massacre against the Israelis, almost 1350 civilians and dozens of security forces were killed, which was proclaimed by Hamas and its sympathizers as being the „divine punishment“ of the Israelis.
The Iranian leadership and its followers publicly cheered for this massacre, as did anti-Israeli protestors all over the Arab world, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and Turkey. While the leadership of allied Arab nations tried to somewhat distance itself from these voices, Turkey and non-allied Qatar refused to condemn neither the massacre nor those who celebrated it. The western allies on the other hand expressed their shock and support for Israel, although the US was the most vocal in its condemnation of these massacres. Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett announced that any militant Palestinian force would finally be rooted out and destroyed, which was followed by a sudden retreat of Israeli troops in several areas of the Gaza strip. A few hours later, waves of Israeli aircraft were ordered to attack every single potential militant hideout, whilst receiving support of a couple of American jets and bombers. The result was the de facto carpet bombardment of the Gaza Strip, that lasted non-stop for several hours. The bombardment was so intense, that almost no missiles could be fired by Palestinian extremists in response. At the end, 70% of all buildings in the Gaza Strip were completely destroyed, while almost a third of its entire population was killed. Most of members and leaders of Hamas remnants did not survive this night, leading the organization to de facto cease to exist. The nations that saw cheer for the anti-Israeli massacre before were now also the ones aggressively condemning the bombardment of Gaza, with some people in said nations even demanding that there should be war waged against Israel. And despite their initial support, many western Allies, except the US expressed their shock about this disproportionate retaliation. The Israeli army then moved back into Gaza and occupied the entire Strip, as well as the Westbank, leading the Palestinian Territories to be officially dissolved as such. The carpet bombing of the Gaza Strip did in fact result in inner-allied military squabble though, due to border clashes erupting between Israeli, jordanian and Egyptian forces now retaliation of the bombings and the subsequent displacement of a majority of the surviving Palestinians, while Turkish naval vessels fired at their Israeli counterparts in the southeastern Mediterranean, causing concerns of a fragmentation of the middle eastern allied front.
=== Allied Advances in Africa ===
The Allies not only saw successes at the Eastern, Southern and Western Front, but also the African Theater of the war. The east African allied coalition of Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda managed to push back against the revisionists at the Central African Front, leading to heavy losses among the Sudanese and kongolese. With the additional support of western and South African troops, the Allies also achieved considerable gains in Eritrea, which was forced to abandon most of its southern territory. Kenyan and Ethiopian forces, supported by US troops, advanced into the Somalian cities of Kismaayo, Jaimaame and Baidoa, meaning that the capital of Mogadischu was heavily exposed for allied aircraft and artillery. Allied troops also successfully invaded Sudan and the D.R.C, leading the Sudanese positions around Ad-Damzin, Al-Quadarif and Qala An Nahl, as well as the congolese cities of Bunia, Beni and Butembo to be taken by allied forces.
Further south, the increased diplomatic pressure of South Africa pushed Tanzania to join the allied cause, leading Tanzania to open a second front against Mozambique, while in secret, South African diplomats assured Russia, that no Russian nationals operating in Mozambique would be harmed, unknowing that the Wagner group was responsible for the attacks on South African troops. At the South African Front, allied troops of South Africa advanced into Bostwana and took Molepolole and Gaborone, while Serowe and Palapye were taken a few days later. South Africa also attacked into Zimbabwe and managed to occupy party of the strategically important A4 and A6 highways. Meanwhile, South African and namibian troops in the west advanced deeper into Angola, by marching through the Iona National park and the Coutada Pública do Mucusso, causing severe damage to protected wildlife in these reservoirs. In the North, allied Sahel troops of Mali, Niger and Chad, supported by the French, British, Americans and the few remaining German forces, were able to push into the south of Algeria, but suffered heavy losses. In order to relieve pressure from the comparatively weak Sahel allies, western leadership pressured the major non-NATO Allies of Morocco and Tunisia to finally enter the war on the allied sides. Since both nations already suffered heavily under the war in their neighborhood, especially in terms of economic losses, the president of Tunisia, as well as the moroccan King finally declared their support for the Allies, and reluctantly declared war on Algeria. Morocco also received reassurance from the US that America would recognize and support its claims in Western Sahara, in exchange for Moroccos entrance into the war against Algeria.
In order to secure the Gibraltar strait, British and Spanish troops were landed in Marocco to deliver reinforcements for its Algerian campaign. Tunisia received allied reinforcements from the UK and France as well, while many tribal rebels fighting in Libya declared their support for Tunisia. Italy refused to send in more troops into North Africa, since it was originally supportive of the now revisionist government of Tripoli. Italian naval forces instead monitored the Medditeranean for any illegal or enemy movement, while trying to prevent any refugees from reaching European shores. Several NGO missions reported that they found and increasing numbered dead refugees in the sea, many of which had shot and burn wounds, leading to accusations that Italy was actively firing at refugee boats. These accusations were rejected, and many humanitarian helpers in Italy were arrested for „enemy propaganda“, while many private sea rescue ships said that they were attacked by the Italian navy. Further South, Nigeria and the ECOWAS coalition managed to push deeper into the territory of the Sahel juntas, despite Russian and algerian efforts to halt them. Due to the joint effort the Allies were able to push into the revisionist nations in West Africa further back, leading Quahigouya and Bobo-Dioulasso in Burkina Faso, as well as Kankan and Nzérékoré in Guinea to fall into allied hands, while brutal fighting continued in Niger.
=== The "Agents War" ===
Since both the Revisionist Powers and the Allies were deeply entangled in combat on the battlefield, both sides also heavily intensified their intelligence operations, leading to what was later called the “Agents-“, or „Shadow-War“. Spies and sleeper agents were used on all fronts in order to gain intelligence, sabotage the enemy or even actively assassinate specific targets. Especially the US, Russia and China deployed thousands of agents all over the world, who waged a covertly war against their respective counterparts. In Europe, several Russian dissidents and deserteurs were attacked even far away from the frontline, leading dozens of them to be often shot in broad daylight, or even assassinated using nerve agents, caused panic and hysteria in Europes large cities about the usage of chemical weapons. In the US and Russia, sleeper agents sabotaged Communication infrastructure and spread misinformation on a large scale, including the publication of explicit material from the battlefield, which accused the opposing side of war crimes.
Allied and revisionist agents also targeted their enemies' power grid, in form of several hacking and even bombing operations against power lines and plants, while several high ranking politicians were killed by car bombs and snipers. Especially car bombing attacks became so frequently, that the streets of Moscow, Washington D. C. and Beijing often resembled battlefields themselves. These attacks not only disrupted the enemies' leadership, but also increased panic and hysteria among the population of both the Allies and Revisionist Powers, leading a feeling of general suspicion to spread among the people. Russian and Chinese security forces raided offices and private homes on a daily basis, arresting hundreds of suspects, even though many of them were wrongly accused and only arrested for either family or friendly connections to other countries. In the US, state surveillance was massively increased, in order to find and identify foreign agents, while many foreign press members and members of foreign organizations were expelled from the country. The „Agents War“ also caused massive paranoia among the leaders of the Allies and Revisionist Powers. Chinese leader Xi Jinping ordered the execution of members of his cabinet who became increasingly and openly wary of the war, accusing them to be traitors working for the US, while Donald J. Trump developed a paranoia of potentially getting poisoned, leading his overall demeanor to become more aggressive and fragile. Wiretapping and undercover surveillance also became much more common, that is why Russian audio of several politicians discussing their military strategy was leaked, as were conversations among the American leadership.
Many whistleblowers, not all of them acting under revisionist orders, were brought in front of war tribunals, and charged with treason, despite many of them just trying to reveal allied misconduct on various battlefields. During this time period, Trump ordered two thousand American soldiers to be pulled out of Europe, in order to fight against China and prepare for the invasion of Iran, causing massive outrage among the Europeans. A lot of Trump critics went to the streets over this, leading to clashes between protesters and security forces, while almost the entire Democratic leadership openly questioned Trumps strategy and lack of allied commitment. House Democrats and Democratic senators tried to hinder Trump's decision to pull troops out of Europe, which failed due to Trump's executive orders, the emergency laws still being in place and the unconditional backing Trump enjoyed through his loyalist Senate majority. The attempt of sabotaging Trumps decision making lead the president to order the arrest of several public Democratic figures, like Rep. Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler and even Nancy Pelosi, accusing them of treason as well. All three of them were released after a week, but this action still intensified the tension inside Americas society. During exactly these tensions, the US and the allied leadership in Europe were rocked by one of the largest scandals in political history. A whistleblower, who was incredibly critical of Trump's decisions and who witnessed his strategy behind them, created a secret footage with audio, which showed a conversation between Trump and some of his political advisers. In this footage, despite lacking quality, Trump can clearly be seen an heard speaking about the situation at the Western Front. When his advisers stressed that the US needs to support their allies in Europe against Russia, Trump repeatedly asked why, and added that it would be Europe's own fault that it was performing so poorly against the Revisionist Powers. He called the Europeans bad allies, and asked his advisers why he should support those „ungrateful“ Europeans, when he needs his soldiers against China.
After the notion of the attending people, that the Europeans would need the US, or otherwise Russia would conquer the continent, Trump openly said that he would rather want to negotiate with Russia, instead of having to deal with all of these bad and ungrateful allies. This conversation was leaked days after, causing the whistleblower to be hunted down and charged with treason in a speeded up process. The uproar caused by this revelation shook not only America, but also Europe, which feeled betrayed by the US president. Canada joined Europe in the condemnation of this reveal, while American military leaders tried their best to limit the damage of this scandal, claiming that the US would still fully support its allies. Despite these fruitless attempts of easing the tensions, European leaders and political figures, especially those who worked their way up during the war, came together in order to discuss their next moves. The younger representatives and military leaders, who were drafted during WW3 convinced their older colleagues, that the US would not come to Europe's rescue, and that it effectively abandoned its allies. Out of this dynamic, several politicians, military leaders and diplomats created a series of European only initiatives, aimed at reorganizing Europe's militaries and its strategy, despite American protest. The US was now increasingly left in the dark about European decision making, while the European command was restructured independently from the US, despite skeptical voices from various European nations, like the UK.
=== Operation "Goliath": Europe strikes back ===
In the weeks and months after the „Bombshell-Leaks“ coming from Washington, the allies of Europe, despite the reluctance of some members, co-signed the „United Forces of Europe Act“, an initiative that centralized the the command at the western front independently from the US, while turning the allied armies into one more or less coordinated force. The Allies decided that they have to attempt a large scale breakthrough, in order to collapse the overstretched Russian frontlines. That is why they started with Operation „Goliath“, a plan which intended to create the biggest coordinated land offensive in history. As preparation, new allied airships were used as High Altitude Platforms (HAP), as which they operated in altitudes close to the stratosphere, where they launched anti-satellite missiles and stratospheric drones.
Since those airships were less suspicious than ground launched missiles, their deployment was often ignored or even undetected by Russian radar systems, leading to the loss of several surveillance satellites. On the ground, the Allies used a multitude of covert ways to mobilize and position the hundreds of thousands of fresh conscripts, which were readied for service over the last years and months, leading to nighttime movements, the usage of civilian and even decoy vehicles. The coordination of these movements was incredibly difficult, and the pressure on logistics immense, but due to diversion attacks at the Finnish front, closer to St. Petersburg, as well as the Ukrainian front, the Allies were able to distract the Russians long enough for them to ready their troops and deploy their new weapons. By using civilian trucks disguised as humanitarian and medical aid, the Allies managed to deploy hundreds of new artillery systems, improved tanks and munitions. This strategy would later on lead the revisionist powers to actively target humanitarian forces, out of fear that they would secretly transport allied weapons. Many of the newly designed aircraft were not operational though, and remained therefore hidden at allied storage facilities. Despite some problems occuring in the coordination and preparation of Operation „Goliath“, the Allies finally decided to launch their offensive after weeks of preparation. At 03:00 am at night, the Allies attacked simultaneously at the entire front, stretching from the Finmark in the North, all the way down to the Black Sea.
The new long range artillery systems, many of which were of primarily German design, shelled the frontline relentlessly, using a wide array of projectiles, ranging from rocket assisted, to smoke and even EMP shells, the latter being designed and provided by the US before the scandal. The artillery bombardment, that was directed with the help of aerostat drones, was also targeted against Russian anti-air defenses, like the S-400 and S-500, leading to heavy losses for the revisionist powers. Due to many S-400s and 300s being hit by long range artillery fire, the allied air force was finally able to penetrate deeper into enemy airspace, delivering bombs and missiles to the revisionists rear. The simultaneously attack along the entire front, supported by allied naval vessels in the Barent, Baltic and to a smaller degree Black Sea, overwhelmed the Russians and their allies, due to their overstretched forces and the additional fronts that pinned down Russian troops. Russia, after all these years of fighting, also lacked the resources to provide all fronts with the capacities needed to counter the offensive effectively. Despite incredibly high casualties, the Allies finally broke through multiple sectors at once, forcing the Russians to take a completely defensive stand in Norway, Ukraine and Moldova, while the latter was abandoned by the Russians after a few days, in order to strengthen the defenses in Ukraine. Overall, Operation „Goliath“ was seen as the biggest success of the Allies so far, and an embarrassment for the Russian autocrat Putin.
The Russians also engaged in fierce fighting in the Odessa Oblast, but due to the numerical superiority of the Allies, as well as the combined effort of air, naval and artillery forces, the pocket of revisionist resistance in the Oblast was soon encircled and cut off from the rest of Ukraine, leading to heavy casualties and the capture of hundreds of Russian soldiers. Putin ordered that the main focus of the Russian counter-operations should be put on the Polish section of the front, as well as the Baltic coastline and southern Finland, in order to avoid St. Petersburg being threatened. The new European approach partially blindsided the Americans, leading US troops to be exposed to enemy fire, because of lacking communication with their European counterparts. Since American casualties in Europe mounted because of this development, Trump and his immediate associates demanded the offensive to be halted and coordinated under the direction of the US leadership, which was rejected by the reorganized European command. Despite the US stopping some weapon deliveries to Europe because of this, the Americans reluctantly followed through with the new approach of the Europeans, since the US could not afford Russia to succeed at the Western Front, since Russia would then focus on the Eastern and Northern Front against the US. Several European nations gained new commanding powers in what was now dubbed the „Alliance of the United Forces“ (AUF), leading the UK to get the main command over the European navy, France getting the main command over the army, while Germany took over sub-commands like the allied tank and submarine forces, as well as many logistical and supervisory commands. The European air-command, and the nuclear deterrence was equally distributed between Britain and France, while Germany also retained a lot of influence in the air command.
Many of the southern European allies, as well as the neutral NATO member Hungary felt left out the distribution of influence, despite Italy and Spain being core members of the reorganized AUF naval and air corps. The new structure still had immense flaws, that often slowed down the European offensive, but the initial gains lifted the spirits of the war torn continent, and energized especially the younger recruits who were firstly drafted during this war. Due to the constant demolition of Russian anti-air defenses, the successes on the ground were accompanied by fierce dogfights in the sky, as well as waves of allied bombardment raids against the revisionist lines. This new situation lead the Chinese to dispatch some 2 thousand soldiers to the western front, in order to relieve pressure off their most important ally in the war.
=== The War in South America: Venezuela joins the Revisionist Powers ===
At the same time on the other side of the globe, the Venezuelan Regime of Nicolás Maduro suffered a massive crisis. Due to the ongoing blockades of the Allies against Venezuela's longtime revisionist sponsors, China and Russia, Venezuela came to the brink of collapse. Riots and protests became even more frequent, while the super-inflation and overall dire economic situation caused increased famine and disease in the south American country. The regime blamed the US for this ongoing crisis, and intensified its anti-American rhetoric massively, while a large portion of the Venezuelan people joined in on this animosity. The majority of the Venezuelan army remained loyal to Maduro, while the rebelling armed forces lacked significance, due to the missing foreign support after WW3 broke out.
With the survival of the regime being in question, Maduro searched for ways to relieve pressure on Venezuela, while also hurting those he deemed responsible for the crisis, which was why he decided to take offensive action against the Allies. The decision was made to harass allied maritime traffic the same style Iran allegedly did in the Persian Gulf 2019 onwards, that is why Venezuela's only 2 submarines went on a hunting mission in the coastal waters of the Southern Caribbean Sea, attacking and harassing shipping lines of US ally Colombia and allied Caribbean territories, like Curaçao and Aruba. While most of these attacks remained minor in scale and impact, they were enough to worry the allied leadership of a potential South American Front being opened in Venezuela, especially since Russian aircraft and soldiers were still present in the Bolivarian country. Those forces, including a small Tupolev bomber squadron that was deployed there as soon as the war broke out, were activated by the Kremlin in the wake of the allied advance at the Western Front, leading those aircraft to run bombing raids on allied territories in the Caribbean, leading Aruba, Curaçao and Montserrat to be attacked. Due to almost all American naval assets being sent into the Pacific, the US lacked in significant maritime presence in the Caribbean, with no aircraft carrier being deployed at Americas southern flank. This lack in presence was exploited by the Russian and Venezuelan air force, causing cargo ships and drill stations in the Caribbean Sea and even the Gulf of Mexico to be assaulted as well. The attacks against oil platforms lead to devastating ecological consequences, due to millions of barrels of oil that leaked into the Ocean, while also hurting the allied fuel supply.
The anti-Maduro Lima Group, often called the Rio-Pact, condemned Venezuela's aggressiveness, yet the group of south American nations remained reluctant to directly call out Russia, due to the good relationship between the federation and South America. The only south American nations that openly expressed support for Venezuela were Bolivia and several factions in Uruguay, while voices in Suriname, Nicaragua, Cuba and some of the Bolivarian island states in the Caribbean also declared their support of Maduro. In order to prevent any possible escalation, France, the Netherlands and the UK dispatched a small war ship group to the Caribbean, so that their territories there gained some protection. Politicians in the US also called for a naval presence to secure Americas southern flank, while also calling for attacks against the Russian aircraft in Venezuela. This debate was accompanied by several south American initiatives, like Colombia mobilizing its army along its border with Venezuela, while hunting its few submarines. Wary of a potential strike of the US, Russia and Venezuelan dictator Maduro tried to circumvent this scenario, by once again taking offensive action. Due to their support for Maduro since the failed Guaido coup of 2019, the Caribbean islands of Dominica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, as well as Saint Kitts and Nevis allowed Venezuela and Russia to build a military presence on their territory. The support of Saint Vincent was more reluctantly though, because it feared a possibly violent invasion of Russian and Venezuelan forces, due to Venezuelas claim on Bird Island. This presence was enhanced by the few Russian vessels and the one Iranian ship that were deployed to Venezuela when the war broke out in the summer of 2025.
Especially the helicopter flattops were used by the Venezuelans and Russians to pursue a piracy campaign in the Caribbean Sea, leading commercial vessels to be assaulted and captured with the help of helicopters, similar to how Iran captured various oil tankers during the „Tanker-War“ of 2019. US planes taking off from Puerto Rico managed to sink a Venezuelan ship, while conducting air strikes against revisionist forces stationed on smaller Caribbean islands. This lead the revisionists on the other hand to once again attack and effectively occupy the ABC islands, while Venezuelan dictator Maduro declared war on the US. Colombia, a close ally of the US declared its support for America, should the fighting come to the continent. Meanwhile, Brazil started to mobilize its troops along its border with Venezuela, for the case of open hostilities.
=== The Qatar campaign: Turkeys betrayal ===
With the Western Front coming into motion, and a new front being opened in South America, things remained tense in the Middle East. Allied troops kept closing in to the Iranian border in Iraq, causing an increased usage of chemical weapons to prevent the invasion of Iran, while the Allies were successful in their attempt to outflank and encircle the remaining Iraqi resistance. In order to relieve pressure from the land offensive, the allied CENTCOM main command in the Middle East decided to dare an amphibious invasion of Iran in the Persian Gulf, since most of Iran's navy was already destroyed. The only obstacle to prepare the invasion was the last Iranian ally in the region, Qatar, which still supported Iran with cash and illegal weapon sales outside of the region. This was enough reason for the Saudi regime lead by Muhammad bin Salman to consider military action to neutralize Qatar, while gaining access to its resources and its territory as a staging ground for the operation against Iran.
The western allied leadership remained skeptical about the necessity of such an undertaking, especially since US troops were still stationed in Qatar. Nonetheless, the invasion of Qatar was reluctantly greenlit, leading Saudi, Arabian, jordanian and omani forces to attack into the gulf state. Turkey, which also had a military presence in Qatar, a close ally of the Erdoğan regime, demanded that the quote „illegal invasion“ of Qatar, or otherwise Turkey would see itself forced to protect its interests at the gulf. The warning was ignored, and despite fierce resistance of the rather well equipped qataris, the Allies were able to push deep into the state very quickly. US troops stationed in Qatar left their housing to prevent retaliation, and joined their Arab counterparts in the ongoing offensive. Qatar's modern, and often western weaponry made the allied advance very costly, despite additional support coming from the few British aircraft stationed in Qatar before the campaign. The Qatari army pulled back and established a defensive line further north to protect Doha, allowing the Allies to consolidate a large fraction of their gains. The allied forces also closed in to Turkish troops, that now took position along the qataris in the defense around Doha. Allied calls for a Turkish retreat were ignored, and after Arab, American and British forces kept advancing towads the qatari lines, they were attacked by Turkish forces without warning. This resulted in heated exchanges of fire between officially allied troops, causing the deaths of a few hundred Arab and American forces. The attack lead to a enormous outrage from a majo of allied countries, while the GCC and US leadership demanded Turkey to withdraw from Qatar and give reparations to the Allies, which was firmly rejected by the Erdoğan regime. Erdoğan instead claimed that allied troops attacked their Turkish counterparts first, and that allied support for the Qatar campaign would equate state terrorism. The allied command, as well as NATO specifically summoned an emergency meeting, in order to decide what to to with Turkeys rogue behavior. At the same time, a British destroyer in the eastern Medditeranean was hit and severely damaged by a submarine of unknown origin, which was consequently hunted down and destroyed by allied anti-submarine assets. As it turned out through careful examination, the vessel in question was a Russian one, which caught the allied leadership in the region by surprise. Since there was no possibility that a Russian submarine could have entered the Medditeranean through the Suez or Gibraltar chokepoints, accusations were made that Turkey would allow them to enter through the Bosporus Strait.
Other NATO and GCC members also used the emergency meetings for speaking up against the Kurdish Genocide, which was still occurring in Syria, Iraq and partially Turkey itself, causing heated disputes on public stages. Erdoğan and his subordinates aggressively denounced these accusations, and repeated their talking points abo ut how the West would support terrorism and that Turkey would protect its interests by the actions taken over the course of the war. While allied representatives engaged in severe arguments, pro-allied and pro-Turkish demonstrators clashed with one another outside of the conference settings, leading to violence and injuries among the protesters. There were also reports of Turkish security forces also participating in the clashes, but not to drive the sides apart, but allegedly to attack anti-Erdoğan protesters of the other side. The betrayal of Turkish troops in Qatar, the Turkish support for Revisionist Powers like Pakistan, Libya and Somalia, as well as the Kurdish Genocide and the apparent collusion with Russian forces forced the Allies to ultimately eject Turkey from NATO and the overall war alliance, leading all financial and military support for Turkey to cease. Erdoğan condemned these actions, and characterized them as a „declaration of war“, as well as the „West showing its real face“. While the Allies officially declared that Turkish troops were no longer seen as friendly forces, and that any action against allied soldiers would be retaliated, there were still calls claiming that there is no desire for confrontation, and that the Allies would stay out of Turkeys way as long as it would do the same. Turkey on the on the other hand declared, that allied troops would from now on be seen as hostile forces, and that Turkey would never give in to any western demands. Violent protests between anti-Turkish demonstrators and pro-AKP European nationals of Turkish descent emerged all over Europe, with Germany, the Netherlands and Austria being affected the most.
Racist attacks against Turkish institutions were reported, while on the other hand Kurdish institutions and political centers were attacked by Erdoğan sympathizers. This caused the situation between the West and Turkey to become far more tense, while there were small allied gains in Qatar, the place were this crisis originated. After additional missile bombardment coming from the gulf, the Allies were able to approach Qatar also by sea, forcing the qataris to abandon Dukhan and Al Khor, leaving Doha as the last stronghold of the gulf state. The immense pressure, and the allied numerical advantage lead to first offers by the qataris for a ceasefire, which could culminate in negotiations with the Allies about a truce. At the same time, Turkey opened its borders in the west for around 1 million Syrian, Iraqi and Azeri refugees, and pushed them towards Europe with deliberate pressure coming from Turkeys security forces, as retaliation for western actions against Turkey. Greece and Bulgaria, who both fortified their respective borders with Turkey over the last few years during the war, were confronted with thousands of refugees trying to enter their territory, many of them engaging in violent clashes with security forces, while Turkish forces actively helped the situation to escalate by destroying border fences and attacking Greek forces through the crowds. While Greek and allied authorities warn Turkey against further hostilities, Erdoğan threatened the Allies that anything he deems as an aggression against Turkish interests will be seen as a declaration of war.
=== The War of the Caribbean: Cuba and Maduro join forces ===
While the Allies were able to achieve progress at the Western and Southern Fronts, things kept escalating in the Caribbean. The ABC islands, as well as some islands of the Small Antilles were still under some form Venezuelan occupation, supported by Russian forces and Bolivarian sympathizers in the Caribbean, while the Allies still lacked a larger naval presence in the Caribbean Sea. As a reaction to the Venezuelan hostilities, the US and its south-American ally Colombia tried to increase the pressure on Venezuela by imposing a total blockade of any goods going to Venezuela specifically In order to demonstrate America's resolve, the US publicly sunk cargo-ships that were destined for Venezuela, after allowing the crews to leave the vessels. Among those were dominantly Cuban vessels, since Cuba was Venezuela's biggest regional supporter. As a consequence of this, Cuba, which already suffered heavily through allied blockades itself, declared war on the US, while 3 days later, as a show of political support, Nicaragua also declared war against America. After publicly joining forces, both Cuba and Venezuela searched for a potential retaliation against the US, leading them to decide for operations against US and allied territory, which could be exploited by revisionist propaganda. Cuban forces attacked and invaded Haiti as a staging ground for offensives against the US-territory of Puerto Rico.
Venezuelan and Russian aircraft on the other hand already conducted airstrikes against Puerto Rico, using St. Kitts and Nevis as a launch platform. This forced the scarce naval force of the US to divert its attention from the southern Caribbean Sea to Puerto Rico, leaving only a minimum of defenses in the Straits of Florida. With America being distracted by attacks on Puerto Rico and the American Virgin Islands, the Revisionist Powers saw themself tempted to dare a risky, yet ideological valuable endeavor: an attack against mainland America. Since two thirds of the US continental air force has been called mostly to the Eastern Front, and another large portion being tied down in Alaska, the remainder of the US only had a bare minimum aerial defenses, encouraging Cuban, Venezuelan and Russian forces to attempt an assault on southern Florida. At 5 am, the 4th of July 2028, revisionist aircraft launched from the Cay Sal Bank of the Bahamas entered American airspace, and conducted a series of missile strikes and bombing attacks against US territory, starting with Key West. Among the first targets being hit by the revisionists was the Naval Air Station Key West, after which the rest of the Florida Keys were targeted. Despite some minor damage, most of the Florida Keys remained unharmed since the revisionists tried to reach and focus on Miami. The US air force mobilized every aircraft available at the Homestead Air Reseve Base, leading to the first ever dogfights occurring in mainland American territory. The revisionist attackers were able to hit and damage several buildings in Miami, causing chaos and panic among the civilian population, that has initially gathered to celebrate the American Independence Day. At Nightfall, the US air force managed to destroy all invading aircraft, some of which crashed into the Everglades and caused fires in the swamps, while at the end of the day 150 Americans were killed during what was later nicknamed „the Florida Blitz“.
Donald Trump tried to proclaim the kill rate of the US air force as a tremendous success, despite the oppositional Democrats and Trump critics all over the US seeing this as an embarrassment and humiliation for America, which lead to a new wave of anti-Trump protests in various US states. Cuba and Venezuela, despite losing their entire attack force during this day celebrated the attack as prove of American weakness, while Revisionist Powers all over the globe exploited the Florida Blitz for their own propaganda. Venezuela also planned another hit against the American supply of resources, this time by targeting oil drilling facilities of US companies in Guyana, with which Venezuela was engaged in a century long border dispute. Venezuelan troops, supported by attack helicopters assaulted EXXON oil facilities in the disputed region of Guyana Esequiba, leading dozens of Americans to be captured. At the same time, pro Venezuelan state Suriname was convinced by the Revisionist Powers to seize the opportunity and take territory it also claimed not only in Guyana, but also French Guyana, leading forces of Suriname to enter the mineral-rich region of Tigri in Guyana, and the area between the Itani and Marouini rivers in French Guyana. This aggression lead France to declare war on Suriname, while French soldiers were able to push the invaders back into Suriname, awaiting more reinforcements from France and the Allies. All of these actions of war finally convinced US ally Colombia to actively fight against the south American Revisionist Powers, that is why Colombian troops, supported by a small, already present American contingency, attacked Venezuelan forces guarding the border between Venezuela and Colombia. The leadership of Colombia alongside US officials, called for military support from the already activated Rio-Pact, leading the governments of most south American nations to evaluate a possible entrance into the war. Venezuelan ally Bolivia on the other hand called for a ceasefire and threatened that a US invasion of Venezuela would also mean war with Bolivia. While the first hostilities started along the Colombian-Venezuelan border, Cuban forces assaulted the US base of Guantanamo. Due to their numerical advantage, the Cuban army was able to overwhelm the small US presence of Guantanamo after a week of brutal fighting, which lead to the liberation of Guantanamos inmates. The liberation of the prisoners of Guantanamo, among them many once internationally warranted terrorists and criminals, was celebrated not only by the Cuban regime, but also revisionist propaganda channels all over the world, with some even comparing this event with the liberation of concentration camp prisoners during WW2.
=== Old grievances: the Algerian-Moroccan Front ===
Fighting also continued in Africa, with most of the continent being entangled in the war at this point. While South African troops advanced further into Botswana and Zimbabwe, the allied campaigns in central Africa and Angola remained more static. In the north, allied troops of the Sahel, supported by the British, French, Americans and Germans, advanced further into Algeria, while Morocco launched a push into the Algerian border region with help from Spanish, British and French forces. Especially the involvement of the latter caused some unrest and protests against the Allies in Morocco, due to its French colonial past. Nonetheless, the moroccan army continued its fight, while at the same time, tunisian forces attacked Algeria from the East, forcing Algeria to divert its attention from Libya to its own borders.
The increased involvement of Morocco in the war also lead to a new flare-up of tensions in the Western Sahara conflict, where Morocco still occupied a large portion of the country since the peace agreements of 1991. Due to the moroccan offensive, Algeria once again increased its support for the Polisario Front Movement in Western Sahara, supplying it with additional manpower, weaponry and intelligence. Both Algerian and Polisario forces attacked the moroccan built wall separating the country into spheres of influence, leading Algerian troops to break through east of Mahbas, while the Polisario Front was able to destroy the wall in the sectors close to Guelta Zemmur, Oum Dreyga and Awsard. Additional Polisario assaults took place south of Techla and Guerguerat, forcing an aggressive reaction of Morocco, which lead to several accusations of human rights violations committed by the moroccan army. With large parts of the moroccan army geared towards Western Sahara, Algeria tried to establish a counteroffensive by attacking into Morocco, allowing Algerian troops to take Oujda, while threatening Nador and Taza. Morocco on the other hand relocated some of its forces from Western Sahara further north, which gave it the opportunity to strike into Algerias south, leading Algerian troops in Tindouf to be overwhelmed. The allied push coming from the Sahel on the other hand was slowed down significantly, due to the harsh conditions in the Saharan Desert. Russian made Iskander missile launchers were used by the Algerians to strike deep into Morocco, allowing it to diminish allied advantages in the air by hitting airfields and bases.
Morocco itself was reduced to conduct only a few series of frontal airstrikes, due to Algerias advantage in long-range SAM systems. The moroccan navy, supported by the Spanish, French, British and even Portuguese tried to compensate for Moroccos losses in the air by supporting anti-air defenses and utilizing their capable SAM systems to assist in the coastal ground war. Algerian submarines went on a harassment campaign, attacking their moroccan counterparts, while intercepting allied supply shipments from Europe. Moroccos southwest at the same time was overrun by Algerian forces, which were supported by Algeria more numerous attack helicopter fleet. The Atlas mountains on the other hand prevented a deeper incursion of Algerian troops into Morocco. At the same time, the allied campaign against the relatively new revisionist supporters of Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Ghana proved to be very successful, leading large fractions of these countries to get occupied by allied troops, resulting to the first calls for a ceasefire. Meanwhile, French troops were landed on revisionist Madagascar, in order to protect the French islands off the coast of eastern Africa from potential revisionist operations, while also denying the enemy access to important shipping routes. Off the coast of the Seychelles, Indian and Chinese vessels, that were heading towards Madagascar, engaged in one of the few naval battles in the Indian Ocean. On the island itself, Russian military officials and members of the Wagner-Group supported the army of Madagascar in attacking and sabotaging allied troops. Chinese troops, who managed to escape to Madagascar after the fall of the Chinese naval base in Bangladesh, used this opportunity of chaos and confusion in Madagascar to sabotage the Indian naval base in the north of the islands, including bomb attacks and sabotage of communication devices. With Indian forces engaging against the small Chinese presence in Madagascar, and French troops fighting against Russian paramilitaries and the madagascarian army, the leadership of the African island feared a total loss of control. Out of despair, madagascarian forces decided to use a very risky move to halt any military action on Madagascar: using biological weapons.
Madagascarian troops in rural areas collected the corpses of people who died from the plague after the consumption of wild animals, and threw them into bodies of water which were used by mainly allied troops as water supplies. This attempt of weaponizing the disease failed, due to no foreign soldiers getting infected with the virus. Instead, this lead to a new wider outbreak of plague among rural citizens of Madagascar, causing panic not only in Africa, but also around the entire world. After this discovery, the French government decided to abandon the Madagascar campaign, as did India. Allied troops stationed on Madagascar were brought to Réunion and the Seychelles, where they were quarantined under the highest security protocols. This reckless actions of the madagascarian leadership also lead the revisionist powers to abandon Madagascar themselves, forcing Russian troops and paramilitary members to retreat towards South Africa and Mozambique. Such methods were not only used by Madagascar though, since a few weeks after the first reports of Madagascar using improvised biological weapons, troops in the D.R.C used the same strategy to slow down the allied offensive at the Equatorial Front. Congolese soldiers used civilian and small cargo planes to drop the corpses of Ebola patients over allied positions at night, while also dumping several bodies into local water supplies as well.
This caused another larger outbreak of Ebola, which was able to spread relatively quickly due to the conditions created by the war. Due to some soldiers of allied African countries indeed getting the disease, the allied approach towards the DRC and other African Revisionist Powers in central Africa came to a halt, although an increased number of congolese civilians getting infected as well. At the same time, South Africa reported various successes in its own campaigns, leading to major gains in Mozambique thanks to allied support from Tanzania and Kenya, while Botswana was almost driven to the brink of collapse. The offensive against Zimbabwe, despite being in movement, was slowed down, forcing the South Africans to relocate more troops from Botswana to Zimbabwe. At the Horn of Africa, Somali forces were driven away to only a thin stretch of territory along the coastline due to attacks of allied African countries coming from the east, and western forces coming from the north. There were also numerous reports of Turkish troops in Somalia and Libya increasingly attacking allied forces at the respective fronts.
=== Progress in Indonesia ===
In the Indo-Pacific, the Allies also managed to advance further in their campaign against Indonesia. Troops from Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Thailand were able to break through at the Borneo Front, allowing them to invade West-, South-, and even parts of East-Borneo, while the advance in South Borneo was halted after the taking of Pontianak. Malaysian, Thai and Indian troops were also simultaneously landed in Riau, after allied naval and air forces consolidated their dominance in the Malakka Strait. This forced the Indonesian leadership to concentrate as much forces on the ground and in the air around Jakarta, so that the capital might be spared of allied bombardment.
Due to Indonesias attention being spread on multiple island fronts at the same time, Australian, American, New Zealandish and British forces were able to finally take the Indonesian part of Timor, while, after months of brutal jungle warfare, allied troops, with the support of west Papuan freedom fighters and volunteers from the pacific micro-states eventually took control of West Papua. The taking of Timor and West Papua also enabled the Allies to secure enough maritime space in the Arafura Sea, Selat Moa and the Banda Sea to invade and ultimately conquer the Moluccas, using airborne units from Australia, the US and New Zealand. Indian, Thai and Malaysian also adanced into the Aceh region of Sumatra, while Australian aircraft increased their sortie raids against Sumatra and Java, by using the reconquered Christmas Island as a launch platform. In order to prevent a total allied breakthrough, the Indonesian government resorted to several strategies to slow down the allied advance. The still capable Indonesian surface fleet retreated to the Java and Flore Seas, and laid out vast amounts of sea mines in the Makassar Strait, Selat Madura, Selat Suna and the Straits of the Flore Sea.
Indonesian resistance in Sumatra, Borneo and the already occupied islands meanwhile resorted to guerilla warfare against the Allies, leading to extremely bloody jungle fighting all over Indonesia. Despite this heavy resistance, there were still calls from both allied and Indonesian officials for a ceasefire, especially due to the fact that the biggest Revisionist Power in the region, China, has shifted its focus again further north on the defense of Korea, its own coastline and the Vietnamese Front. Due to the Malacca Strait being mostly under allied control, the Allies were able to use the strait to shorten their supply routes to Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. The Allies at the same on the occupied islands of Indonesia were not only met with resistance of indigenous insurgencies, but also various Islamist terror groups and jihadist rebels, who targeted not only allied militaries, but also western civilians, who were still stranded on the islands of Indonesia after hostilities in the southern Pacific started. The fighting in Borneo and Sumatra also reached a new level of escalation, after the war became a battle of attrition following the taking of Pontianak and Pekanbaru: Indonesian troops resorted to using napalm to bombard and flatten allied positions in the vast jungles of Borneo and Sumatra, causing severe damage to Indonesian wildlife in the process.
=== The Northern Front: Assault on Alaska ===
After the Aleutian campaign of 2027, revisionist troops of Russia, China and Mongolia still occupied most of the scarcely inhabited Alaskan islands. Due to increased naval and aerial presence of American and Canadian forces around Alaska, further amphibious assaults of the Revisionist Powers were almost impossible, with a last occupation being successful on the American Small Diomede island, as well as Saint Lawrence island. American and Canadian aircraft flew striking raids against the occupying forces on a regular basis, but neither the Revisionist Powers, nor the Allies themselves saw this Arctic campaign as a priority, leading the number of allied airstrikes to gradually decline over the later half of 2028.
This caused massive outcries of the oppositional Democrats, who still accused president Trump of being too soft on Russian aggression against US territory, which on the other hand lead to more verbal attacks of the president against the opposition, followed by several crackdowns on political opponents of Trump. Truth was that the US still lacked in capacities to drive the revisionists out of the Alaskan islands, due to most of Americas military forces and equipment being stationed outside of US territory, mainly at the Eastern Front. This, in addition of the more and more obvious fact that president Trump saw Russia, an economically inferior rival, as the lesser threat of the main Revisionist Powers, and therefore did not see a re-tacking of the Aleutians as a priority, despite the political damage caused by the invasion. The revisionists on the other hand were also unable to move further in their attempt to close in to US mainland as much as possible, since the Allies heavily increased the pressure on Russia, China and Iran on multiple fronts at the same time, forcing the Russians to choose an different strategy for distracting the Americans, while also hurting their supply of resources. That is why Russia exploited the lack of int of the American leadership in the Arctic campaign by stationing medium range missile batteries on the Small Diomede Island, Saint Lawrence Island and Saint Matthew Island, which was occupied earlier in the same year.
Russian destroyers also moved as close as possible to the Alaskan shore, while submarines were not deployed, due to fears that the usage of submarine-launched missiles could be falsely identified as a potential nuclear strike. Icebreakers were used to allow Russian vessels to come closer to the northern coastline of Alaska, and while the harsh winter conditions of the Arctic made navigation difficult in the Chukchi Sea, it also allowed revisionist forces to remain less detected by the American and Canadian air force and navy. American troops were landed on Unalaska almost simultaneously, leading to small skirmishes between US and revisionist forces. While these soldiers attempted to push the Russian, Chinese and Mongolian forces out of Unalaska, and hopefully the rest of the Aleutians, Russian forces on the Small Diomede Island and Saint Lawrence Island launched several missile salvos, while Russian vessels in the Chukchi Sea initiated Kalibr-missile attacks against the Alaskan coastline. Several missiles hit and damaged dozens of structures in Wales, while the attacks coming from Saint Lawrence island severely damaged the Alaskan port of West Nome. The Kalibr-missiles attacks were able to hit important coal and oil fields in the north of Alaska, which interrupted the American coal supply from Alaska for several weeks into the new year. Most of these delays stemmed not from the damage itself, which was rather minor, but rather the fact that work had to be suspended due to the threat of additional attacks. Attack aircraft of both the US and Canada flew multiple sortie raids against Russian forces on the occupied American islands off the coast of Alaska, while anti-ship raids in the Chukchi Sea were hindered by harsh weather conditions.
== 2030 ==
=== Brazil joins the Allies: The War of the Amazon ===
At the beginning of 2029, the war of South America and Venezuelathe Caribbean kept spreading even further. Due to the enormous political pressure Trump was facing because of the „Florida Blitz“ and the hostilities against Alaska, the Trump administration decided to increase its efforts against the Revisionist Powers south of Florida. Because of this strategic shift, the US ordered 3 aircraft carriers to the Caribbean Sea, among them one who was stationed in European waters as support of allied operations against Russia, causing additional rifts between the US and the AUF command of Europe. F-15 Jets and bombers stationed in the American mainland were deployed to fly bombing raids against Cuba and occupied Caribbean Islands, while American aircraft launched from the carriers participated in an aerial campaign in support of Puerto Rico.
Additional strikes were performed against the Venezuelan coastline, although the fact that many planes had to be refueled in air limited the number of approaching aircraft available for the attack. The relatively competent Venezuelan anti-air defense was able to inflict some casualties on the attackers with its S-300VM and Buk-M2E missiles, but since they lacked in numbers, those defenses were unable to fend off the combined forces of the American and Colombian air force, which received support from the French, Dutch and British. This lead only to minimal allied casualties, especially since American UAVs were able to detect moving anti-air batteries, although the US lost a stealth fighter in the battle for Venezuelas skies, which was exploited by revisionist propaganda. Colombian forces in the west were able to penetrate Venezuelan defenses along the borders, leading to the first foreign troops invading Venezuela. While the fighting in Guyana remained static and geographically limited, forces of French Guyana, with incoming reinforcements coming from the French mainland, were able to push deeper into Suriname. The increased aerial campaign of the Allies caused the majority of the Venezuelan air force and navy either to be destroyed or left without supplies, leading Venezuela to lose control of almost all islands of the Small Antilles it had a presence on, while Venezuelan troops in Trinidad and Tobago, as well as the ABC islands to hold on to their positions. The focus of the allied air campaign was then shifted to Cuna, in order to create opportunities for a possible invasion of the island state, while allied vessels approached the Venezuelan coastline with almost no resistance of revisionist forces. Since most of the air and missile strikes conducted by the Colombians and Americans hit industrial as well as secondary government targets, Venezuela increasingly lacked in supplies and materials to keep up with its losses, causing new unrest among its civilian population.
With the majority of Venezuelas air force being neutralized, American amphibious assault troops were able to land on the Venezuelan islands of Gran Roque, Blanquilla and La Orchilla, allowing its air force to use these islands as additional launching platforms for aerial bombardment raids. American, British and French troops meanwhile supported local defenses of Haiti and the Dominican Republic against the Cuban invaders, leading to the first heavy casualties for the Cubans during this war. While the pressure on the Revisionist Powers in the Caribbean was heavily increased, the fighting around Venezuela lead to a massive influx of refugees pouring in into the neighboring Brazil, causing violent clashes between Brazillian security forces and many, often unarmed, Venezuelan refugees. This escalation finally convinced the Brazillian leadership under Jair Bolsonaro to engage against Venezuela, leading already mobilized Brazilian forces to cross into Venezuela. The objective of Brazil's intervention was to stop the war from further escalating, while also preventing more refugees from reaching Brazil because of it. The Brazilian intervention also lead Venezuelas ally Bolivia to declare war against Brazil, the US and Colombia in opposition of the allied invasion of Venezuela. Bolivian forces, among them many special forces and mercenaries crossed into the border regions of Brazil, and set many of the Brazilian soy fields located close to the frontier ablaze, as a way of hurting Brazils economy, while sending a political message against the Allies. Bolivian field artillery and tanks at the same time shelled the Brazilian city of Rio Branco, leading to only minimal damage. While there were reports about Bolivian forces attempting to pass through the Pantanal wetlands, the Venezuelan counterattacks against the Brazilian invaders remained futile, due to Venezuelas mountainous south and the Amazon rainforest, which made any kind of infantry movement extremely difficult. Brazil decided to focus on the Venezuelan Campaign, using its own size and topography at the same to thwart any attempt of Bolivian advance in the south. Brazilian troops were also mobilized close to the border to Suriname, but not because of any invasion plans, but rather to monitor the growing French military presence in its neighborhood, due to Brazils growing animosity towards France.
Brazilian field artillery started to shell targets all over the East of Bolivia, while the Brazilian air force joined its American and Colombian counterparts. The continuous airstrikes in Venezuela caused a total collapse of the already fragile Venezuelan power supply, leading to additional uprisings in the entire country, which were struck down with brute force by Maduros regime. American airstrikes meanwhile weakened Cuban defenses enough to attempt an amphibious invasion of Cuba. But due to the limited manpower the US had available, the landed marines were unable to secure as many beachheads as originally planned, leading to incredibly bloody fighting on the Cuban beaches, forcing the US marines to abandon the invasion attempt. This was for many Americans reminiscent of the Bay of Pigs disaster, and therefore perceived as an American embarrassment. With fighting getting more serious all over the Caribbean and the Amazon, other Rio-Pact members expressed their intention of engaging as well, in order to prevent the war from further escalating. This lead Peru and Chile to issue a warning to Bolivia, that if it does not stop hostilities against Brazil, they would join the war against the Revisionist Powers. The Venezuelan air force meanwhile managed to strike multiple targets along the Magdalena River in Colombia, destroying bridges and therefore slowed down Colombian supply lines and troop movement.
=== The Eastern Front: Allied breakthrough in Korea ===
In the meantime, the Revisionist Powers at the Eastern Front were facing crisis, after increased pressure of the Allies, who managed to assemble more and more resources in both manpower and material. Due to the allied breakthroughs in the southern Pacific, as well as China's struggle to provide enough supplies after years of fighting and blockades, the Allies were able to break the stalemate of the Korean Front in multiple sectors. While the Chinese reinforced their positions north of Wonju, while the revisionists overall prepared a second line of defense stretching from Inch'on, over Chuncheon to Gangneung, for the case that a full retreat is needed. The Allies broke through the revisionist lines encroaching Seoul in the northwest, while another push using aerial strikes, long range artillery bombardment and missiles strikes allowed the Allies to take Hwado.
The increased pressure lead the regime of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un to authorize a wide scale use of chemical weapons, which were used by the North Koreans along the entire front, causing massive military and civilian casualties. The ongoing carnage in Korea also continued to create massive influxes of refugees, which were trying to seek shelter both north and south of the front. In the north, North Koreans who were suffering from mass starvation and disease because of the war tried to flee towards China and Russia, forcing those to expend additional forces just for the handling of those refugee waves. In the south, millions of South Koreans tried to escape the massive armies fighting each other in a relatively small stretch of terrain. This refugee situation became one of the worst humanitarian disasters in human history, often referred to as the „Great Korean Exodus“. South Koreas dependence on imported goods, such as food, also caused famine across the Peninsula, with millions of South Koreans starving since most of the war. The Allies were able to ship in more and more supplies, but the majority of those were relegated to the troops fighting at the front and not the civilian population. Newly founded humanitarian organizations, which were using financial and infrastructural resources of the unofficially disbanded UN, organized the supply of food for almost 1 million Koreans, while using civilian cargo vessels, as well as an contingent of European airships to bring thousands of Korean civilians to safety, with most of them being brought to Japan, the Philippines, the Micro states in the Pacific, as well as Hawaii, where they were waiting to be transferred to asylum camps in California.
The pacific islands aside, most of the nations harboring refugees from the Eastern Front were rather reluctant to engage in humanitarian support for the civilians they hosted, with some even showing hostile behavior against the refugees. At the same time, logistics proved to be an increasingly troubling aspect for the Chinese, since the additional focus on the Southeast-Asian and Indian Fronts, as well as years of blockades and shortages of fuel and other resources made it more and more difficult to provide the Chinese forces in Korea with the materials they need to cope with the allied advance. Due to the combination of aerial, naval and artillery bombardment, the Allies finally accomplished a breakthrough around Wonju, forcing the revisionists to use the mountains along the eastern coastline of the Peninsula to fortify their positions, while in the west falling back the old DMZ lines of pre-war Korea. The growing dominance of allied naval assets and aircraft also allowed the Allies to land troops on Chinese occupied Jeju, leading the island to fall back into allied hands after two weeks of fighting. Since Jeju was now available again as a staging ground for allied operations, the US, as well as Japan and South Korea used it to conduct missile strikes and stealth bomber raids against the Chinese coastline, targeting anti-air and anti-ship batteries, while also increasingly hitting the remaining industrial targets and naval assets in the East China Sea. This growing pressure on the Chinese military lead to new bursts of insurgence and rebellion inside China, which suffered massively under shortages of various goods because of the allied blockades. In the Plateau of Tibet, Tibetan freedom fighters launched a new wave of insurgency against the Chinese, leading to attacks being conducted against several military and police installations, which forced the Chinese regime of Xi Jinping to relocate more security forces into Tibet. While new protests also broke out in annexed Hong Kong, with brutal and violent reactions of the Chinese military as a result, Chinese forces in revisionist Nepal faced a new guerilla campaign against themselves, conducted by allied recruited Gurkha rebels, which were supported by the UK, India and financially Singapore and Brunei.
The Chinese communist party reacted by striking down all revolts against itself with immense brutality, leading to the deaths of hundreds of Chinese civilians, which on the other hand caused more uproars and rebellion in other parts of Chinese influence. Taiwanese civilians, supported by the remnants of the Taiwanese army started new acts of resistance against the occupying Chinese, leading to urban clashes and new massacres against the civilian population. As a result, Xi Jinping ordered the public execution of many former members of the Taiwanese leadership, which was meant as a mean to scare the resistance into submission, although it only strengthend the resolve of the Taiwanese to fight against the occupation force. The Allies encouraged these shows of resistance in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet and even Xinjiang, where they support Uyghur rebels to revolt against the Chinese, who were already incarcerating thousands of them in concentration camps, where they were tortured, forced to do hard labor, and malnutritioned, while many more were executed for alleged terroristic activities. Allied propaganda also spread reports about Uyghurs being used for human organ farming, meaning that many of them were killed to gain organ transplants for both the Chinese military and civilians. The validity of these claims is hard to prove, but there is to this day hard evidence suggesting the truth of these inhuman actions. First pockets of resistance also formed among the North Koreans, who were suffering famine and disease even prior to the war. With almost all of its military being focused on the south, the North Korean regime of Kim Jong-un lacked in enough available forces to put a quick end to the riots, which were mostly forming in the few urbanized areas of North Korea.
=== The Western Front: The Revisionists in Retreat ===
The Revisionist Powers were facing crisis in 2030 not just at the Eastern Front, but also in the west, where the revisionist forces of Russia, Belarus, Serbia and their few reinforcements from China and the central Asian republics were confronted by a reorganized and numerical superior enemy. The new allied European structure of the AUF continued to enable the Allies to coordinate their offensives more effectively and on a larger scale along the entire Western Front, which heavily increased the pressure on Russia, which was still overwhelmed by the allied approach due to overstretched forces, failing logistics and material shortages. Especially the so called crossection between the Polish and Ukrainian sectors of the front were increasingly difficult for the revisionist to hold, with Belarusian territory getting directly hit by allied attacks for the first time since the war broke out. To compensate for this pressure, North Korea, which supplied Russia already with ammunition, weapons and laborers since the Ukraine war also dispatched around 2500 troops to Europe in support of the Revisionist Powers.
The continuous waves of combined long range artillery bombardment, mass airstrikes and incoming tank fires forced the revisionists to retreat along the southwestern border of Belarus, creating a wider opening between the Polish and Ukrainian fronts. Russia decided that its main focus should be Ukraine, the northern part of the Polish Front and southern Finland, in order to avoid Russian territory to be threatened by allied air, missile and artillery attacks. This need to disperse its attention lead Russia to lack in enough forces and material to effectively fight back against the Allies in Scandinavia. While Russian forces engaged in fierce battles with Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, British and Canadian troops along the Finnish border in Lappland, Russian forces in Norway finally retreated back to the Russian border, leading the Russian Northern fleet to increase its naval bombardment of the allied coastline, to prevent its base on the Kola Peninsula to get threatened. With such a large Front being attacked simultaneously, Belarus was left to fight along its border against allied troops with a far smaller portion of the resources available for its Russian ally, leading the remaining recruits of the central Asian republics to be sent almost entirely to the now threatenend Belarusian line. This new situation caused uprisings inside Belarus against dictator Lukashenko and his support for the revisionist war effort. Allied troops of Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Italy, Portugal, France and Germany to push deeper into Ukraine, while being supported by Ukrainian militia and remnants of the Moldavian forces. With these ground gains being in process, the allied leadership of Europe negotiated with other nations at war with Russia for additional support at the Western Front, leading to talks with Australia, New Zealand and Japan about sending troops to Europe. Meanwhile, the Belarusian troops of Lukashenko remained under intense pressure from the Allies, forcing the Revisionists to create new lines of fortifications along the southwestern and western border of Belarus, leading them to dig new network of trenches, tank dugouts and anti-tank ditches, in order to prevent the Allies from invading Belarus.
The Revisionist Powers also redeployed several S-300 anti-air batteries to the Belarusian sector, to cope with the increasing number of allied air incursions into revisionist airspace. The Allies, despite their initial successes also faced troubles of various kinds, since their offensive often moved faster than they could consolidate their gains sufficiently enough, leading them to slow down their approach more than originally planned. There was also discontent among the allied leadership in Europe, because several allied nations, like the UK, Italy and the Visegrad states still had issues with being integrated into a more unified European military. The British feared to not having enough influence in this conglomerate of European forces, leading to skepticism of the value of such a project. Pro Brexit politicians argued that the Alliance of the United Forces would take sovereignty again from the UK, and would open the door for future exploitation of other European powers, leading to calls for a limitation of commitment to the AUF. Italy felt that it was left out of several decision making processes which was, along with its still present sympathy for the Revisionist Powers, the reason why Italies commitment for the allied war effort remained comparatively lackluster. While the already more reluctant Visegrad nations feared of being even more dominated by the western European powers, the US as the biggest non-European ally voiced a strong rejection of the independent European operations. American leading figures in Europe felt often blindsided by their European counterparts, while president Trump called this development even treasonous, while threatening to pull out all American troops out of Europe.
Only due to the resistance of not only oppositional Democrats, but also many Republican and military leaders, as well as a European diplomatic mission, Trump was convinced to not retreat from the Western Front, but relations kept on souring going forward. Despite this diplomatic disunity, and the still immense strain on the allied supply and logistic lines, the Allies were able to exploit their technological and numerical advantage to secure their gains to such a degree, that Russia was forced to retreat on many fronts simultaneously, like eastern Finland, southern Poland and central Ukraine. Especially Germany, with the highest population in the EU, managed to mobilize enough forces to have a significant presence in Poland and Ukraine, while German reinforcements were also sent to the Balkans. Since the majority of these drafted forces were younger Germans in their 20s and early 30s, many experienced a new kind of patriotism which was based on the joined achievements of the European Allies and Germany's accomplishments during the later stages of the war, enabling the re-militarization of Germany even more. In the Balkans, Serbia faced pressure from all fronts. Albanian, Bosnian, Montenegrin, Croatian, Italian and Greek troops were able to overrun Republica Sprska in Bosnia, forcing the Serbians to retreat back into their territory after the Second Battle of Sarajevo.
Serbia also faced an total invasion of its territory, forcing it to dig in in central Serbia, in order to protect Belgrade, leading to incredibly brutal fighting with heavy casualties on all sides. Allied airstrikes and artillery bombardment was now able to reach every corner of Serbia, leading to a steady decline of Serbian airpower, anti-air capabilities and supply routes. With the revisionists being in retreat at all European theaters of the war, allied troops in Greece began militarizing the islands close to Turkey, due to increasing Turkish provocations. Greece received minor support from the British, Germans and French, while Italy, Spain, Portugal and France helped to increase the allied naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean close to Cyprus, as well as the western Aegan Sea, in the case of potential Turkish aggression. While Greek and bulgarian forces are still clashing with tens of thousands of refugees coming from the Turkish border, more and more reports came up about shots being fired at Greek security forces from the Turkish side of the border. The number of military servicemen among the Turkish forces at the border appeared to increase over weeks, while Greek media outlets claimed that Turkish military crossed the border at multiple points of the Evros river, occupying several of the river islands in the process. Turkish warplanes also conducted more provocative maneuvers, like flying close to densely populated Greek islands, although the Turkish administration under dictator Erdoğan denied any allegations from the west. At the same time, Australia, New Zealand and Japan agreed to send small contingencies to Europe, in order to increase the pressure on Russia.
=== Stalemate in Africa ===
While the Revisionist Powers faced crisis at multiple fronts at the same time, the African campaigns of both sides remained in a deadlock. The largest progress achieved was the allied victory in Western Africa, where the revisionist allies of Burkina Faso and Guinea surrendered to the allied Sahel and West Africa coalition. In Mali, allied troops from West Africa, France, the UK, Germany And the US put enough pressure on the junta forces, that most of their lines collapsed, due to waning russian support and increasing instability through islamist hostilities. The malinese junta de facto collapsed under the joint allied offensives, while fighters of the Azavad independence movements in nothern Mali continued to hold out against the foreign coalition due to the exploitation of the harsh terrain and algerian reinforcements, which enabled malinese Guerilla warfare. While additional pockets of malinese resistance and asymmetric warfare continued through remaining pockets of junta loyal forces, the battle in Niger came to a deadlock. The taking of Niamey, despite allied airstrikes and artillery bombardment, remained out of reach due to local militias being formed by pro-junta civilians, which bogged down the approaching ECOWAS forces, whilst resulting in staggering civilian casualties. The majority of junta forces outside of Niamey retreated further north into the outskirts of the Saharahn Desert, which prevented either side from dominating the battlefield completely. Other African theaters of the war saw less significant movement in the meantime, causing both the non-African Allies and Revisionist Powers to doubt the value of the African campaigns, especially now that both China and Russia had to focus more on the Eastern and Western Fronts respectively. The Angolan Front saw heavy fighting between South African and namibian troops against angolan and congolese forces, with the frontline remaining static around Lobito, Huambo and the western parts of the Kwando and Cuíto rivers.
Neither the angolans, nor the South Africans managed to break the following stalemate, which lead the South African administration to focus more on the Zimbabwean and mozambique fronts. South African troops in Botswana advanced to the Okavango Delta, leaving only a stretch of bostwanan land from Maun to Francistown unoccupied. The revisionist resistance of Bostwana used the Chobe and Makgadikgadi National Parks for cover, which caused severe damage to protected wildlife there as soon as the South Africans launched their next wave of offensives. The campaign against Zimbabwe itself, despite intial success, also faced only slow progress, which stemmed from the Zimbabwean deployment of troops to Mozambique. Allied and revisionist troops clashed in Gweru and the border town of Mutare, while South African airstrikes were conducted against positions around Harare. The Mozambique Front proved to be more successful for the Allies, due to the combined effort of South African, tanzanian and western forces against troops of Mozambique, Zimbabwe and localized pockets of Islamist insurgents. Despite the Zimbabwean troops being able to divert the attention of the Allies, while slowing down their advance, Mozambique was pushed to the brink of collapse due to the lack of sufficient revisionist supplies from non-African countries. Russia, which struggled with the allied offensive in the west, questioned the need of letting its paramilitary forces engage in Mozambique, leading the Kreml to call off the operations of the Wagner-Group in the east African country. In secret talks, Russian and South African diplomats agreed on letting Russian paramilitaries to escape and seek shelter in South Africa, leaving it unaware that the Wagner-Group was responsible for the attacks on South African troops in Mozambique earlier during the war. Further north, at the Equatorial Front, allied troops of South Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Ruanda, Burundi, Tanzania and western forces managed to cross the Great Lakes of the eastern congolese border in order to push deeper into the revisionist country.
In the northeast of the DRC, allied troops were able to advance towards Isiro, since the Albert Lake covered far less territory than the Lake Tangannyika further south. The congolese city fell after a week of fighting, allowing the Allies to push deeper towards Kisangani, while conquering Gemena in the west. The CAR was able to hold off the allied offensive coming from the East and north, due to the support from Sudan and Russian forces, both military and paramilitary. The offensive against Sudan remained static, leading to heavy fighting and severe casualties, especially among the civilian population, which suffered under countless war crimes committed by the Sudanese and partially even allied army. The increasing outbreaks of Ebola, as well as rising numbers of SARS-Cov 2 and HIV infections additionally slowed down both the allied and revisionist approach in equatorial Africa, therefore forcing both sides to halt their operations multiple times in a row. At the Horn of Africa, things also remained in a draw for both sides, due to allied successes in Somalia and a new revisionist offensive against Djibouti. War torn Somalia faced defeat by the hands of the Allies, due to the combined effort of Kenyan, Ethiopian, tanzanian, American, French and British forces, supported by the forces of Somaliland, leaving only a few pockets of resistance against the Allies. The largest pocket of Resistance was the Somalian capital of Mogadishu, where Somalian forces, actively supported by Turkish soldiers of the TURKSOM base, engaged in heavy urban warfare against the Allies, while smaller Somalian strongholds around Jamaame and Baidoa fell under the pressure of allied ground and air forces, the latter heavily using drones to conduct precision airstrikes against the resistance. Further north, the revisionists in Eritrea launched a last offensive to take out the allied positions in the Gulf of Aden, leading troops of Eritrea and Sudan to start an attack against allied controlled Djibouti.
Allied troops of the US, France, Japan, Spain, Germany and Italy fought off the offensive which became known as the Second Battle of Djibouti at the border of the small African state, but suffered heavy casualties and were forced to remain in the defensive, due to additional missile and primitive drone strikes being conducted across the strait by the Iranian backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. At the same time in North Africa, the war between Algeria and allied Morocco saw little progress as well. Algeria was unable to push deeper into Morocco due to the ongoing fighting in Libya, the attacks coming from the Sahel states and Tunisia, as well as the moroccan Atlas mountains. Morocco on the other hand, despite Spanish, French, portugese, British and to a lesser degree Italian and German support, was unable as well to penetrate Algerian defenses, since it was more engaged in anti-insurgency warfare against the Polisario Front Movement in Western Sahara, causing severe civilian casualties due to aggressive moroccan actions aimed against Polisario. Since the attention of almost all waring nations was spread over multiple fronts simultaneously, while the foreign powers also struggled at other fronts all over the globe, the battlefield of Libya was caught in a deadlock just like the other theaters of war in Africa. The revisionist positions around Tripoli remained fortified and hard for the Allies to dislodge, due to the Algerian and Turkish forces stationed there in support of the government. The Tripoli coalition of the Revisionist Powers was able to endure allied attacks, because of the influx of heavy armory coming from Turkey, which was able to reach Libya due to Italy's lackluster commitment to the naval blockade of Libya, since Italy sympathized with the anti-Haftar coalition in Tripoli. The allied Haftar coalition proved to be more successful in the south, where allied troops from the Sahel, alongside sympathizing tribal warriors, managed to make smaller gains. On sea, incidents of close collisions between French, egytian, British, and Greek vessels with their Turkish counterparts became more frequently, leading to calls inside the allied command of finally treating Turkey as an official enemy of the Allies.
=== Pakistan pushes the button: The War gets nuclear ===
Another Revisionist Power which faced crisis in 2030 was Pakistan, which continued to be overwhelmed by Indian and to a lesser degree American and British forces. Indian troops advanced into Pakistan on almost all fronts, with the exception of the northern sector of Islamabad and Kashmir, where Pakistan received additional support from Chinese forces. Further south, the Indians were able to successfully advance further northwards, following the amphibious invasion of Pakistans coastline and the offensive along the Indus Delta. In order to divert the attention of the defenders, India decided to transform the Islamabad offensive into a terror campaign and a deliberate war of attrition, using salvos of long range missile attacks and daily intensive airraids to drive the Pakistani forces in the center of the country apart.
As planned, the Pakistani defenders, supported by forced recruits from the central Asian republics, were forced to split up, in order to counter both the pressure around Islamabad and Kashmir in the north, as well as the advancing Indian invaders in the South. This allowed the invading allied forces in the Punjab region to push deeper into central Pakistan, leading Pakistani forces to be cut off from any supply routes East of the Indus river. Due to the lack of enough manpower to counter the attacking Indians on all fronts simultaneously, while also being deprived of any significant form of air support, Pakistan was pushed on the brink of collapse. Despite heavy resistance of Pakistan's military leadership, the Pakistani government ordered its forces to focus on Islamabad, forcing the defenders to retreat west of the Indus, leading the Allies to occupy most of Pakistan eastwards of the river, except the Bahawalpur-Sukkur-Hyderabad axis. The military command of Pakistan grew weary of Islamabads defensive tactics, and due to the increasing losses of territory, as well as reports about Indian atrocities committed against Pakistani Muslim civilians, Pakistans generals decided to disobey the government and take military decisions themselves. Since Pakistan ceded nuclear assets and a certain degree of launch code authority to lower-level officers, those officers decided that nuclear weapons are the last chance to secure Pakistan's survival.
They believed that a couple of low-yield weapons delivered to critical points of India's infrastructure will be sufficient enough to stop the Indian advance and forcing the invaders to halt their operations in order to avoid further nuclear escalation. That is why the Pakistani military command, as the first nation of WW3, as well as the first nation in history since WW2 launched a nuclear strike against India. Four missiles, among them 2 Shaheen II and 2 Ghauri II missiles, accompanied by hundreds of decoys to counter Indian missile defenses, where fired, with 3 of them being able to reach their destination. The news about the nuclear strike shocked the world, and lead to several localized ceasefires on all fronts of the Eurasian Continent, in order for the world powers to assess the new escalation and its potential consequences for the war on a global scale. The Indian targets hit were Ludhiana, Jallandhar and Surat, leading to the immediate deaths of 165,000 people in total, while tens of thousands more perished in the weeks and months after due to agonizing radiation sickness. Despite their low yield, the Pakistani nuclear strikes destroyed up to 69-70% of the cities that were hit, causing a collapse of local healthcare, infrastructure, sanitation, water supply and transport. The nuclear blasts also lead to massive firestorms, leading to a total estimate of 26 million Indian casualties as a direct and/or indirect consequence of the strikes. Leaders worldwide condemned these attacks, and called for restraint of both sides. India on the other hand could not let this nuclear assault be unanswered, and had a nuclear deterrence doctrine that enabled it to operate Second-Strike capabilities, which was the reason why one day after the attack, India launched a retaliatory strike against Pakistan. India wanted to use its nuclear weapons as a symbol of its resolve, while also permanently disrupting Pakistans military command. India also wanted to prevent further escalation which would lead to total nuclear destruction, and the potential atomic involvement of China or the US, that is why India did not target symbolic sites or densely populated civilian areas.
The main target of the retaliatory nuclear strikes was the Bahawalpur-Sukkur-Hyderabad axis, as well as Dera Ismail Khan, Dera Ghazi Khan, Kohat, Bannu and Rawalpindi. For the same reasons as in India, Pakistan still suffered enormous casualties from these low yield strikes, leading to 18 million deaths to be associated with this nuclear exchange. Thousands of Pakistani civilians fled the battlefield by attempting to cross into Iran, Afghanistan or China, while the latter took harsh measures to prevent any refugees from entering its territory. Pakistani civilians also took to overcrowded boats, attempting to reach the Arabian Peninsula, leading thousands of them to drown in the Arabian Sea. The nuclear fallout of both the Indian and Pakistani strikes also affected the neighboring countries of both nations, leading to radioactive contamination of parts of Afghanistan, Iran, southwestern China and in parts even central Asian countries like Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The Indian strikes were followed by a declaration of China, which stated that in the case of further nuclear attacks on Pakistan, nuclear strikes from the Chinese would follow in retaliation, while Xi Jinping's associates signaled to Pakistan, that if it should resort to new nuclear attacks of its own, China would stop any support of Pakistan and would not retaliate against India, should Pakistan be the first to attack again. The US on the other hand threatened China with nuclear strikes, should it resort to nuclear weapons use against India, which lead both India and Pakistan from dismissing any plans of further nuclear warfare, in order to prevent a global nuclear catastrophe. The disarray of Pakistans leadership and military command also lead to new insurgencies of baloch secessionists in Pakistans south and southwest, which were supported by Indian and American intelligence.
=== The War of South America: A continent united against Maduro ===
The Indian Front was not the only theater of the war that saw significant escalation over the course of 2030. The conflict in South America flowing the entrance of Brazil as part of the American and Colombian war effort, as well as the involvement of Venezuelan ally Bolivia, kept spreading later the same year. The joined invasion of Venezuela by Colombian, Brazilian and American land forces in the south and west of the country managed to advance further into the mountainous territory of Venezuelas part of the Amazon Rainforest, while American aircraft continued to decimate Venezuelan air defenses and important parts of Venezuelas infrastructure, such as the power grid, which caused chaos, confusion and increasing casualties among the civilian population of Venezuela. Anti-Maduro rebels joined the invading forces in an attempt to topple the regime, which lead to escalating violence of the Maduro regime against its own population. The missile strikes against Caraças and the Venezuelan coastline were also supported by French, British and Dutch troops deployed in the Caribbean after the occupation of European island territories.
At the same time, Brazilian, French and guyanese troops managed to push Venezuelan forces out of Guyana, after their invasion earlier the same year. These allied forces also achieved a series of victories against the revisionist Suriname, which included a further invasion and occupation of Venezuelas ally by French and Brazilian forces, leading to several tense situations between them due to Frances and Brazils mutual animosity towards each other. Brazilian troops also launched a counter-invasion of Bolivia, after the Bolivian assaults on Brazilian territory following Brazils entry into the war. The growing violence and the spread of the war in South America finally convinced the Rio-Pact, which was heavily influenced by the US, to invoke its Article 8, which promised that an attack on one of its members is an attack on all of them, leading to the entrance of many more south-American nations into the war. As a result, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Ecuador and Peru announced that they will send forces to aid the allied campaign against Venezuela. While Panama and Costa Rica declared their logistical support, the only Rio-Pact members who refrained from joining the war against Venezuela were obviously Revisionist Power Cuba and on the other hand Uruguay, which rejoined the treaty as „recently“ as 2020. Uruguay condemned invoking the Rio-Pact as a pretext for war against Venezuela, since it saw this move as an illegal operation of the US against South America. Uruguay, which voiced support for the Maduro regime multiple times before WW3, therefore declared that it will once again leave the Rio-Pact, while adding that it will resist any foreign involvement in South America. At the same time, Ecuadorian, Peruvian, Chilean, Argentinian and Paraguayan forces were sent to the Venezuelan Front in the hope to bring an end to the conflict as soon as possible.
The Ecuadorians and Peruvians took position along the Colombians and Americans in the west, while the Chileans, Argentinians and Paraguayans supported the Brazilians in the south of Venezuela, despite tensions among the individual south-American states. Chilean modernized F-16s also participated in the allied campaign against Bolivia, leading to waves of airstrikes in support of the advancing Brazilians. While the Brazillians crossed the Rio Itenez River, and managed to occupy most of the Bolivian Beni region, Brazllian, Paraguayan and Argentinian forces invaded Santa Cruz, forcing the Bolivians to take positions west of the Rio Grande. The deployment and movement of troops in South America caused unease and nervousness among the uruguayan government, leading it to mobilize its army with focus on its northern border with Brazil. Uruguay stated that it will take offensive action, should the Rio-Pact continue to pursue its war operations against the Revisionist Powers in South America. Revisionist ally of Cuba and Venezuela, Nicaragua, finally decided to take the offensive and launched a surprise attack against neighboring Honduras, in order to take out US bases and infrastructure. During the following battles, Nicaraguan forces assaulted and besieged the Mocorón and Barra de Caratasca bases in Honduras, leading Honduras to officially join the Allies. Nicaragua also used the war against the Allies to settle its maritime disputes with Colombia, which is why Nicaraguan forces invaded the less defended Colombian islands of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina. The hostilities of Nicaragua also lead Costa Rica, which had no military of its own, to side with the Allies as well, allowing US troops to land in Costa Rica in order to protect the central American state. At the same time, allied troops finally managed to land troops in Cuba, due to the joined effort of the American air force and naval assets.
American troops reached land in the west of Cuba, while America, dominican and haitian forces, supported by British, French and Dutch special troops landed in the southeast. Despite heavy resistance from the Cuban defenses, allied troops were able to advance further into Cuban territory, while suffering massive casualties. The lack of modern equipment and armory among the Cuban army lead allied troops to retake Guantanamo and Santiago de Cuba in the southeast, while American troops in the west managed to take Pinãr del Rio. Despite support from Nicaraguan and Russian volunteers, the Cubans had to resort to guerilla and urban warfare, in order to slow down the allied advance towards Havana. The Cuban air force and anti-air defenses suffered heavy casualties from aerial allied bombardment, but Cuba's land based rocket launchers remained largely intact, leading to steep allied losses among the invading forces. With Cuba facing crisis, and the continental Revisionist Powers being on the brink of collapse, allied forces finally managed to neutralize all Iranian and most of the Russian forces operating in the Caribbean.
=== Allied Victory in the Indo-Pacific ===
While China and North Korea faced increasing pressure, and Cambodia and Laos being on the brink of collapse, the Revisionist Power of Indonesia was confronted with total defeat. The allied advance of Indian, Thai, Malaysian, Australian and British troops on Sumatra continued to push forward, despite brutal jungle guerilla warfare, and Indonesia's usage of destructive weaponry like Napalm bombs. While suffering heavy casualties, and being slowed down for several days and weeks on multiple occasions, the Allies managed to take Palembang, leading to urban warfare and anti-allied insurgencies. Allied forces were therefore bogged down in urban warfare, but were still able to conquer most of Sumatra.
In the northeast, Malaysian and Thai troops, supported by forces from Singapore and Brunei advanced further south into Kalimantan and several miles south of the equator. Simultaneously, allied troops debarking from Timor, Australia, and the Cocos and Christmas islands landed on Java, with additional manpower coming from airborne support. Indonesian submarines tried desperately to delay allied naval movement, while Indonesia's surface fleet, which was mainly stationed in the Java Sea, suffered severe casualties from allied submarines, missiles and aircraft. More and more Indonesian diplomats called for an Armistice, especially now that many other Revisionist Powers were in crisis all over the world, with some even demanding that Indonesia should return to become an ally of the West. Civil unrest broke out in multiple centers of power in Indonesia, forcing the army and police forces to additionally focus on striking down riots. Due to too many fronts to focus on, Indonesian troops in Sumatra either retreated to Java or surrendered to allied forces. While Sulawesi remained an Indonesian stronghold, most of the naval assets surrounding the island were neutralized by allied aircraft and submarines. The sea mines that were laid out in the strait leading into the Java Sea were also largely neutralized due to the increased effort of allied anti-mine helicopters and minesweepers. This allowed the Allies to further establish naval dominance, although the Indonesian surface fleet engaged in a last effort to inflict as much damage on the allied forces as possible, which was remembered as the Battle of the Java Sea. Despite this confrontation, the Allies managed to maximize their total blockade of Indonesia, leading to increased material and food shortages on Java and Sulawesi. Other, smaller Indonesian islands harboring revisionist troops were simply left on their own and cut off from supplies, in order to prevent being bogged down in unnecessary skirmishes.
Larger cities on Borneo, which were still unoccupied by allied forces were besieged by Malaysian, Singaporean, Thai and brunei forces, due to the high population density of said cities, which would make a full conquest rather difficult and costly. The same strategy was conducted by Australian, American, New Zealandish and Indian troops in Java, while being supported by volunteers from oceanian forces and Papuan fighters, which lead to the siege of several larger Indonesian cities, like Serang, Surabaya and Yogyakarta. The allied advance towards Jakarta, as well as allied air campaigns against the Indonesian capital lead to new calls for a truce, and ultimately an Armistice with the Allies. After the fall of Semarang and Bandung, the Indonesian leadership finally decided halt its operations and offered a ceasefire. The Allies agreed, and after days of negotiations, both the Allies and Indonesia announced a truce, and after another week the Armistice of Jakarta. The main conditions of the Allies were the free passage for allied vessels through Indonesian shipping routes, the secession of West Timor and West Papua, as well as Indonesian participation against the Chinese war effort in the north. In exchange, the Allies offered to retreat from Borneo and the smaller Indonesian islands, while helping to restore Indonesias food supply. Despite heavy criticism and resistance of Indonesia's military command, the political leadership agreed on these terms, and therefore officially announced joining the Allies, by declaring war against China.
=== The Western Front: The Fall of Serbia ===
Indonesia was not the only Front which proved to be a success for the Allies. At the Western Front, the allied advance against Serbia gained more and more traction, with allied forces invading the Balkan state from all directions. Serbian forces were dug in in heavily defended positions around Belgrade, while another defensive circle was held from Valijevo to Smederevo, as well as Šabac over Zemun to Pančevo. The fighting between allied and Serbian forces was butal, with some days reaching a death-toll of over 10 thousand casualties on both sides. Serbias rather robust anti-air defenses still managed to inflict severe damage to the allied air force, which kept bombing Belgrade and other Serbian strongholds on the entire Balkan Front.
Serbia declared that it would never surrender, but realized, that at this rate, the Serbian army could not hope of holding the lines indefinitely, especially since the Allies deployed some of their new weapons systems, which were developed during joint European programs against Russia over the last few years. Among those were the newly improved tanks of Franco-German design, several German artillery systems, as well as improved fighter and bombing aircraft, which were developed, among others, with the support of the US. Allied artillery kept pounding revisionist strongholds, while Serbias most vital infrastructure was in ruins, which slowed down Serbian supply efforts. Due to the allied advance in Ukraine, the Russian Black Sea Fleet was forced to retreat back to the waters around Crimea, leaving Serbia with no additional missile support as a consequence. Allied airships were also tested for the first time as potential bombing aircraft, and despite heavy casualties inflicted on the Serbian defenders, the Allies stopped this testing due to the lack of accuracy and the vast destruction caused by the heavy payloads, which also hit larger quantities of civilians. The Allies still kept high pressure on Serbia, and made simultaneously diplomatic efforts to get Austria as another European nation to join the Alliance of the United Forces, which was met with skepticism by the Austrian government, which preferred to stay neutral as long as possible. At the same time, allied troops in the now occupied Republika Sprka faced sabotage and violent assaults coming from ethnic Serbs fighting the allied advance inside Serbia. Allied patrols became the targets of snipers, mine warfare, and even car-bombs and urban insurgency.
Even outside of Bosnia and Serbia, ethnic Serbs kept sympathizing with the Serbian war effort, leading to riots and attacks being conducted in nations like Croatia, Albania and Kosovo. Almost simultaneously, Islamist terror attacks, which were already reinflamed in the Balkans since Serbia entered the war and reportedly committed several atrocities against Muslims in its occupied territories, became more frequent inside Serbia. Those attacks put additional pressure on Serbia, and diverted some of its attention inwards, but still remained mostly symbolic in nature, despite heavy civilian death tolls and infrastructural damage. Food shortages also became an increasingly dire problem for the defending Serbians, due to being completely cut off from foreign supplies, leading to some calls for stopping the war before Serbia would totally collapse. Those calls were furiously rejected though, since the Serbian military and political establishment viewd defeat at the hands of the Allies, especially through its Balkan enemies as an intolerable humiliation. Because of that, allied offers for a ceasefire were rejected, leading the Allies to intensify their bombing campaign against Sebia. The reason for that was, that the allied military command wanted to defeat Serbia as quickly as possible, in order to free up more forces to use at the Polish sector of the Western Front. The Balkan NATO members of Bulgaria and North Macedonia were still reluctant to seek a more active approach to the allied war effort, due to large parts of the political establishment of these nations still being rather pro-Russian. But since the pressure to join the AUF grew with every day, as well as ethnic tensions inside North Macedonia and Bulgaria caused by Serbian riots and attacks, both nations saw themselves to participate more on the Allies behalf, leading to increased logistical support and more granted access for the Allies by both Bulgaria and North Macedonia.
Bulgaria also fully mobilized its army for the first time during the war, not only because of the escalation in Serbia, but also the growing tensions with former NATO member Turkey, which kept actively sending refugees towards the Greek and bulgarian borders as human weapons to put pressure on allied nations. Meanwhile, Serbia was almost completely overrun by the Allies, leaving only Belgrade and its immediate surrounding regions unoccupied. Allied missiles, artillery shells and rockets kept hitting the Serbian capital and the defensive lines in the region on a daily basis, leading to more and more breakthroughs by allied forces. Despite heavy resistance and immense casualties inflicted on the Allies, allied troops finally managed to reach the outskirts of Belgrade with massive air support. The Battle of Belgrade that followed after was one of the bloodiest of the entire war, with thousands of allied troops and even tens of thousands of Serbian forces falling in just a couple of days. After almost two weeks of fighting, Belgrade fell into the hands of the Allies, leaving Serbia defeated, despite remaining resistance and continued urban insurgency.
=== The Southern Front: Allied Advance against Iran ===
Another Revisionist Power struggled to hold off the allied advance: Iran. The Islamic republic entrenched itself along its entire western border, with the exception of its frontier with Turkey, while also creating heavily fortified defenses along its southern coastline in preparation of allied amphibious assaults. After years of brutal fighting, most of Iranian ally Iraq fell into the hands of the Allies, leaving only pockets of resistance by Shia militias, Islamists and few Iraqi military operatives in urban areas, like Baghdad, which fell after a month of bloody fighting.
While Arabian forces of the GCC, supported by American, French, British and Egyptian troops shelled the Iranian border region, allied air forces increased their strikes against military, economic and infrastructural targets inside Iran, with Israeli aircraft putting additional focus on Iranian nuclear facilities. Despite official claims prior and during the war, Iran ramped up its nuclear program, and actively sought to militarize it more aggressively since the beginning of WW3. Iran suffered heavy blows against its nuclear program, due to relentless Israeli air, missile and cyber strikes targeted against facilities like Natanz, Isfahan and Arak. While Irans only uranium mine in Bandar Abbas was also hit early on, the mullah regime used the early advances of the Revisionist Powers to relocate its nuclear weapons program to compounds deep inside the Iranian mountains, making those new facilities hard to dislodge. The hasty relocation, and the limited material, technology and infrastructure available made those institutions often rather improvised and less efficient. This was the reason why, despite Iran using the maximum capacity of its remaining centrifuges, its nuclear program only progressed very slowly, leading it to still be in its infancy in 2028. Due to the already limited technology and resources, Iran sought to develop uranium instead of plutonium based weapons, despite those being less destructive and needing more fissile matter to function. The process of minimizing any potential device also proved to be an immense struggle for Iran, which is why it sought support by the North Koreans. China and Russia looked the other way when it came to Iranian nuclear ambitions, since they were rather critical of such a development, but ultimately stayed directly and indirectly complacent to it. North Korea and even Russia also provided uranium for Iran, which was transported through the central Asian republics, and therefore exclusively through revisionist territory.
 Iran originally planned to develop nuclear warheads for its Shahab-3 missile, but due to the struggle of minimizing any potential warheads so that they could fit into the missile, as well as the impending allied invasion, Iran explored other delivery systems as well. That is why there were programs aimed at developing uranium bombs, while there was another one testing the possibility of nuclear gun shells. Iranian scientists were pressed to assemble a somewhat functional device for future testing, while at the same time, the pressure on the Iranian border was intensified. Allied aircraft was able to reach increasingly deeper into Iranian territory, while on the ground, the fighting between allied coalition forces and Iranian troops backed by Shia militias and other proxies became extremely brutal. Poison gas was used by both sides, causing horrendous wounds and casualties among both the military and civilian population of the immediate area. Iranian border forces, supported by the Revolutionary Guard and the al-Quds troops, laid out miles of barbed wire and land mines, while pounding enemy forces in Iraq and Kuwait with pre-positioned mortars and artillery pieces. Meanwhile, the systematic internment and liquidation of Shias in Saudi Arabia and Saudi occupied territory, as well as Sunnis in Iran continued, with both sides publicly executing Shia and Sunni prisoners respectively, as an ideological attack against the enemy. Both sides also run detention camps for POWS and members of their respective conflicting group of Islamic belief, leading Saudi Arabia to have prison and execution camps in the Arabian Desert, while Iran still run its detention camps it built in the Zagros mountains since the beginning of the war. Meanwhile, the Allies successfully landed troops on the Iranian coastline of the Strait of Hormuz, leading to heavy fighting in Bandar Abbas and Minab, while Bandar Lengeh became the first Iranian city to fall into allied hands.
The allied invasion of Iran also caused a rift inside the Iranian society. While the invasion inflamed the already very present anti-allied sentiment among the Iranian people, with tens-of thousands of them now taking to arms, thousands more went to the streets to riot against the mullah regime. Those riots were struck down with brute force by the Revolutionary Guard, which killed almost a thousand of protesters in just a day of upheaval. Iranians loyal to the regime also started to attack rioters, whom they deemed as traitors, culminating in civil war like hostilities in several regions of Iran. These clashes were encouraged by allied intelligence, which was the reason why multiple westerners were captured and publicly executed as well, allegedly for being allied spies. At the same time, allied forces supported by the Yemeni puppet government advanced further against the Iranian backed Houthis, leading the rebels to loose significant amounts of territory, while Sanaa faced a long, protracted siege, with horrific consequences for the civilian population. Tensions also grew in the north of the wider region, where Turkish troops occupying Syrian and Iraqi territories were engaged in several standoffs with allied Arabian and western forces. Both sides accused each other of opening fire, after Kurdish civilians tried to escape into allied held territory, which Turkish troops tried to prevent by shooting at the fugitives. The resulting counterfire of Arabian, but also American, British and French forces lead to a couple of casualties on both sides, which caused increased hostile rhetoric between the former NATO allies.
=== The Eastern Front: China falls back ===
While the Allies advanced against Iran in the Middle East, and Serbia and Indonesia falling into allied hands, China continued to struggle following allied breakthroughs on the Korean Peninsula. Chinese forces outside of Korea faced increasingly severe shortages of various supplies and ammunition, leading to lacking support for China's remaining Asian allies. After years of intense fighting and economic collapse, the Revisionist Power of Cambodia was defeated by Thai, Malaysia, Burmese and Vietnamese forces, while Laos also kept losing territory to the Allies. The joined offensives of Vietnam and Thailand managed to overwhelm the last defenses of Laos around Lak Sao and Paksan, leading all of southeastern Laos to be occupied by the Allies.
The remainder of the lao forces, as well as their Chinese counterparts then focused on holding the Allies off from overrunning more lao territory, with the objective of defending the new residence of the lao leadership, Luang Prabang. The Revisionist Powers were able to use the Mekong and Ngiap rivers, as well as the Nam Ngum Reservoir as natural defenses to slow down the allied advance, while Chinese troops in Vietnam had to retreat to a line stretching from Dien Bien Phu to Lang Son. Further west, Chinese troops lost a critical battle for Lahio in Myanmar, due to material shortages and the dispersed attention of the Chinese leadership, which caused a lack of strategy and guidance on several less important fronts, like the Burmese one. The defeat in Lahio by the hands of Burmese, Indian, American and Australian troops forced the Chinese to retreat from the southwest of Myanmar, back to the Chinese border, while Vietnamese and American troops were able to push back the Chinese from several regions in northern Vietnam. Following these allied offensives, Vietnamese troops were able to reconquer the cities of Ha Long, Dien Bien Phu and Haiphong, while allied air and missile bombardment of Hainan further increased. But due to China's still massive manpower, and the overstretching of American forces, this allied advance soon came to a halt again. Meanwhile, Chinese forces, after the Indian successes in Sikkim, managed to stop the Indian advance in the Himalayas, while being able to hold on Bhutan and defending Nepal.
At the same time, the naval war became a struggle for China as well. After almost a year of intense fighting, the Allies managed to create an opening, and ultimately split, between the Chinese naval forces around the Paracel and Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, leading the latter to be occupied by forces of the US, Malaysia, Vietnam, Australia and the first waves of allied Indonesian troops. This loss was seen as a humiliation of China, which was the reason why reporting about the war in China became even more censored than was already the case. News about Chinese retreat and defeats still broke through, and encouraged civil unrest and insurgency in China. Mass demonstrations and riots in Hong Komg continued, while new uprisings were reported in Macau as well. Tibetan freedom fighters and Uighur rebels in Xinjiang meanwhile intensified their attacks on Chinese security forces, which tied down a lot of Chinese attention and resources. The violent crackdown of the Chinese communist party as a consequence of this caused the death of thousands of Chinese civilians, while tens of thousands more were arrested and sent to labor camps in order to produce for the Chinese regime. Uighur rebels were increasingly deported to new „re-education camps“, where most of them were directly executed for treason and thrown into mass graves. The actions taken against the rebels also lead to the mass incarceration and murder of Uighur civilians, who fell under general suspicion. As was the case already for most of the war, Uighur prisoners in Chinese concentration camps were forced to hard labor, like working on weapons and equipment for the war, while also producing everyday items for the Chinese population like clothing and face masks. The execution of prisoners became more frequent though, and was used as a tool of intimidation against the Muslim population of Xinjiang, which is the reason why modern historians see these events as the Uighur genocide. In order to prevent more setbacks, the Chinese regime of Xi Jinping decided to take additional defensive measures.
Chinese forces started to dig in along the Sino-Vietnamese border and laid out countless landmines, while the anti-air and anti-ship defenses on the Paracel Islands were intensified. China also deployed new forces to Taiwan, in order to strike down Taiwanese rebels, while using Taiwan as a defensive base against approaching allied vessels and aircraft. The Chinese occupants of Taiwan even repurposed captured BAE systems, as well as M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket launchers, which were able to hit targets up to 190 miles. These additional defenses were also intended to relieve pressure from the Chinese navy in the South China Sea, while the Chinese additionally launched dozens of DF-26 missiles against allied targets in Korea, Japan, Guam, as well as the Philippines for the first time during the war. The strikes against Fillipino bases and harbors was reason enough for the regime of Rodrigo Duterte to seek more aggressive action against the Chinese, despite the fact, that the Philippines partially colluded with China in the past to avoid such broader confrontation. These attacks thinned out the Chinese missile arsenal m which forced the Chinese to halt long range missile attacks for a significant amount of time.
=== The "Battle of Antarctica" ===
While both the Allies and Revisionist Powers remained locked in a deadly fight against each other, the war saw several obscurities as well, most notably the so called „Battle of Antarctica“. Before the war started, several satellite systems were installed by the Chinese on Australian Antarctic territory, which were used in WW3 to guide strike weapons, like cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. Since the Allies heavily disrupted revisionist GPS satellite systems during the latter half of the war, both China and Russia tried to compensate for that by using their own systems, like the Chinese BeiDou and the Russian GLONASS. China additionally built radar installations in Antarctica, which were used to interfere with American polar satellites, while at the same time, in violation of the Antarctic Treaty, a permanent Chinese airfield was in use in Antarctica since 2018.
This was the reason why the Revisionist Powers in 2030 saw much more importance in protecting their stations in Antarctica, while Chinese and Russian submarines were occasionally sent to assault and sink fishing ships in Antarctic waters, in order to reduce allied food supplies. Revisionist vessels and expeditionary contingencies were also deployed in order to evaluate Antarctica as a potential source for rare-mineral mining, as well as fishing. Due to the revisionist presence in Antarctica, allied leaders from several nations around the globe issued that there needed to be an allied response to revisionist aggression around the South Pole. The Australian Antarctic division, the British Royal Navy, the Argentinian, Chilean, French and New Zealandish navies sent a small naval presence to the waters of Antarctica, where they mostly conducted patrol duties, while hunting for Russian and Chinese submarines. After the revisionist setbacks of 2027, the submarines operating in the Antarctic increasingly targeted and attacked not only fishing ships but also military vessels, leading to a couple of small naval clashes between allied navies and their revisionist attackers. Due to these hostilities, the British HMS Forth patrol boat, deployed from the Falklands Islands, was among the first allied vessels to be sunk by revisionist submarines. The southern activities of the UK also caused a series of provocative maneuvers between the Argentinian and British navy in the Antarctic waters, due to both nations history of shared animosity in the wake of the Falklands war, therefore heightening the tensions between those allied nations. In 2026, the revisionist naval assets operating in the Antarctic faced severe shortages of supplies and ammunition, since they were mostly cut off from their main supply routes further north.
Those vessels, which were sent to and deployed from southpacific islands, like Fiji and Vanuatu in the years prior, ran out of torpedos and food, leading to a rather abrupt end of naval hostilities in the Antarctic. The Allies also managed to sink a revisionist submarine, which caused an ecological crisis in the South Polar Sea because of radiation escaping the reactors of the sunken wreckage. As soon as the attacks on allied military and economic shipping stopped, British and French ships launched missile strikes against the Russian and Chinese satellite stations on Antarctica, leading to a massive blow against the BeiDou and GLONASS systems, while granting the Allies additional advantages in the field of satellite communication. Allied vessels also conducted an attack on the permanent Chinese airfield and China's radar installations, leaving the Revisionist Powers with virtually no access to Antarctica whatsoever. Additionally, allied ships with minor aerial support from helicopters seized various revisionist icebreakers deployed in the seas around Antarctica, in order to undermine Chinese and Russian polar ambitions. After these attacks, there were no more military activity in and around Antarctica, except some minor patrol missions by allied countries.
=== Mexico joins the War ===
While the war kept escalating in South America, and the Allies managed to advance in Europe and Asia, things were looking tense in North America. Mexico suffered massively under allied blockades against Revisionist Powers in WW3, due to the fact that especially China was Mexico's second largest trading partner. Additionally, many allied nations were unable to sufficiently trade with Mexico, due to shipping and air traffic lines being disrupted by the war, like Japan, South Korea and Malaysia. The result was a severe economic crisis of Mexico for most of the war, including widespread unemployment, increasing poverty and even food shortages. The result were protests all over the country, while drug cartel related crime was also on the rise.
These conditions also facillitated sporadic outbreaks of COVID-19, which put an additional strain on Mexico's health system. This caused a new wave of refugees moving to the north, in order to reach the US in the hope for better living conditions. The news of these migrant caravans were received with rejection from the Trump administration, which declared that this would be another „invasion-attempt“ of America, that was according to Trump far worse than the Russian invasion of the Aleutians. As a reaction to the incoming refugee wave, Trump deployed 5000 troops to the American-Mexican border, in order to prevent any refugees from coming to the US. The US government also authorized the use of deadly weaponry, in the case of hostilities with Mexican refugees and human traffickers, which caused massive outcries among the anti-Trump opposition. Multiple clashes were reported between Mexican migrants and US border forces, which were accompanied by civilian vigilantes, that went out to „fight against hostile invaders“. There were several incidents of refugees being shot by Americans, either by the military or by American self-authorized border militias. The oppositional Democrats accused Trump of authorizing and encouraging lethal violence against refugees, while the president claimed that the border forces and „American patriots“ merely acted in self-defense. Trump himself accused Mexico of actively seeking to send refugees into the US, as some form of alleged warfare against America. He claimed that Mexico would deliberately send criminals, thugs and rapists to the US, in order to weaken America during this time of war.
Both the oppositional Democrats, as well as the Mexican leadership denounced these accusations as made up, racist and harmful for the already strained American-Mexican relationship. Trump went even further, and threatened economic sanctions against Mexico, should it refuse to do anything to stop the refugees itself. As a result of these threats from the US, Mexico decided to send troops to the American border, as a show of force and strength, while also hoping to discourage refugees from coming north. This troop deployment was seen as an act of aggression by the Trump administration, which authorized opening fire on Mexican troops, should they come too close to the border. Mexican forces on the other hand kept closing in to the border, especially during nighttime, in order to tackle human trafficking, while many Mexican soldiers, who were infuriated and insulted by US accusations, engaged in various standoffs with the US army, during which many Mexicans started throwing rocks at American troops, leading them to fire warning shots. Those warning shots were interpreted as acts of aggression, since tensions between the engaging forces were high due to the earlier reported shootings of Mexican refugees, which lead the Mexican troops to open fire directly on the Americans in return. Both sides accused each other of starting hostilities, while Trump called these incidents a „declaration of war“ by Mexico, which was why he introduced massive economic sanctions on Mexico, despite resistance from the opposition. Mexico, which already faced economic struggles and civil unrest, saw itself wronged by the US, and unfairly punished by the American leadership, which lead to widespread anti-American protests and riots in front of American embassies. Shootings along the border between American and mexcian forces continued to occur, while many protesters went to the still incomplete border wall in order to protest.
They insulted the opposing border forces of the US, and tried to vandalize the wall, while it became much harder for the border forces to distinguish between refugees and demonstrators. Once again there were shots fired, either as warnings or in alleged self defense, which lead to the killings of several dozens of Mexican civilians, a couple of Mexican soldiers and even several US border guards who were facing fire from the Mexican side. As a result, US troops along the border entered Mexican territory in a few areas of lesser fortifications and engaged with Mexican civilians and military forces in several clashes with tear gas, flash grenades and even armored vehicles, in order to disperse the revolt along the border. This was seen as an foreign invasion of Mexico, which lead the Mexican government to declare war on the US. Trump vowed to „anhililate“ Mexico for its aggression against the US, and ordered his border troops to shoot at any Mexican soldier on sight, while all over Mexico, anti-American protesters waved revisionist flags, like the Russian, Chinese and even Venezuelan ones. Mexican and Latino-protests also emerged in the US itself, which were struck down aggressively by the deployed security forces. Trump also ordered the police, homeland security and other federal forces to patrol in latino majority communities, in order to prevent „fraternisation and collaboration with the enemy“ which prompted accusations of racism and a general suspicion of latino-Americans. Along the border, Mexican forces engaged in various clashes with US troops, during which Mexico started to deploy more heavy weaponry, like the SDN Humvee self-propelled artillery piece, as well as several towed howitzers and mortars, which were positioned on high ground, like the hills close to San Diego and Tijuana, as well as Jacumba Hot Springs and along the Rio Grande. As a result, shelling erupted, which caused only symbolic damage to private properties and border walls and fences in Texas and California. The Mexicans were able to conduct these attacks due to the lack of present ground and air forces in the continental US.
Most American troops were stationed outside of the US, including most of Americas hard military equipment. Which was why there were only comparatively few Abrahams tanks and F-16 fighter jets available to attack Mexican positions along the border. Most US forces had to rely on helicopters and armored infantry fighting vehicles to counter Mexican aggression, which were assaulted by Mexican forces using confiscated anti-tank weapons. The Mexicans on the other hand managed to tear down parts of Trumps border wall, which was celebrated by Mexican and revisionist propaganda. Mexican forces also managed to conduct several incursions into the US at places with little or no border protection, where they engaged in exchanges of fire with American border troops and civilian militias, leading to mounting casualties among the latter. While American forces resorted to using shoulder launched missiles and truck-, and helicopter mounted miniguns to disperse the assaulting enemy, Mexican special forces were able to ambush an American detention center for migrants close to the border, where they liberated dozens of children in US custody. This was exploited by revisionist propaganda as the liberation of innocent children from American „concentration camps“, despite being only a one time occurance. Despite the lack of equipment and manpower, the US forces were still able to push the Mexicans back at several points of the border, while the few present American fighter jets stroke Mexican positions and infrastructure all over the front. Reports came up about the abduction of US civilians by invading Mexican forces, while there were allegedly massacres against US citizens in remote, rural areas along the border, and although most of these claims remained unconfirmed, they were enough to spark anti-Mexican and anti-latino violence by Trump-followers all over the US.
=== Turkey joins the Revisionists: Erdoğan vs Europe ===
Mexico was not the only nation joining the Revisionist Powers in late 2030 due to ongoing conflicts with western countries. Tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean kept escalating, after the forced influx of tens of thousands of refugees coming from Turkey to Greece and Bulgaria, while Turkish and Greek security forces clashed with each other through the greco-Turkish border. Due to the continuously rising tensions with the west following its exclusion from NATO, Turkey intensified its naval presence in the waters around Cyprus and several Greek islands, in order to secure Turkish maritime claims and natural resources. Reports also came up about Turkish vessels bringing military equipment and personnel to the Turkish Cypriot Republic, despite an international weapons embargo still being in place. As a result, Greek, French and British warships engaged in various standoffs with Turkish vessels, while the Turkish air force conducted mock attacks on allied ships. After coming increasingly close to each other, Turkish and western soldiers harassed each other, by using water hoses and shots in the air to disperse the vessels of the opposing side.
During these standoffs, several Greek ships close to Cyprus and Crete were rammed by Turkish vessels, prompting exchanges of fire. Almost immediately after, Turkish naval units actively attacked Greek and French ships, leading to dozens of allied casualties. The Turkish air force was also deployed, and buzzed several allied planes, while pursuing the Greek navy, leading to near-clashes between each sides air force as well. Turkish dictator Erdoğan blamed the recent escalation on Greece and the Allies, and vowed to defend Turkish interests with all means necessary. The Allies on the other hand condemned the Turkish aggression, and made an ultimatum, which called for a complete retreat of Turkish naval forces from officially Greek and cypriot waters. Turkey rejected the ultimatum, and declared that it will never give in to allied demands, which it called „fascist and imperialist“ intentions. Instead, Turkish soldiers were landed on the small Greek island of Kastelorizo, which was the center of the Greek-Turkish EEZ conflict for years, and planted the Turkish flag on the island as a sign of conquest. The ports of Kastelorizo were blocked by the Turkish navy, while the few hundred Greek residents were put under a curfew. As a result of the escalation, Greece mobilized a large portion of its troops and sent them close to the border, as a show of force. The Europeans AUF also intended to increase Greek defenses in the south, which was why the allied European command deployed several anti-air batteries, anti-ship missiles and artillery pieces to Greece, which were supposed to be deployed on Greek islands off the coast of Turkey. When the news broke about allied weaponry arriving in Greece, Turkey saw itself forced to take preemptive action, which lead to Turkish troops entering Greek territory in several locations of the Evros river, where they occupied river islands and small chunks of Greek territory. Turkish troops also assaulted the Greek islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Kos, Rhodes and the Northeastern Aegan Islands, where they engaged small contingents of the Greek national guard.
The fact that these islands were so numerous and close to Turkey, while being too far away from mainland Greece, meant that the Greeks were unable to send enough reinforcements fast enough to its eastern islands, since Turkeys stronger navy and its closer airbases additionally complicated Greek movement of troops. Turkey comparatively large amphibious assault fleet enabled it to land its troops much quicker on Greek islands, than the Greeks could reinforcements, leading on Greek island to fall after another. The attack on Greece finally forced NATO and the AUF to officially treat their former ally as an enemy, which lead Greece to declare war on Turkey. On the same day, France, the UK, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia also declared war on Turkey, while a few days later, Israel, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Croatia, Sweden, Finland, Portugal, Montenegro, Iceland, Luxembourg, and the Saudi dominated GCC members also declared war on Turkey under the AKP dictatorship of Erdoğan. Germany hesitated to join in on the defense of Greece, due to its large Turkish population, which included a majority of Erdoğan supporter, since it feared domestic unrest and attacks. But after a few couple of days, Germany also declared war on Turkey, as did Australia and New Zealand, as well as most of the remaining EU.
The US was also reluctant to join, due to Trumps lack of interest of fighting Turkey in support of the Europeans, but due to NATOs article 5, and pressure from the American military establishment, the US also declared war on Turkey. After the American declaration of war, Erdoğan held a rally in Ankara, where he swore in his followers on a „Holy War“ against all of Turkeys enemies, at the end of which, Turkey would come out as a glorious victor with the blessing of Allah. Turkish troops amassed around the NATO bases in Izmir, Ankara, Gaziantep, Dyabakir and Adana, seizing those assets, while additionally, Turkish troops also took the US bases of Mersin, Batman and Kürsehir. Only Incirlik was left untouched and was instead besieged, including the installment of a No-Fly-Zine, in order to prevent the US from moving its nuclear weapons out of Incirlik.
On the same day as the Greek declaration of war, Turkish troops also launched an invasion of Cyprus. The closeness of Cyprus, just like it was the case with the eastern Greek islands in the Aegan Sea, enabled Turkey to send airborne and naval units to Cyprus much faster than the Allies, leaving the Greek cypriot forces with almost no allied support. Since the Greek cypriots still operated relatively large batteries of heavy artillery and anti-air defenses, casualties among the Turkish ground and air forces mounted rather quickly. In order to compensate for this, Turkey used Turkish cypriot forces as a vanguard, while assembling enough reinforcements to support its earlier deployed airborne units for the full conquest of Cyprus. Greek, French and British naval units present in the waters around Cyprus tried to take on the Turkish fleet supporting the invasion of Cyprus, but with a lack of land based air cover, those forces came under attack from Turkish planes, attack helicopters, submarines and fast attack boats. The invasion of Cyprus proved to be much slower than expected, due to the fact that the Turkish army had to assemble its forces on almost all of its horses, leaving only a fraction of them for the Cypriot campaign. While Turkish paratroopers were landed in the cypriot Troodos mountains, where they engaged in heavy mountain warfare with cypriot troops and their few allied reinforcements that were already present before the conflict, Greek troops mobilized at the Turkish border tried to launch a counterinvasion of East Thrace, using armored mechanized formations to cross the border. The AUF decided to send its „Southern Contingent“ in support of Greece, meaning Spanish, Portuguese, French and British forces, under Italian command were deployed as the first line of defense, while the „Balkan Contingent“ of Croatian, Montenegrin, Romanian and Slovenian troops under a joint allied command also sent troops to Greece.
During the Battle of the Maritsa, Turkish and Greek troops clashed heavily, leading to thousands of casualties in a short period of time. The allied air force, now including French, British, German, Italian, Belgian and Spanish planes, also conducted their first strikes on Turkish soil by attacking the entrances of the Bosporus tunnels as well as the Bosporus bridges in Istanbul, killing hundreds of civilians in the process. Istanbul also became the target of allied strategic bombing, since the Allies tried to destroy as much of the present forces, infrastructure and bases around Istanbul as possible. The closeness of Turkish airbases, and the destruction of the Maritsa bridges, lead to a halt of the allied advance at the Turkish border, while the Allies, especially the Greeks suffered heavy air-casualties. As a result, the Turkish army launched a invasion of not only Thrace, but also Bulgaria, which declared war on Turkey the same day. While the Balkan Contingent deployed forces to assist Bulgaria, first battles between Turkish and Arab forces in the south emerged, during which Kurdish militias, who were in negotiations with the Allies for protection and support, joined the fight against Turkey in Syria and Iraq, while PKK sympathizers launched new attacks against the Turkish military and police force in southeastern Turkey.
== 2031 ==
=== The Eastern Front: The Allies break through ===
With the beginning of 2030, the tide seemed to fully turn in favor of the Allies in Asia, leading China to face several major setbacks at the Eastern Front. After months of intense, brutal fighting, the Allies managed to break through the revisionist lines in Southeast Asia, which culminated into the final defeat and surrender of Laos after the Battle of Phongsali. Before that, the Chinese tried to establish a new line of defense along the Mekong river, following an allied breakthrough around the Nam Ngum Reservoir, but due to allied advances on all fronts, the Chinese regime of Xi Jinping saw no value in defending Laos anymore. In Myanmar, the increasing number of arriving American, Australian and Indian troops, in addition to the intense fighting and pressure coming from Burmese and Thai forces, the Chinese had to also retreat back to the border of Myanmar, with Chinese troops establishing a last line of defense along the Salween and Nmai rivers and the Burmese side-rivers of the Mekong.
Realizing that an invasion of Chinese territory might be a real possibility now, the Chinese started to dig in along the entire southeastern border, including miles of barbed wire, trenches, fortified positions as well as tens of thousands of land mines, in order to prevent any allied invasion in the future. While China also increased its long range missile attacks against allied targets in Southeast Asia, Korea and Japan, the remaining Chinese troops in Myanmar and the lao border regions resorted to guerilla warfare, similar to the Vietkong during the Vietnam War. This guerilla warfare, as well as the high intensity fighting in Vietnam, Korea and the Himalayan mountains caused heavy casualties on both sides, with the US suffering unprecedented losses. Due to the conditions of jungle warfare in Southeast Asia, and the high concentration of troops in small stretches of land like Korea, the US faced staggering numbers of casualties, most of which were young Americans below the age of 25, who were drafted the first time during WW3. In order to compensate for disadvantages in terrain, the US once again used Napalm bombs on a large scale to clear out the jungle of Chinese fighters, leading to heavy damages of wildlife and severe civilian casualties. In Vietnam, the Chinese were able to halt the allied push towards the border by fortifying their positions, while bringing in heavy artillery and rocket launchers, which turned the guerilla style fighting of the months prior into another war of attrition, which lead to massive losses on both sides.
But due to the influx of reinforcements from Thailand, India, Malaysia, the UK and even the first recruits from Indonesia, after the former Revisionist Power switched sides a year before. Allied artillery and missiles were able to hit targets deeper in mainland China, which started to thin out Chinese anti-air defenses, while allied stealth bombers managed to destroy far more industrial targets than before, leading to threats of nuclear weapons use. Especially the Hainan island was hit intensively by allied air, artillery and naval forces, creating the possibillity of an amphibious invasion of Hainan. Allied naval vessels still struggled to get closer to the Chinese shores, due to the still large amounts of sea mines left in the South China Sea. The Chinese navy meanwhile suffered heavy casualties during the Third Battle of the Paracel Islands, forcing them to abandon several of their artificial islands and reefs. The US also suffered heavy losses, by losing almost a thousand sailors a day, but managed to disperse the Chinese surface fleet to the point where allied ship-launched missiles and aircraft were able to increasingly hit Chinese targets in occupied Taiwan, in support of Taiwanese insurgencies. Since the Chinese had to focus on the protection of the Chinese coastline in the East China Sea, allied navies from Japan, the US, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the Philippines and even Indonesia managed to create openings in the maritime defense of Taiwan and the southern Japanese islands, leading allied assets to not only threaten the occupation of Taiwan, but also creating the chance of attacking the southeastern coast of mainland China. In Korea, after the devastating Battle of Gangwon, allied troops finally pushed the Revisionist Powers back to the line of the former DMZ, forcing Chinese, Russian, North Korean and Mongolian forces to dig in just like it was the case along the southern Chinese border.
Due to the fact that allied troops gained momentum and therefore speed in their offensives, these fortification efforts were only locally and in urban areas successful, since fast moving allied ground troops and allied air forces overrunned the revisionist defenders often before their defensive measures could be consolidated. North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un threatened that an invasion of North Korea would mean the nuclear destruction of South Korea, Japan and the US, while Chinese delegations arrived in Pyongyang in order to get Kim back into the line and preventing him from going rogue in the revisionist nuclear deterrence strategy. In the Himalayan mountains, the Chinese were forced to pull back and block any roads going into Chinese territory, but due to the fact that China had to cover large areas of remote terrain, the Chinese lacked in enough forces to secure all passages necessary in the Himalaya, allowing Indian troops to cross into occupied Bhutan, and liberate several regions in the south of the country from the Chinese occupation with the help of bhutanese rebels. The thin chines defense in the mountains also enabled the Indians, Americans, Australians and British to enter revisionist Nepal, and take the first southern regions of the mountain state, supported by Gurkha rebels and allied special forces. The allied advances in the Himalayas, as increased allied missile strikes in southwestern Chinese territory also encouraged new waves of Tibetan insurgency, as well as more uprisings in Xinjiang, leading China to struggle with the handling of those rebel movements.
=== Allied victories in Africa ===
The struggles of the Revisionist Powers on the Western and Eastern Front also influenced the other theaters of the war, like the African Fronts. The allied coalition of western forces, South Africa, Tanzania and East African nations managed to overwhelm the Revisionist Power of Mozambique, which faced defeat after being abandoned by Russian paramilitaries and the fact that lacking financial support from the Chinese made a successful campaign against the Allies almost impossible. The leadership of Mozambique sought a ceasefire and signaled willingness to negotiate its terms of surrender, in exchange of an allied halt of hostilities and support against the Islamist insurgents, who held large areas of Mozambiques North. While negotiations in Mozambique began, other African Revisionist Powers faced defeat and collapse as well. Following the Second Battle of Djibouti, and the allied counter-invasion after, Eritrea was brought on the brink of collapse.
After the Battle of Keren, the remnants of the eritrean army were dispersed to such a degree, while being cut off from most of their supplies, started to engage only in local skirmishes with western, Ethiopian and Kenyan troops, while ultimately surrendering to the Allies before the rest of the country would have been occupied by allied forces. Further south on the Horn of Africa, Somalia was also overwhelmed by the Allies, after the last strongholds of the resistance in Mogadishu and Baidao finally fell. Allied forces still faced opposition of armed insurgencies in urban areas, causing severe casualties among the military occupants and the Somalian civilian population, while Islamist militias like al-Shabaab kept harassing allied troops from East Africa and western nations like the US, the UK and France. Those remaining pockets of resistance where also supported by a small contingent of Turkish troops, which engaged in several clashes with allied forces in the south of Somalia as well as Mogadishu. This resistance faced increased bombing by allied drones, which caused the remainder of Somalias armed forces, al-Shaabab militants and Turkish forces to disperse to such a degree, that most of the country could be controlled by allied forces. In the West, fighting between the Revisionist Power of Angola, and the allied forces of South Africa and Namibia remained fierce and costly for both sides. A coastal campaign of the Allies managed to advance along the angolan coastline up to Lobito, causing fears of the Angolan leadership about a potential threat of Luanda.
After the news of the surrender of Eritrea and Mozambique, voices among the angolan leadership calling for a ceasefire became louder by the day, with the first offers for peace negotiations coming after the Battle of Kuito, where South African and namibian troops managed to create a stronghold for potential operations further north. After emergency negotiations between delegates from Angola and South Africa, hostilities between allied and angolan forces were halted, leading to a declaration of a total ceasefire. While further negotiations between Angola and the Allies were underway, the revisionist forces of the D. RC. faced increasing issues of their own. After the invasion of the D.R.C by allied forces, komgolese, Sudanese and central African troops were pushed back to a line stretching from Wangata to Shabunda, forcing the defenders to engage in guerilla warfare in the rainforests of the African equator. News became loud about a small platoon of kongolese troops going rogue on their government in order to protect the highly endangered population of Gorillas in the Jungles of the D.R.C, where they remained without significant supplies and contact to the outside world for the remainder of the war. The military defeats, and lacking support of foreign Revisionist Powers like China and Russia inflamed unrest in the D.R.C, which was struck down with brute force by the kongolese army, leading to countless massacres against civilians. Despite this compliance of the kongolese military to engage in violence against its own population, dissatisfaction with the regime grew exponentially among the military ranks, leading to several coup attempts and civil war like uprisings in many parts of the unoccupied DRC, allowing the Allies to gain momentum and push further south. Various rebel groups, like the M23 movement, which was already active before and during the earlier years of the war, started to assault kongolese security forces and civilian villages, causing additional mayhem in the DRC 
In North Africa, both the Allies and Revisionist Powers continued to struggle for dominance on the battlefield. The ongoing fight against Morocco and Tunisia, as well as invading Sahel forces in the south, forced Algeria to reduce its involvement in Libya, in order to protect its own territory. Without much support from Algeria, the GNA gove of Tripoli was brought to the brink of collapse, since the only effective forces it had left on the ground were Libyan militias and Turkish forces. But due to the fact that weapon sales from Qatar and Turkey were stopped by the allied navy, the Tripoli coalition started to run out of resources and supplies, forcing it to retreat on all fronts. The coalition of Khalifa Haftar and troops from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, France and supporting forces from Niger and Chad managed to cut off GNA strongholds in the south-west of Libya from reinforcements further north around Tripoli, allowing Haftars forces to advance all the way to the Algerian border, leaving only Tripoli itself and the surrounding area unoccupied. In the southern Mediteranean, the navies of Egypt, France, Italy, the UK, Germany, Tunisia, Portugal and Spain engaged in their first naval battles with the Turkish navy, which tried to break through the allied blockade of Libya. Despite sinking several allied vessels, the Turkish navy suffered heavy casualties, and since the pressure on Turkeys own territorial waters grew in the north, Turkey was forced to abandon its Libya campaign for good. Without Turkeys support, and Algeria being distracted by its own battles with the Allies, allied forces finally managed to conquer Tripoli, and there secure Libyan resources for themselves, leaving Libya itself to be ruled by Haftar and his militias.
In the west, Morocco continued its bloody campaign against the Polisario Front, which was pushed back eastward of the former border wall in Western Sahara, which resulted in a deadlock between moroccan and Polisario forces. While the moroccans were able to break through the defenses of the Polisario Front in multiple sectors of the Western Sahara Front, Algeria faced crisis due to the growing number of enemy forces either surrounding or invading it. The fight against Sahel and western forces in the south remained protrac, and since the harsh terrain of the Saharan Desert put a strain on both the Algerian and allied armies, the Algerian leadership also signaled willingness for a ceasefire, under the condition that the invasion of Algeria was halted. After the allied advance in the south and northeast were stopped, delegates from Algeria met with representatives from France, Morocco, Tunisia and the Libyan Haftar coalition, in order to discuss the terms for an Armistice. The Allies signaled willingness to halt their invasion and retreat back into their territories, as long as Algeria agreed to not interfere with allied operations in Libya, the Sahel and the Mediterranean. Only Morocco disagreed on these terms, and demanded a complete withdrawal from West Sahara, and a halt of Algerian support for the Polisario Front Movement. This dissonance between the allied fractions created tensions between the Allies, and ultimately lead only to a partial agreement: Algeria refrained from intervening in Libya, should hostilities re-erupt, while also not interfering with other allied operations in the southern Mediterranean and inside the Sahel states.
In exchange, allied troops from the Sahel and Nigeria, supported by French, British, German, and American troops, as well as Arab volunteers, withdrew from Algerian territory within 2 months, while Tunisian and western troops also retreated in the northeast. Only Morocco remained hostile against Algeria, due to a lack of agreement between the two north-African nations over West Sahara, leading to continuous conflict and hostilities until even after the end of WW3. British, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian troops also remained in northern Morocco, in order to secure Gibraltar and Spanish exclaves along the moroccan coastline. In the south, Zimbabwe increasingly faced internal instability during its war with South Africa. Local uprisings erupted due to Zimbabwes crackdowns on opposition, during which it used violent force to end protests, while journalists and other oppositional forces faced abduction, torture and even killings by the hands of the Zimbabwean military junta. Just like it was the case with the DRC, parts of the Zimbabwean military started to split up in order to sympathize with and support the uprisings and the allied forces intervening. Due to the continuous infighting, the Allies of South Africa, western forces and Tanzania, as well as namibian troops managed to advance on all fronts into Zimbabwe, while the revisionist ally of Zimbabwe, Rwanda, surrendered to the allied coalition and came under allied occupation.
=== The Western Front: The Liberation of the Baltics ===
Despite the opening of a new front against their former ally Turkey, the Allies of Europe and forces from the US and Canada managed to advance further along the Western Front. While suffering heavy casualties, the by now outnumbered, and rather badly supplied revisionist forces of Russia, Belarus and their supportive recruits from the central Asian republics and China, were forced into what constituted a full retreat on all fronts. Due to the combined pressure through allied airstrikes, relentless artillery bombardment and missile attacks, the Allies were able to deepen the split between the Polish and Ukrainian sector of the front, which lead to allied troops breaking through the Belarusian lines.
Since Russia focused on the defending Kaliningrad, while preventing further breakthroughs in Poland and Ukraine, the Russian support for the troops of Lukashenko remained rather lackluster, leaving the Belarusians with only a small portion of the revisionist resources. Brest was the first Belarusian city to fall into allied hands, while the advancing troops from Poland, France, Germany, the UK, Romania, Ukraine, Slovakia and remnants of the Baltic armies to push deeper into Belarus. The war became much more mobile than in the prior years, leading to massive tank battles and infantry clashes. Britain deployed several battalions of its Challenger 2 tanks, while Germany brought in a modernized version of its Leopard 2 tanks, causing heavy casualties among the defenders. In order to stop the invading forces, Belarus deployed dozens of its Polonez Multiple Launch Rocket system, which was improved through Chinese cooperation and was able to fire 300 mm A200 missiles of Chinese design. Despite suffering casualties, those missile launchers were too few in numbers, to prevent the Allies from taking Mosyr, Kobryn and even Slonum. The invasion of Belarus also reinflamed massive civil unrest and violent clashes between protesters and the security forces of Lukashenko and Russia. While the Belarusian regime started to use deadly force against its own people, Russia faced issues of its own on all fronts. In Ukraine, the continued bombardment of the Allies, and the steadily increasing rate of airstrikes due to Russia's S-400 and S-300 systems either being destroyed by allied artillery or running out of ammunition, the occupying Russians struggled to hold their lines west of the Dnieper river.
Since the Allies enjoyed a numerical advantage over the Russians, Russia refurbished its old Soviet era tanks, which were stored in old graveyards for military equipment, in order to compensate its losses on the battlefield. While its T-400 Armata tank still preformed very well against its allied counterparts, the redeployed Soviet era tanks, many of which could not be turned operational again, were outweighed and outgunned by many allied tank versions, while the use of Israeli made Stinger anti-tank missiles lead to heavy losses. Vladimir Putin contemplated the idea of using the threat of nuclear weapons use against the Allies, in order to prevent any further allied advance. Since this would have also increased the risk of allied nuclear strikes against Russian territory, which is why Russia decided to retreat East of the Dnieper, in order to use the river as a natural barricade. As a result, the Allies managed to advance all the way towards the other side of the river, while Crimea was effectively cut off from mainland reinforcements. In the North, allied troops from Scandinavia, the UK and Canada managed to force the Russians to pull out of Oulun Lääni after the Battle of Kajaani, in order to secure the Russian border on the Kola Peninsula. In Norway, allied forces kept pounding the Russian lines, increasing the risk of breaking through into Russian territory, but since Russia stationed more of its S-400 and its newer S-500 anti-air defenses, the allied air force was not able to penetrate deep into Russian territory and instead conducted cruise missile strikes from the rear.
New naval clashes occurred in the Barents Sea, but instead of challenging the Northern Fleet like in earlier years, the allied navies of Scandinavia, Britain, Canada, the US and Germany after the revitalization of its military, stuck closer to the Norwegian coastline and conducted long range missile strikes through British, American and German submarines, targeting Russia's Northern Fleet base in Murmansk, leading to heavy damage of Russia's northern ports. Further south in Finland, Finis, Swedish, British, Danish and Canadian forces started the allied offensive targeted to retake Helsinki and potentially land troops in Estonia. After the Battle of Lahti, allied troops kept closing in to the Russian occupiers in Helsinki, leading to heavy tank and artillery warfare. Harsh winter conditions put a severe strain on both sides, but due to Russia's collapsing supply lines, and lack of resources, the Allies managed to compensate for the resulting disadvantages much faster. After the fall of Espoo, the Second Battle of Helsinki began, leading to heavy fighting on the ground, in the air and on sea. The allied navies of Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Finland and Germany wer able to clear most of the Russian sea mines after several weeks of the initial start of the Helsinki campaign, resulting in naval bombardment of Russian positions not only in southern Finland, but also he coast of the Baltics and Kaliningrad.
The advances of the allied navies in the Baltic Sea forced the Russians to station their Baltic Fleet closer to the shores of Kaliningrad, as well as Finskiy Zaliv in order to protect St. Petersburg. Allied land based missile forces in Sweden and Åaland also conducted long range missile strikes in support of the allied advance towards Helsinki, causing heavy casualties among the Russian occupants. Russia also used long range missile attacks of its own, leading to the launch of Iskander and Kalibr missiles against allied strongholds and capitals like Stockholm and Berlin, but those missiles remained too few in numbers to effectively slow down the allied offensive. Both sides suffered heavy casualties, but since the Allies enjoyed an advantage in manpower, the Kreml decided that the defense of Helsinki has become too costly, and therefore ordered its troops to move back closer to the Russian border. Since the Russian Baltic Fleet had to take priorities earlier on, there were not enough naval forces present to prevent an amphibious and airborne assault of the Allies on Hiiuma and Saarema, leading those estonian islands to become the first pieces of Baltic territory to be liberated from Russian occupation.
The allied advances in the nordic and Baltic sectors of the Western Front also re-encouraged the „total resistance“ of the Baltic states, which meant a steady increase in assaults against the Russian occupants by estonian, latvian and Lithuanian civilians, who formed militias during the war with the support of regular troops and special forces. This caused new atrocities committed against the Baltic civilian population, but since the Revisionist Powers had to focus on the frontline, the Russians and Belarusians lacked the forces needed to strike down the Baltic guerilla campaigns effectively. In Poland, the Allies concentrated their offensive on central Poland, in order to drive an opening between the Russians and Belarus, so that the Allies can break through the Suwalki gap into Baltic territory. In order to achieve their ambitions, the Allies followed a modernized version of the Cold War era doctrine of „AirLand Battle“, which focused on precise coordination between large mechanized ground forces and attack aircraft. Allied long range artillery pieces, including towed heavy howitzers and rocket launchers bombarded Russian anti-air defenses from a far, in order to allow allied aircraft to penetrate the airspace of the occupants. The Allies used rocket assisted, guided, cluster and even experimental EMP charges of Euro-American design to strike Russian assets with high precision, while the EMP charges additionally blinded revisionist communication systems.
Allied fighting aircraft like the F-35, the F-16 Fighting Falcon, the B-52 and the newly designed and improved Tornado, Typhoon and Eurofighter jets then conducted airstrikes on enemy assets supporting front line revisionist troops, and bombed supply elements in the rear. The Allies also deployed newly designed aircraft stemming from the initially franco-German FCAS project, while the first exemplaries of a supersonic bomber remained in storage because of a lack of testing. On the ground, allied tanks from Europe, Canada and the US rolled through enemy lines with the support of self-propelled artillery systems, like the German PzH 2000 and its newer version, the PzH 2025, allowing allied infantry to exploit the created openings in the enemy's defenses. This concentrated pressure on the Revisionist Powers allowed the Allies to retake Łódź and Lublin after years of Russian and Belarusian occupation. Ammunition shortages lead to occasional halts of the allied offensive, but since the allied powers of Europe and the US did not face blockades like the Revisionist Powers, those shortages were less severe compared to the ones of the Chinese and Iranian militaries, among others. Due to allied negotiations and agreements, the first expeditionary forces from Australia, New Zealand and Japan arrived in Europe as as a symbolic show of solidarity, while Austria dispatched a first contingency for the Western Front as well, after joining the Allies in the wake of the Turkish attack against Europe. The retreating Russians from the Western Front followed a modernized version of a past military strategy themselves: „scorched earth“.
In order to harass allied supply lines, as well as destroying infrastructure which could be used by the Allies, Russia conducted large carpet-bombing like campaigns against the allied lines, while destroying large portions of terrain, while also obliterating occupied cities shortly after retreating from those. The resulting devastation slowed down allied movement and lead to massive casualties among both the allied militaries, as well as the Polish and Ukrainian civilian population inside the occupied territory. Nonetheless, the Allies still enjoyed their regained air superiority, which hindered Russian air-operations in allied airspace. After several delays of their operations, the Allies finally managed to launch their counteroffensive to retake Warsaw, leading to almost two months of heavy fighting, leading to another tens of thousands of casualties for both the Allies and Revisionist Powers. Further in the north of Poland, the Allies were able to conquer Danzig due to the combined effort of allied ground, air and naval forces, while shortly after, Allenstein also fell into allied hands despite heavy Russian bombardment along the entire front. After the fall of Allenstein, the Allies eyed another attempt to take the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, which served as a vital base of operation for the Revisionist Powers in the beginning of the war, while the First Battle of Kaliningrad, „Kalinins Hellgate“ became one of the bloodiest battles of the war and one of the deadliest in human history. The offensive aimed at neutralizing Kaliningrad as a threat for European security, creat an opening for breaking through to the Baltics and relieving pressure from allied forces in Warsaw.
The Allies prepared their attack on Kaliningrad by hacking and disrupting communication networks, while also jamming planes in order to confuse revisionist radars. Allied bombers and stealth fighters, ships from the allied navies in the Baltic Sea and submarines, like the Swedish AIP powered Gotland class submarine, the American Virginia-class and the new German Type 216 submarine lobbed long-range cruise missiles against Kaliningrad. Allied ground forces from Poland, France, the UK, Germany, the US, Belgium, the Netherlands, Montenegro, Slovakia, Spain, Portugal, and few recruits from Australia pounded the remaining defenses in Kaliningrad with rockets and intense artillery bombardment, while the allied air force dropped GPS guided bombs by stealth aircraft. The resulting fighting was intense and costly, and ultimately diverted the attent of the Russians from Warsaw to Kaliningrad, leading Russia to once again deploy its TOS-Buratino flamethrower rocket launcher. The incendiary missiles of the buratino once again created unprecedented destruction among allied forces, but the limited range of the system made it susceptible to allied counter-fire, leading to massive explosions as soon as the exposed missile payload of the system was hit. Lithiauanian insurgents also harassed Russian troops trying to send reinforcements to Kaliningrad, while allied submarines and long range missiles pounded Russian supply lines towards Kaliningrad behind the battlefield. Long range artillery and missile strikes, as well as bunker breaking bombs managed to hit and disable missile silos in Kaliningrad, which stored nuclear armed Iskander missiles, leaving Russia without nuclear foothold beyond its main territory.
The leadership of the Kremlin contemplated once again to threat the Allies with nuclear weapons use, but since Kaliningrad was almost impossible to defend indefinitely due to its geographical position, and the fact that the Revisionist Powers were in retreat unlike in 2022, Putin decided that Kaliningrad is not worth risking nuclear retaliation by the Allies. After 3 months of fighting, the Allies finally managed to conquer Kaliningrad, but not without suffering up to 20000 casualties. The fall of Kaliningrad also lead the Russians to abandon Warsaw, in order to prevent the Allies from advancing further into the Baltic, while also adverting a total defeat of Belarus. Due to the Fall of Kaliningrad, and the thinned out Russian defenses along the Baltic coastline, the Allies also managed to conduct several amphibious assaults in Latvia and Lithuania, were the remnants of the Baltic armies and civil militias joined allied troops from the US, the UK, Canada, Poland, Germany and the Scandinavians, while at the time, allied troops that already landed in Estonia advanced into the mainland, despite constant bombardment from the Russian Baltic Fleet, that continued to protect St. Petersburg in the Gulf of Finland. Meanwhile, after abandoning Warsaw, the majority of revisionist forces retreated to the Polish-Belarusian border, but as soon as the Allies managed to Baranawitschy, all Russian forces pulled out of Poland, in order to prevent allied forces from overrunning Belarus and therefore threatening Russia's main territory, which left Poland completely liberated from the Revisionist Powers. Rising civil resistance inside Belarus additionally complicated the attempt of the Revisionist Powers to keep up with the Allies, which tied down vital forces and resources ended to prevent further allied advances in the Baltics. Kleipėda, Liepāja, Ventspils and Pernau were the first Baltic mainland cities to fall back to the Allies, while 3 weeks later, Talinn as the first Baltic capital was liberated from Russian occupation, despite constant shelling from the Russian Baltic Fleet in the Gulf of Finland.
Riga was the second Baltic capital to follow, and after taking Taurage and Šiauliai, allied troops in Lithuania managed to close up with their counterparts in Latvia. When advancing into the liberated baltic territory, allied forces began to discover the full scale of the atrocities committed against the civilian population there, including the discovery of countless so called „Backyard Cemeteries“, provisional graves of civilians, among them many children, dug by locals in their backyards, porches and even in public parks, since they had no opportunity to bury their dead properly. Russian forces east of the Daugava prevented allied forces from delivering reinforcements to Estonia, while Russian Tupolev bombers continued an aggressive bombing campaign against the Baltic territories. The Battle of the Daugava itself proved to be brutal and costly, with both sides suffering massive casualties. Due to the previous speed of the allied advance, the supply lines of the Allies increasingly struggled to keep up with the pace of the ongoing offensive, causing a slowdown in various sectors. Since Russia had to defend its own border in Scandinavia, while also preventing an allied breakthrough in Belarus and a new offensive to take Kiev, the Revisionist Powers started to face shortages of manpower. Troops from the central Asian republics were therefore concentrated in Belarus and Ukraine as support for their revisionist Co-Belligerents, while the only garrison of Chinese troops was pulled back towards Daugavpils as potential reinforcements to protect the Russian border.
=== The War of South America: The Fall of the Revisionists ===
The Western Front was not the only theater of war that saw a revisionist collapse in 2031. In Latin America, the Revisionist Powers of Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba and Nicaragua, now receiving indirect support from Uruguay, were brought to the brink of defeat by the allied coalition of the US, south American and European forces. Civil unrest and civil war like clashes and uprisings lead to a total fraction of the Venezuelan troops, which suffered massive shortages of food, ammunition and other vital supplies, while being totally outnumbered by the Allies. In the South, the Venezuelan resistance managed to consolidate footholds in the Guaina Highlands and the Parima Mountains, while Venezuelan forces and Colombian drug cartel guerillas still battled allied troops in the Merida Mountains in the East of Venezuela. Using its mountainous areas as a topographical advantage, Venezuelan troops used anti-Tank missiles to slow down the allied advance towards Caracas. Additionally, Venezuelan militias, built up prior to the war as a paramilitary force, also put a strain on the allied troops in the difficult terrain of the rainforest and during urban fighting.
While Brazilian, Paraguayan, Peruvian and French forces engaged in brutal guerilla warfare against the Venezuelans in the Amazon Rainforest, the Venezuelan capital of Caraças was pounded daily by airstrikes, long range artillery and ship launched missiles. After securing their positions on Grenada, the Allies of the US, France, the UK, the Netherlands, Colombia and the Caribbean islands launched an invasion of occupied Trinidad and Tobago. Heavy fighting broke out around the beaches of Port Spain, but since Venezuela was close to collapsing, the occupying forces in Trinidad and Tobago were unable to hold off the allied invasion for long, leading the island to be liberated after a few weeks of fighting. During the same campaign, allied naval forces from the US, Colombia and Europe managed to take the Venezuelan islands of Gran Roque, La Orchila and Blanquilla, turning them into de facto stationary aircraft carriers for the Allies. After the liberation of Trinidad and Tobago, the Allies managed to invade and control most of the Venezuelan coastline, despite still present resistance by artillery and anti-ship missile bombardment. During the coastal offensive against the Maduro regime, allied forces also managed to liberate the ABC islands off the coast of Venezuela.
Further north in the Caribbean, the Cuban campaign was only advancing slowly, due to ongoing resistance around Havanna and a lack of allied troops and supplies from the US, since the Americans still focused the bulk of their resources on the Eastern Front. Because of this, American troops in Cuba faced ammunition shortages on a regular basis, leading to heavy casualties and almost equal losses for both the US and Cuba, although the latter received voluntary troops from Nicaragua in the past year. Russian made missile launchers were used in the Battle of Havanna, which additionally inflicted heavy losses on the Allies. Since the US enjoyed air superiority, most of Cubas anti-air defenses and larger artillery systems were hunted down and destroyed, leading to a more urban and guerilla style campaign against the Allies by Cuba.
After one and half month, the last defenses around Havanna fell, leaving only small pockets of urban resistance against the advancing Americans, due to the fact that Cuba during this time period relied on old Soviet era equipment, which proved to be insufficient against the allied technological edge. While the Allies still suffered casualties on a daily basis during the occupation of Cuba, allied forces from Argentina, Peru, Paraguay, Chile and Brazil pushed deeper into revisionist Bolivia, which was unable to put a halt to the allied invasion. Following the fall of Potosí and the Battle of Lake Titicaca, allied forces managed to advance to the outskirts of Bolivias capitals of La Paz and Sucre, leading to heavy fighting and stalemate due to the mountainous terrain of the Andes mountains, while allied forces in the west and north faced insurgency warfare in the Amazon Basin. Further south, de facto Revisionist Power Uruguay still protested the allied invasions of Bolivia and Venezuela, which is why, as a way of opposing the Allies, Uruguay sent troops to consolidate a military presence on the uninhabited but still disputed Brazilian Island in the Rio Uruguay. Additionally, Uruguay also saw itself compelled to forcefully another old border dispute with Brazil, by shelling and invading El Rincón de Artigas in the south of Brazil. Meanwhile, the allied campaign against Venezuela neared its end, but not without heavy casualties. Venezuelan forces managed to shoot down allied attack helicopters with their large shoulder launched anti-aircraft missile inventory, leading the Allies to loose a dozen helicopters per day. With pockets of Venezuelan resistance remaining in the Merida mountains, and northeast of the Orinoco river, allied forces managed to outflank and encircle the opposing revisionist forces by dropping airborne assault troops, allowing them to close up to Caracas from behind its mountain chains.
Further north in Latin America, the American and Colombian navies reconquered the Colombian islands occupied by the Revisionist Power of Nicaragua, while on the ground, American troops, supported by local forces, were able to push the Nicaraguans out of several occupied regions of Honduras. South of Nicaragua, Panama and Costa Rica, which both joined the Allies after Nicaraguan aggression in Central America, allowed American troops to be stationed in their territory, while adding voluntary forces to the allied armies. With the support of Colombian, and to a lesser degree other nations of South America, allied troops launched a counter-invasion of Nicaragua. The escalating fighting in Central America, as well as widespread anti-American sentiment built up during the Trump administration, El Salvador expressed its support for the revisionist cause, and officially joined the Revisionist Powers. This was mostly a political move aimed at demonstrating El Salvadors rejection of American leadership, while in reality, El Salvadors involvement in the war was minor and did not affect the situation on the ground. The Battle of the Andes in Bolivia remained protracted at the same time. Despite having an inferior army compared to the invading Brazillian, Chilean, Peruvian and Argentinian forces, Bolivian troops dug in in the high ground were able to prevent the Allies from getting closer to La Paz and Suçre. The Allies of South America brought in heavy machine guns and artillery pieces to dislodge the Bolivian resistance in the Yungas and Valles, while Brazilian and Argentinian tank forces managed to conquer most of the Bolivian lowland plains of the Oriente. The mountain warfare of the Andes turned the fight into a de facto siege of Bolivias centres of power, since the defending forces were almost completely cut off from supplies and vital infrastructure.
The resulting pressure was so high, that the Bolivian leadership sought a ceasefire, which ended in the armistice of Potosí and an end of hostilities in Bolivia. In the north, after advancing deeper into the lowlands of central Venezuela, civil unrest and dissatisfaction with the regime grew to such a degree, that more than half of the Venezuelan population supported the Allies in some way or the other, while the Battle of Caracas caused tens of thousands of casualties on both sides. Realizing that the war is lost, Nicolás Maduro and his closest allies attempted to the flee Venezuela by escaping to the relatively new Revisionist Power of Mexico with the support of Russian forces still operating in Latin America. After debarking in a military transport chopper towards the awaiting Russian lift in the mountains north of Caracas, but before reaching destination, the helicopter was shot down by a shoulder launched missile, killing Maduro and his associates in the process. To this day it is not clear if the helicopter was shot down by allied forces, after the CIA received intelligence about Maduros escape plans, or if it was accidentally downed by Venezuelan forces, which mistook it for an allied helicopter. After the death of Maduro, and the subsequent collapse of the Venezuelan regime, the pro-allied insurgents gained control in several centers of Venezuelan power, leading them to declare Venezuelas unconditional surrender. Further south, Brazillian troops pushed the uruguayan aggressors out of El Rincón de Artigas, while re-taking the Brazilian Island. Following a short shelling of the uruguayan border, Uruguay sought a ceasefire, which lead to peace-negotiations that stopped hostilities between the two nations, as well as settling their old border disputes. The end of clashes between Brazil and Uruguay marked the end of what was later called „the Great War of South America“, leading the continent to be secured by the Allies.
=== The Eastern Front: North Korea goes rogue ===
While the aAllies claimed victory in South America, the fighting on the Eastern Front remained not less brutal than before. After pushing the Revisionist Powers out of South Korean territory, allied troops managed to break through several sectors of the former DMZ, despite suffering heavy casualties from land mines. With the allied advance into North Korea, the Revisionist Powers were forced to change strategy: the Russians and Mongolians increasingly focused on the defense of the North Korean coastline in the east, using the mountains as natural fortifications to fend off allied attempts of amphibious assault.
The Chinese focused on the defense of the flatter areas in the west of North Korea, in order to prevent the Allies from opening an accessible corridor towards the Chinese border, leaving the North Korean troops of Kim Jong-un with less supplies and resources to stop the allied advance towards Pyonjang. After destroying a vast network of underground tunnels used by the North Koreans to assault the south, allied forces from South Korea, Japan, the US, Australia, New Zealand and the UK managed to advance towards the North Korean uranium mines of Pyongsan, while taking out the airbase of Nuchonri. The Chinese increased their defenses on a line that stretched from Nampo towards Wonsan, and although Pyongyang itself was fortified to in order to serve as a bulwark against the allied advance towards the Chinese border, Chinese support for their North Korean allies remained limited during the North Hwanghae campaign of the Allies. After realizing that both Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin followed their own agendas at the Korean Front, while suffering tens of thousands of casualties almost per day, the North Korean regime of Kim Jong-un, who was rarely seen in public during WW3, prompting rumors about his health, decided to coordinate his war effort less with the Chinese and Russian one.
North Korea assembled masses of its artillery pieces around Sariwon, Sinmak and Hwangju, leading to intensive shelling of allied positions for multiple days straight. Despite inflicting severe casualties on the allied invaders, the North Koreans increasingly faced ammunition shortages, while its older, Soviet era inventory became prone to mechanical failures as well. As an additional compensation, North Korea once again deployed chemical weapons against the Allies, this time inside its own territory. Numerous chemical weapons depots were hunted down by allied stealth aircraft though, therefore limiting Kims options of halting the allied advance in any meaningful way. Due to the combination of long range missile attacks and artillery bombardment, as well as precision airstrikes because of allied air-superiority, the North Koreans were unable to prevent Sariwon and later on even Songnim to fall into allied hands. Since the Kim regime faced military defeat, as well as increasing civil unrest in various cities and villages, dictator Kim Jong-un sought nuclear weapons use as a final and desperate way of preventing an allied victory in Korea. Without any coordination or warning for its revisionist partners, North Korea, as the third nation during WW3, and the overall fourth in human history, launched nuclear strikes on the Korean Peninsula, in order to put an end on the allied war effort. By using one stage SCUD-D missiles because of a lack of longer range weapons, North Korea struck targets in Kaesong, Uijeongbu and Chuncheon, while additional strikes hit the occupied cities of Sariwon and Songnim. Despite intercepting the nuclear strike against Seoul, the attacks that did manage to hit their destination caused unprecedented losses in human life on both sides.
 Almost 2.5 million people died as a direct result of the nuclear attacks, while hundreds of thousands died gruesomely later on in the war because of radiation sickness, third degree burn wounds and famine and disease caused by the destruction of infrastructure. The acts of North Korea created a wave of shock, as well as fear throughout the globe, with both allied and revisionist countries to condemn North Korea as a result. Because of these uncoordinanted and unapproved strikes, both the Russians and Chinese lost confidence in their revisionist ally, leading the Chinese to pull out of Pyongyang, while instead fortifying their positions further north around Sunan and Kangdong. The pullout of Chinese troops from the North Korean capital and the havoc created by North Koreas nuclear strikes finally caused US president Trump to authorize a nuclear retaliation against the Kim regime. Despite desperate attempts of convincing by his military leaders, Trump decided not to hit military targets as recommended by his generals, and instead authorized a nuclear attack against Pyongyang for political reasons. The strike against Pyongyang killed almost a million people, most of which were civilians, while the Kim regime itself had fled the capital earlier in the year in order to take position in an remote bunker in the northern mountains of North Korea. While hundreds of thousands suffered from the consequences of the nuclear attack, the Allies used conventional weaponry to take out assumed nuclear weapons storages in Wonsan, Hamhung, MuSudan, Sangnam and Tonghae.
The resulting turmoil of the nuclear exchanges fractured the North Korean military command, leading the North Korean War effort to increasingly become uncoordinated and chaotic. Dissatisfaction with the Kim dynasty grew among military leaders of North Korea, leading to preparations of a coup d'état allegedly with the support of the Chinese. Due to large parts of the capital being in rubble, the Battle of Pyongjang was still fierce and costly, but since the resistance was left without leadership, while dealing with the consequences of nuclear warfare, it ended rather soon and resulted in a total allied victory. The fall of Pyongyang caused Kim Jong-un to threaten the US with nuclear destruction, while President Trump declared willingness to anhililate most of North Korea through nuclear weapons use of his own, prompting additional fear of a global nuclear holocaust. China declared that it will use nuclear weapons itself, should the US dare to conduct another nuclear attack, although China's revisionist ally Russia did not want to commit to such threats itself. While Trumps military command managed to convince him to back down from additional nuclear attacks for now, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un contemplated the use of biological weapons, in order to take revenge for Pyongyang, while also slowing down the allied advance. The information of these considerations leaked to the public because of American and Chinese intelligence, leading large parts of North Koreas military apparatus to question the rule of the Kim dynasty, while the Revisionist Powers decided to abandon Kim because of his recklessness.
The consequences of nuclear warfare, famine, disease, as well as crimes against humanity committed by the North Korean regime and its revisionist partners lead to upheaval in many parts of North Korea, while more and more North Korean politicians became rogue and turned their back against Kim. Several of these politicians banded together with skeptical military leaders of North Korea's army, creating somewhat of a rebellion against the Kim dynasty. Kim Jong-un increasingly lost control over his military command, creating coup like uprisings in multiple North Korean cities. The Revisionist Powers, most importantly China, started to support the still anti-American mutiny, since they lost confidence in Kims leadership, which was why they aimed for toppling his regime and securing the remaining North Korean nuclear weapons for the Revisionist Powers. Rogue North Korean troops advanced towards Kim's position in the northern mountains, leading him and his closest associates to abandon their bunker and try to flee towards China, not knowing about the growing Chinese hostility towards Kim Jong-uns regime. The armored train that transported Kim and his associates got ambushed though, and after a short but intense skirmish, large parts of the train were destroyed, killing Kim Jong-un in the process. Most historians agree that the attack came from rogue North Korean troops, while other experts speculate that both the American and/or Chinese intelligence was involved in the assissination of Kim Jong-un. Kims sister, Kim Yo-Jong was captured by the rogue troops, but after a short period of incarceration and Chinese diplomatic efforts, Kim Yo-Yong was released and joined the now ruling military junta in North Korea. Public executions were held, where both rebelling military leaders of North Korea, as well as Kim loyalists were executed in public, in order to demoralize the opposing side.
=== The Turkish Front: Allied resolve ===
While the Revisionist Powers faced crisis and defeats on multiple fronts simultaneously, the war in southeast Europe looked very differently in comparison. Turkish troops still invaded the border regions of Greece and Bulgaria, while several Greek islands remained under Turkish occupation since the beginning of the campaign against Europe. Turkish forces engaged in brutal battles against the Greek, French, British, Dutch, Germans, Belgians, Swedish, Danes, Italians, Spanish, portugese and Austrians in West Thrace, while Croatian, Romanian, Montenegrin, slovarian and Slovenian troops supported the bulgarians in their war effort against Turkey.
More nations started to join the fighting against the Erdoğan regime, which is why Australia and New Zealand split their troops sent to Europe, so that additional reinforcements could support the Europeans against Turkey. In the Middle East, the Arab coalition, supported by Israel, France, the UK and reluctantly the US launched their first offensives against the Turkish occupation in Iraq and Syria, leading heavy fighting in the entire Levant. Kurdish militias, like the remnants of the YPG and SDF supported the allied offensives, while Kurdish resistance fighters inside the occupied territories launched new insurgencies against the Turks and their allied Islamist militias, causing new atrocities against the Kurdish population in Syria and Iraq. While Turkey faced increasing pressure in the west and east, Armenian rebels in the Caucasus were encouraged by the allied war against Turkey, leading to new guerilla style attacks against Turkish troops in Armenia, as well as forces of Turkeys ally, Azerbaijan. Talks and negotiations were held between the Allies of Europe, Australia and India, in order to convince India to join the war against Turkey because of Turkish support for Pakistan, as well as alleged support for Islamist cells inside India. At the same time, the Battle for the Mediterranean heated up, since the Allies planned to take out the Turkish Fleet in preparation for an invasion of Turkey.
The US, Uk and France deployed various aircraft carriers into the Mediterranean, while they in addition to Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Croatia, Egypt and even Germany assembled enough naval assets to dwarf the Turkish fleet significantly. The aircraft carriers remained further away from the Aegan Sea, closer to Sicilly, forcing Turkish submarines to pass the vast allied fleet of destroyers, frigates and corvettes, where they faced attacks from anti-submarine aircraft due to the fact that the conventionally powered Turkish submarines had to resurface regularly to charge their batteries. While allied attack submarines, protected by allied aircraft and surface vessels, inflicted severe casualties on the Turkish fleet, Turkish sub were also able to hit several allied ships. In the air, Turkey was also increasingly outnumbered by the allied coalition assembling it forces and assets on multiple fronts simultaneously, forcing its own air force to disperse over large swaths of terrain to cover as much of its territory as possible. Despite receiving the Russian S-400 system that was stationed close to Ankara, most of Turkeys anti-air defenses were comparatively old, leaving them less mobile and therefore allowing allied stealth and attack aircraft to take out a large fraction of those defenses with the help of decoy and jamming technology. While the low numbers of S-400s indeed inflict heavier casualties on the allied air force, including stealth aircraft, the continuous bombardment of the Turkish coastal region by allied cruise missiles, airstrikes and long range artillery lead the Allies to gradually establish air superiority.
Additional casualties were inflicted on the Turkish fleet and its coastal defenses by the deployment of the newly designed European supersonic bomber under the code-name Draco-27, often nicknamed „the Black Dragon“, which used a wide variety of bombs and missiles to lay waste on the Turkish defenses, while outrunning enemy counterfire because of its supersonic speed. The usage of the new bomber aircraft was also meant as a message against Russia, which faced a series of defeats on the Western Front. Turkey tried to compensate for its own losses by targeting fixed allied installations in Sicily and the Gulf region with air launched cruise missiles, but those were not able to achieve the desired outcome, due to being able to pierce the Italian defenses in significant numbers, while the Turkish air force in the Levant and the Gulf suffered so many losses itself, that the offensive use of the Turkish air force in the south was considered a waste of resources. At the same time, allied aircraft, artillery bombardment and missile forces pounded the Turkish forces occupying the Greek islands and Cyprus, thinning out their defenses. Due to the established air superiority, and the decimation of the Turkish surface fleet, the Allies launched several amphibious and airborne invasions to take back the Dodecanese Islands, as well as many of the eastern Cyclades Islands like Lesvos, Chios and Kos. Despite constant Turkish bombardment, the Allies managed to turn the reconquered islands into bases of operation, so that they could prepare an amphibious invasion of mainland Turkey using expeditionary transfer docks as additional support of the amphibious assault fleet.
Meanwhile, the Europeans managed to force the Turks into retreat, leading the invaders to move back towards East Thrace, leading the Allies to also prepare a counter-land-invasion of Turkey. Reason for the Turkish retreat was not only the losses in the Battle for the Mediterranean, but also the increasing pressure on all fronts. Georgia, which enjoyed a relief of pressure due to Russia being distracted in the west, also joined the allied campaign against Turkey and started to shell the Turkish border, while Armenian insurgency attacks reached a new high. In the south, Arab forces supported by the Americans, British, French, Israelis, Kurds and increasingly rogue Syrian and Iraqi forces, as well as Libyan volunteers pushed into Turkish occupied Iraqi Kurdistan and Rojava, while Turkish troops launched an invasion of Israeli occupied Lebanon in order to prevent Israeli and other allied forces from reaching the Turkish border. While Turkey faced constant bombardment from European long range artillery and western missile strikes on a daily basis, the Arab coalition also increased the pressure on Turkey by launching medium range missiles from Saudi Arabia. The limited numbers of those missiles rendered them less effective as precision strike weapons, and instead were used as weapons of terror by the Saudis. At the same time, Saudi Arabia conducted airstrikes of its own, by using its Eurofighter jets to hit targets inside Turkish occupied territory in Syria and Iraq. Turkey tried to slow down the approaching Arab, Israeli, western and Kurdish forces by providing medium range cover in form of its Leopard-2 tanks, that were used as supportive artillery in tank-dugouts. This method left the tanks often without sufficient cover though, making them susceptible to anti-tank Stinger missiles used by Israeli forces and supplied to Kurdish militias in Syria and Iraq. Meanwhile, India was convinced by the European and Arab leadership to join the war against Turkey, citing alleged Turkish support for Pakistan and Islamists in India as justification.
=== Allied Victory in the Americas ===
While the Allies managed to secure South America for the allied cause, the US and its central American allies still faced struggles further north. The border war between the US and Mexico still raged on, despite the southern neighbor of America becoming increasingly unstable due to allied blockades and the spread of cartel related crime. At the same time, the US, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama and their reinforcements coming from the south American nations were still confronted with Venezuelas last remaining ally, Nicaragua, which received ideological support from El Salvador, while salvadorian mercenaries voluntarily joined the Nicaraguan ranks. Since the revisionist threat in South America largely vanished, the US and its southern allies like Colombia and Brazil were able to free up enough naval assets to impose a naval blockade specifically against Nicaragu, while the allied air force conducted an airstrike campaign, supported by cruise missile attacks. This air-, and missile strike offensive mainly targeted Nicaraguan military assets and installations, while also heavily damaging Nicaraguan infrastructure.
While this aerial bombardment continued for weeks, allied forces, both in the south and north of Nicaragua, were able to push deeper into Nicaraguan territory, although the advance was hampered by the limited resources the allied forces of Central America had access to, while the US also had limited assets available due to the multitude of fronts it had to cover. At the same time, the US managed to infiltrate Nicaragua with its special forces, like SEAL Team 6, which conducted a series of sabotage attacks to destabilize the Nicaraguan leadership, like harassing the nations power grid, spreading disinformation and assisting in the organization of civil unrest. This caused Nicaragua to indeed destabilize, with thousands of its citizens starting to rise up, while various Nicaraguan military leaders have been assassinated or killed by air and drone strikes. Simultaneously, US ships, with minor support from Ecuadorian and Colombian vessels blocked the ports of El Salvador, in order to discourage it from showing more hostility towards the Allies. Meanwhile at the American-Mexican border, revisionist Mexico increasingly struggled to defend itself against the American forces pushing its troops further back into Mexican territory. While US forces kept invading Mexico, allowing it to capture the border cities of Juárez, Heroica Nogales, Ciudad Acuña and Rio Bravo, leading to urban guerilla warfare and heavy civilian casualties.
The Battle for Tijuana, which started as an retaliatory operation against Mexico, proved to be the most costly battle of North America during WW3, with thousands of Mexican, and hundreds of American fatalities. The Mexicans tried to slow down the invaders by performing airborne landings behind the enemies' positions in remote areas of the border region, where the Americans had less air cover compared to the more fought over sectors. Those airborne assaults were unable to encircle the US troops significantly, and instead lead to massive Mexican casualties. Mexican forces were also still able to penetrate the US borders in various sectors, leading to revenge attacks against the American population in Yuma, Sommerton, Socorro, Rio Grande City, although these attacks were minor in scale and rapidly repelled. However, the hostilities on the southern border were enough to further inflate panic, especially among Republican voters, of Mexican attacks against the US, which also lead to a series of attacks conducted by right-Wing extremists against targets of the US-latino community. The oppositional Democrats condemned these assaults very vocally, leading various Republican officials, including the president, to call the DNC as a whole treasonous, resulting in calls for charges of treason against the Democrats.
While the political division and strife continued to get more aggressive and divisive, pro-Mexican radicals in the US started to conduct retaliatory attacks themselves, targeting police stations, various suburbs with Republican majority bases, as well as attacks against infrastructure. Further south, the Mexicans were increasingly unable to hold their ground, leading the Americans to push deeper into the Mexican border region, while more and more cartel related attacks were conducted against the Mexican military, police force and local politicians. The cartels started to form more sophisticated militias than before the war, allowing them to even besiege and conquer various Mexican villages and cities, resulting in horrific massacres against the civilian population and the local police forces. The cartels not only attacked the Mexican, but also the invading American military, leading to an intensification of urban and guerilla warfare. The increasingly chaotic fighting between American, Mexican, and cartel forces lead to a further destabilization of Mexico, with the Mexican government loosing control over more and more cities due to American and cartel occupation and civil unrest. With fighting escalating, and Mexico being on the brink of total collapse, other central American nations sought to end the fighting in the Americas for good, leading Guatemala and Belize to join the Allies and threaten Mexico with war, should hostilities against the US not be halted. After the fall of Tijuana, the Mexican government finally decided that the war effort against the US was futile, and a continuation of fighting would only lead to the collapse of Mexico, which lead Mexican officials to seek a ceasefire with the US.
Long, protracted and heated negotiations entailed, during which the US tried to force Mexico into comparatively harsh concessions, like trading benefits for the US, as well as increased effort of the Mexicans to secure the border against refugees. While the US also demanded financial reparations from Mexico, the Mexicans on the other hand requested allied assistance in their fight against the drug cartels. Mexico and the US were only able to come to partial agreements, leading to further heated negotiations until the end of WW3. Nonetheless, the initial results were satisfying enough for the US to agree to an armistice, which ended the war in North America. In the weeks after, the continued airstrike campaign and internal destabilization of Nicaragua resulted in the Nicaraguan regime being toppled, forcing Nicaragua out of the war. El Salvador also signaled that it would not engage in hostilities with the Allies, and officially dropped out as an Revisionist Power, leading to a total allied victory in the Americas.
=== The Southern Front: Iran collapses ===
Despite Turkeys entrance into the war as an official Revisionist Power, the Allies still achieved more and more successes against another enemy: Iran. The fighting along the western Iranian border proved to be immensely costly for both sides, who suffered tens of thousands of casualties in a relatively short period of time. Despite Iranian fortifications, miles of barbed wire and land mines, the Allies managed to push into the flatlands of soutwest Iran with the help of air and missile strikes, as well as amphibious and airborne assaults along Iranian beachheads. As a result, Arab, American, Israeli, French and British forces managed to break through Iranian defenses and taking Ahvaz as the first Iranian City during this war, forcing the Iranians to pull back and reposition in the Zagros mountains, turning them into natural fortresses.
The resulting mountain warfare became very costly as well for the Allies, due to continuous assaults from Iranian troops using shoulder launched missiles and artillery to slow down the movement of the allied coalition. The Allies increasingly had difficulties to utilize their advantage in standoff weaponry and recon assets, due to the natural conditions of the mountainous terrain. At the same time, allied forces continued with their amphibious invasion of Iran at its southern coast, leading Shiraz to fall into allied hands, since most of Irans forces were geared towards the invading forces in the west. Fasa and Iranschar soon fell as well, but the allied advance became stagnant afterwards, as soon as the allied coalition pushed deeper into the Zagros mountains. After the taking of Shiraz and Ahvaz, allied forces targeted Isfahan as the next center of their offensive, which was accompanied by American and Israeli precision airstrikes, as well as US and Saudi missile attacks coming from ground bases on the Arabian Peninsula and naval forces in the Persian Gulf. These allied advances forced the mullah regime to relocate more forces to Teheran, in order to assure the defense of the capital, while allied losses during the entire Zagros campaign eclipsed US losses of WW1 as a whole. The continuous defeats of the Iranian army and revolutionary guard, as well as years of blockade and oppression from the regime caused riots and uprisings in most of Iran's larger cities. Just like it was the case in Nicaragua and Venezuela, US and Israeli intelligence agents additionally inflamed the civil unrest by spreading allied propaganda and disinformation, while revealing the true extent of Irans military defeats to a larger portion of its population.
As a result, parts of the mobilized populous, that enjoyed only a fraction of training before being sent to the front, started to go rogue and protest against the regime of Raisi and Khamenei. The riots lead to various violent clashes between Iranian civilians and the Revolutionary Guard, which accused the rioters to be American assets and traitors. Outside of the Middle East, ethnic Iranians of countless nationalities also took to the streets to protest, either against the allied campaign against Iran or to protest against the mullah regime itself. These protests, that mainly happened in Europe and the US lead to clashes between regime critics and supporters, while various Jewish cultural centers and synagogues were attacked by Iran-sympathizers. Additionally, Iran increased its effort of asymmetric warfare, by activating more and more sleeper-cells, that conducted devastating terror attacks in Latin America, Europe, allied Arab countries and to a lesser extent Israel and the US. Meanwhile, the last remaining nuclear facilities of Iran, where Iranian scientists tried to weaponize Iran's nuclear program over the course of the war, where localized by American and Israeli recon-assets and intelligence units. Since the majority of Iran's air force was destroyed, Israeli, American and British special forces, accompanied by attack helicopters and multi-role aircraft, performed a surprise attack on these facilities, leading to heavy fighting between the Iranian forces guarding those installations and the allied special ops.
The allied forces managed to penetrate the Iranian defenses of the nuclear installations, leading the Iranians inside to detonate the facilities themselves, in order to prevent the Allies from acquiring Iranian nuclear technology. Other installations that were tasked with enriching uranium, and were relocated to enforced bunkers, were destroyed by allied aircraft using bunker busting ammunition. Simultaneously, the violent crackdown of the Islamist Revolutionary Guard against the rioting citizens of Iran lead to almost civil war-like clashes, which further dispersed the attention of the Iranian regime and military. Despite the entrenchment of the Iranian military in and around Teheran, protests erupted even inside the Iranian capital, leading to heavy clashes between rioters and Iranian security forces. Some fractions of the Iranian army, that were mobilized for only a few months, started to break away and sympathize with the protesters, leading to the first cases of infighting among the Iranian military. An ongoing COVID-19 epidemic in Iran additionally weakened the Iranian military and all of these factors were the reason that the Allies managed to push deeper into central Iran, despite costly fighting int the Zagros mountains. The Allies knew they would not be able to break the defenses of the highly fortified and densely populated Iranian capital, and instead split their forces up. While on part kept advancing towards Teheran, using missiles and long range artillery to pound the Iranian defenses, the other instead kept encircling Iranian strongholds in central Iran, in conjunction with the invasion forces in the south. This way, the Allies could take out as much of Irans military infrastructure, while forcing the armies around Teheran to engage in a war of attrition, hoping that the riots will facilitate the collapse of the mullah regime.
Allied forces in the southeast of Iran also managed to close up with Indian forces reaching the western border of Pakistan, while fighting erupted in Teheran. Rioters and rogue Iranian military members engaged in street fights with the Revolutionary Guard, while the rogue forces even deployed tanks and anti-aircraft missiles they were able to capture before from forces loyal to the regime. As a result, Ruhani and the mullahs completely lost control over the situation in Teheran, which caused more and more Iranian cities to declare that they would not obey the regime anymore. Allied special forces and intelligence agents used this chaos to mix themselves into the crowds of protesters, helping them to assault several bases of the revolutionary guard, causing it to use deadly force against its own population in various cities. Since hundreds of Iranian civilians have been killed that way, this escalation helped to turn even more, mostly young Iranians against the regime, despite still rampant animosity towards the Allies. As a result, the loss of control for the regime grew massively, while reports came up of Iranian soldiers starting to surrender in several villages. The fighting in Teheran meanwhile became more intense, and resembled more urban warfare instead of civil unrest, leading rioters and rogue military members to occupy various areas of the city. Since the Iranian defenders had to focus more and more on the chaos inside Teheran, they increasingly lacked the manpower and resources needed to prevent the Allies from closing in.
As soon as the allied armies reached the outskirts of Teheran, while allied airstrikes became more frequent and intense, the Iranian military command and Revolutionary Guard decided that the Ayatollah and Irans clerical leadership is not safe anymore, and started to evacuate the most important members of the mullah regime out of Teheran. Despite the ongoing fighting in and around Teheran, the core of the Iranian regime managed to escape towards Maschhad, close to the turkmenic border, from where it declared that Iran will never stop to fight until the very end, and that its people would be willing to become martyrs. However, since the regime fled Teheran, and lost most of its control over the population, more and more members of the Iranian military started to disobey Chameneis and Pezeshkians orders, which lead to the total collapse of Iran's military apparatus. While fighting inside Teheran and many other cities continued, the Allies managed to consolidate their presence in Iran, pushing it effectively out of the war.
=== The Armistice of Minsk: The War in the West ends ===
With Iran collapsing, and various other Revisionist Powers dropping out of the war, the pressure on Russia at the Western Front increased massively, despite the European Allies additionally having to focus on Turkey. The revisionist coalition of Russia, Belarus, conscripts from the central Asian republics and the small Chinese military presence in Europe was forced into a steady retreat after the allied breakthrough in the Baltics, while trying to inflict as many casualties on the Allies as possible. Due to the allied numerical superiority over the revisionists though, allied casualty numbers remained comparative to Russia's, which was among other reasons facilitated by the allied advantage in recon assets, that allowed the Allies to concentrate and coordinate their forces more efficiently.
While Russia had to prevent an allied breakthrough into its territory in Scandinavia, Belarus was brought to the brink of collapse, due to the allied advances towards Minsk, as well as growing civil unrest. After the Allies managed to push the revisionist forces out of Lithuania, making it the first Baltic country to be completely liberated from the Revisionist Powers, allied troops from Europe, the US, Australia and Japan were able to open another front against Belarus by taking Lida and advancing all the way towards Molodetschno. Oppositional fractions in Belarus greeted the Allies as liberators, while forces loyal to Lukashenko kept their resistance up, leading to urban fighting and higher rates of civilian Belarusian casualties. Lukashenko was forced to abandon his attempt of crushing the pro-allied revolts outside of Minsk and other centers of his power, in order to entrench his forces around the capital. Further south, the Allies managed to reach the outskirts of Kiev, leading to the second battle for the Ukrainian capital. While Russian forces were tied down in the Second Battle of Kiev, allied troops with the support of long and medium range artillery, as well as the allied air superiority, managed to cross the Dnieper in several sectors.
Since Russia deployed battalion sized sniper divisions as a way of demoralizing the enemy, as well as taking out key military leaders on the ground, the Allies once again suffered heavy casualties along the entire river, while Russian heavy artillery inflicted severe damage to allied forces in Ukraine. On the Black Sea, the allied fleets of Romania, the remnants of the Ukrainian navy and Bulgaria, which reluctantly engaged in the naval campaign in the Black Sea to assure allied support against Turkey, clashed with the Russian Black Sea Fleet in the waters around Crimea. Since other allied vessels were unable to cross the Dardanelles, Russia kept the upper hand in the Battle for the Black Sea, while enjoying support from the Turkish fleet, which marked the only occasion during the war where Turkish and Russian forces actively fought side by side against the Allies. Allied air superiority and missile strikes still inflicted some damage on the revisionist Fleet in the Black Sea, in preparation for the invasion of Crimea. At the same time, following the river crossings of the Allies, the Russians decided to retreat back to the Donbass, along the line which connected the previously self-proclaimed republics of Donetzk and Luhansk into one front, while increasing the defenses of Crimea. After intense shelling and waves of airstrikes, the first allied forces poured into Crimea, while suffering horrendous casualties through landmines, snipers and Russian artillery.
Krasnoperekopsk was the first city of the peninsula to fall into the hands of the Allies, who received support from crimean Tartarian rebels. Due to the symbolic and strategic importance of Crimea, the battle for the peninsula became incredibly brutal and costly for both sides, which suffered tens of thousands of casualties almost per day. At the same time, the Russian losses in the west encouraged a new insurgency to erupt in Chechnya, forcing Russia to pull troops out of Georgia in order to crush the uprising in what is now known as the Third Chechnyan War. The chechnyan rebellion was inflamed by allied propaganda and intelligence efforts, creating the fear inside the Kreml that allied forces in Georgia might be able to push into Russian territory because of it. The escalating Russian intervention in Chechnya allowed Georgia to drive a wedge between Abchazia and South Ossetia, while consolidating its military gains. While various Russian metropoles were hit by new waves of chechnyan terror attacks, the situation at the Western Front became increasingly dire for Russia as well. After the Fall of Daugavpils and Rezekne, Latvia was liberated from the revisionist occupation, while allied forces advanced towards Globokoye in Belarus. The Liberation of Latvia forced the Russians to prepare their western border against a potential allied invasion, leading to the creation of a hardened network of trenches, barricades, razor wire and landmines along the entire southern and western border of the Russian Pskow Oblast, while the southern border of the Brjansk and the western border of the Kursk Oblast have been fortified as well.
This left Estonia as the last Baltic nation partially occupied by renvisionist forces, with an occupation zone stretching from Võru over Tartu towards Wesenberg. Allied troops advancing through Lithuania therefore managed to close up with the expeditionary forces in Estonia, despite constant bombardment from Russian iskander missiles and artillery pieces. The Allies decided to choose the Russian stronghold of Tartu as their next target, since Wesenberg enjoyed cover by the Baltic Fleet operating in the Strait of Finland, while the Peipu lake prevented a fast Russian retreat out of Tartu. The Russian resistance was fierce, but due to allied numerical superiority, the constant strain put on the occupation forces by estonian civilian militias, as well as lacking resources, the Allies soon managed to break through the outskirts of Tartu, forcing the Russians to create a new line of defense east of Lake Peinu. Meanwhile, allied troops in Scandinavia managed to break through the Russian lines at the Finnish border, marking the first time that allied troops invaded recognized Russian territory. The advance was able to reach the outskirts of Kowdor, with the objective to encircle Murmansk. The invasion of Russian territory lead to new levels of Russian aggressiveness, with the Kreml launching Avantgarde hypersonic missiles towards Berlin, London, Paris and the reconquered cities of Warsaw and Helsinki. Russia also threatened wide scale nuclear weapons use, should the Allies not leave Russian territory.
The Allies on the other hand prepared peace offers, that should be presented to the Russians as soon as they were pushed back into their own territory. In Belarus, the Allies finally reached Minsk, leading to heavy fighting between allied and Belarusian troops, which were entrenched and supported by heavy Russian artillery. While the Belarusian military clashed with the allied armies in the suburbs of Minsk, the civilian population inside the capital once again rose up against the regime. Instead of arbitrarily arresting oppositional forces, the regime of Lukashenko now deliberately used lethal force against its own people, in order to crush the uprising once and for all. This situation diverted the attention of the Belarusian military from the frontline, while more and more civilians started to side with the Allies. Allied long range artillery managed to knock out Belarus' last remaining S-300 and S-400 anti-air defenses, allowing allied aircraft to target Minsk unhindered now. With allied airstrikes thinning out the Belarusian resistance, Lukashenko realized that the war was lost, and fled to Russia. Prime minister Roman Golovchenko took over as the commander of the Belarusian military, and despite receiving orders from Lukashenko and Putin to continue fighting, Golovchenko and the provisional Belarusian leadership decided that a surrender is the only way of securing Belarus' survival.
Therefore, on October 31st, Belarus declared its surrender to the Allies, leading the following ceasefire to become known as the „Halloween-Peace of 2031“. As a result, Russia ordered all of its troops to retreat back to the Belarusian border, where they started to dig in. The remaining forces from the central Asian republics also surrendered, instead of retreating towards Russia like the Chinese. Since both Russia and China were in crisis, and lacked the means to significantly threaten Central Asia anymore, the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan broke with the Revisionist Powers and surrendered to the Allies in order to become neutral again. Simultaneously, the Allies finally managed to retake Kiev, while suffering horrendous casualties. Nonetheless, the allied numerical advantage allowed European forces to push further to the East, leading Chernihiv, Sumy and eventually Kharkiv to fall back into allied hands, while the bloody Battle for Crimea still raged on. The Russians pulled back to a line stretching from Lisitschansk, over Makeyevka to Mariupol. Meanwhile, the Allies achieved victory in the Baltics by conquering Võru and at the end Wesenberg, therefore liberating Estonia as the last Baltic nation from the he revisionist occupation. Despite Russia still holding territory in Ukraine, the Allies finally offered a ceasefire and peace negotiations to Russia, since they knew any attempt of further invading Russia might lead to nuclear strikes against European targets.
Heated discussions enrolled in Russia, but after evaluating its militarily dire situation, the Kremlin finally decided to agree to the ceasefire. For the first time in almost 7 years, the guns along the majority of the Western Front went silent, and after tense weeks of negotiations between European, American and Russian officials in Minsk, both sides ultimately agreed to an armistice on December 15th, officially ending the war at the Western Front. The Allies agreed to releasing all Russian prisoners of war, and to pull out of Russian territory on the Scandinavian peninsula, while Russia had to accept that Kaliningrad would not be returned to the federation. Russia also had declare it neutrality going forward, meaning no more Russian support for China and no assistance for Turkey, while also having to give up its military presence in Transnistria and Eastern Ukraine. Both sides remained in a deadlock over Crimea though, the only sector of the front where fighting continued even after the Armistice of Minsk. While Ukraine demanded the territory to be given back, Russia remained hard in keeping the status quo. Both sides came to somewhat of an agreement after all, by planning to turn Crimea into an international administration zone under the supervision of neutral peacekeeping forces, while its citizens had the opportunity to choose their nationality freely. This concept was also later on adapted for Kaliningrad, in order to prevent new territorial disputes.
The idea of turning disputed territories into international administration zones so that both warring sides hopefully would be compelled to refrain from fighting was adapted after WW3 by the successor organization of the UN, the newly founded League of United Nations (LUN) and applied to various flashpoints like Nagorno Karabakh, East Thrace, Kashmir and several others. The Armistice of Minsk and the resulting peace on the majority of the European continent sent a shockwave of surprise and celebration around the world, despite tensions erupting between the now former allies of China and Russia, now that the latter announced to pull out of North Korea, leaving China isolated. European officials also met with their Russian counterparts separately from the US, in order to discuss an exchange of information in secret. The European Allies agreed on refraining from plans to include Belarus in the AUF in the future, while also agreeing to create a missile-free buffer zone in the Baltics and Ukraine, and in exchange they received all information the Russians had about direct and indirect cooperation and collusion of the Trump administration with Russia during WW3.
=== The Eastern Front: China in Crisis ===
After the collapse of Iran and the Armistice of Minsk, China was left as the only one of the original „Evil“ or „Big Three“ of the Revisionist Powers, as were China, Iran and Russia called during WW3 by the Allies. Without Russian support on the Korean Peninsula, China was increasingly put under pressure, especially due to the fact that the North Korean regime has collapsed after the death of Kim Jong-un, and infighting between North Korean forces continued.
China was faced with severe shortages of ammunition and other resources, due to years of allied blockades and an increasing number of air and missile strikes against Chinese industrial targets. After the drop out of Russia, another revisionist ally of China, Mongolia, also declared that it will no longer fight against the Allies, and instead proclaimed once again its neutrality. This move angered the Chinese communist party, which threatened retaliation against Mongolia, but due to the fact that China needed to focus on a wide front in Asia, no offensive measures were taken against Mongolia. Instead, the Chinese regime saw itself force to conduct a total retreat, in order to secure its borders and prevent an allies breakthrough. In the South China Sea, the Allies of the US, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Brunei, Vietnam, Australia, the UK, New Zealand, the Philippines and Indonesia managed to take out the last artificial bases of the Chinese, while destroying a large portion of the Chinese surface fleet in the South China Sea. Chinese submarines and hypersonic missiles still inflicted heavy casualties on allied vessels, but due to the increasingly reduced number of these assets, the casualty rates of the Allies started to drop significantly. In the East China Sea, Japan, with the help, of the US, Australia, India and South Korea launched a new offensive to reclaim its southern islands.
The Third Battle of Okinawa became one of the most devastating of the entire war, due to both sides conducting massive waves of air and missile strikes, while on the island itself, masses of soldiers clashed with each other on a small piece of terrain. The fight was so costly and so bloody, that the Japanese later on dubbed it the „Battle of Onigashima“, in reference of the island of demons and ogres of Japanese folklore. Despite heavy Chinese resistance, Okinawa fell back into allied hands, followed by the Senkaku Islands, meaning the Allies were able to prepare an invasion of occupied Taiwan. In Southeast Asia, Chinese forces retreated back to their borders as well, while the pressure in the Vietnamese sector became the highest. Vietnamese, American, Indian, British, Thai, Burmese and Australian troops pounded the Chinese border with artillery and missile strikes, while allied stealth aircraft managed to penetrate the Chinese airspace. At the same time, allied air and naval forces were able to establish dominance over the skies and sea of the Gulf of Tonkin, allowing them to create openings in the defense of Hainan, leading to more intense shelling and aerial bombardment of the Chinese island by B-2, B-52 and B-21 bombers. The P-8 Poseidon submarine hunter aircraft, surface shooters and fighter jets were used by the Americans to break the naval defense circle around Hainan and Taiwan. After thinning out the anti-air defenses of Hainan, as well as neutralizing a large portion of the Chinese surface fleet in the Gulf, following the encirclement of the island, allied airborne assault units were dropped over Hainan. Despite the cover delivered by allied naval units and the air force, the resulting fighting lead to horrendous casualties for the Allies, although they were able to secure several beachheads of Hainan.
After the liberation of the Senkaku Islands, the Allies launched their offensive to retake Taiwan, where civilian militias and the remnants of the Taiwanese military engaged in a brutal insurgency against the Chinese occupation, despite constant massacres being committed against Taiwan's population. The Allies initiated the offensive by using long range missile strikes and artillery bombardment to knock out Chinese anti-air defenses and other A2/AD systems on the island, before waves of airstrikes where conducted by American, Japanese, Australian, Fillipino, Indian and British aircraft, similar to how China once took Taiwan at the beginning of the war. While the attack on Taiwan was underway, the Vietnamese border campaign was able to create enough openings to allow allied troops to cross into Chinese territory, but not without thousands of casualties on both sides. Simultaneously, the Himalayan Front, that remained static for most of the war, saw some form of movement again, when the Chinese pulled out of Nepal due to facing immense pressure on all fronts. China intended to use the Himalayan mountains around Mt. Everest as a natural barricade, while the nepalese were supposed to serve as a tripping wire against the advancing Indian, American, British, Australian and supporting Gurkha and bhutanese forces, so that China can free up more resources to fight off the Allies in Vietnam, while preventing a breakthrough at the North Korean border. The nepalese put up a fierce resistance, but due to allied numerical superiority and technological edge, Nepal was forced to surrender to the Allies after 4 weeks of fighting without Chinese backing.
Due to the increasing number of Chinese defeats in the western Pacific, Southeast Asia and the Himalaya encouraged more civil unrest in HongKong, and an intesification of the insurgencies in Tibet and Xinjiang. In the latter, the Chinese government changed course, and instead of incarcerating the tens of thousands of Uyghur insurgents, it conducted „anti-terror“ operations in Xinjiang, meaning the usage of weapons of war being used against the Uyghur population of China, leading to hundreds of villages with higher concentration of rebels to be shelled by artillery pieces, while attack helicopters and bombing aircraft were used to arbitrarily devastate Uyghur communities in Xinjiang that were accused of following terroristic agendas against China. Protests also continued to rise outside of the Chinese flashpoints, with thousands of mostly young Chinese citizens once again taking to the streets of Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou. China lacked the forces to crush the protests in their entirety, since it concentrated the majority of its forces in Taiwan, the Vietnamese and North Korean borders. In Taiwan, the intensive bombardment of Chinese defenses on the island and the continuous decimation of the Chinese surface fleet, allowed the Allies to perform their first airborne assaults on Taiwan, while the first waves of amphibious assault ships disembarked from the Senkaku Islands. The resulting fighting for Taiwan's beaches was unprecedented in scale and losses of life, leading it become known as the „Second Normandy“.
Despite heavy resistance of the Chinese occupants, the Allies managed to secure several beachheads, allowing them to ship in thousands of troops and tons of material on a daily basis, while further in the inland of Taiwan, US marines reached the pockets of Taiwanese resistance, and supplied them with fresh resources. The constant bombardment coming from the beaches, the air and the sea weakened the Chinese positions in Taiwan to a point where allied forces managed to push deeper into the heart of the island, leading to intensive urban warfare. The Chinese defenders were still able to inflict disproportionate casualties on the Allies though, therefore slowing down the allied advance significantly. The battle slowly turned into a war of attrition, with both sides trying to grind down the enemy forces as much as possible, while trying to disrupt the supply chains of the respective opposing forces. Due to the ongoing blockades of China, and the combined economic and numerical advantage of the Allies, China soon was faced with critical shortages of many important resources, like ammunition, food and even manpower, since the casualty rate started to outpace the numbers of troops China was able to ship towards Taiwan. After months of brutal fighting, the Allies managed to take control of most of Taiwan, which lead to the liberation of Taipeh, despite the still active pockets of Chinese resistance remaining on the island. The loss of Taiwan was seen as a deep humiliation of China, and forced the regime of Xi Jinping to take a total defensive stance along China's entire southern and eastern border, while pulling out its last troops out of Kashmir.
=== The Fall of Istanbul ===
At the same time, Turkey, which had to fight a vast allied coalition on more than four fronts, faced an increasingly precarious situation. In the west, the allied coalition of Europe, with supportive troops from Australia and New Zealand added to the allied ranks, managed to invade East Thrace once again after crossing the Evros and Maritsa rivers. Since most of Turkeys anti-air defenses were destroyed by missile and artillery strikes, while the Turkish air force was spread over multiple large fronts, Turkish ground forces were left with almost no sufficient air cover, leading to heavy casualties for the Turks. The advancing allied coalition drove a wedge between the defensive forces of Turkey in East Thrace, leading one part of the Turkish army to be trapped in a chokepoint on the peninsula of the Dardanelles strait, while further north the allied advance was slowed down by Turkish topography closer to Istanbul. Simultaneously in the south, allied forces from Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, France, the UK, Spain, Portugal, Italy and the US launched their amphibious invasion of the Turkish coastline, since most of the Turkish surface fleet has been decimated and Turkish positions along the coast have been constantly bombarded by allied missiles, artillery pieces and airstrikes. European airships were also once again used as bombing aircraft, in order to wipe out larger Turkish formations and installations while operating in high altitudes. Despite suffering horrendous and disproportionate casualties, the allied invasion force managed to take Bodrum, Kusadasi, Cesme, Ayvalik as the first coastal cities of Turkey. The invasion of Turkey resulted i massive protests and riots all over Europe, due to large portions of the European Turkish diaspora being loyal to Erdoğan. This resulted in violent clashes between Erdoğan supporters and opposing protesters, as well as security forces in Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Austria. These riots also resulted in police stations, churches and synagogues being attacked, while Europe saw a significant rise in Islamistic terror attacks conducted by extremists sympathetic towards the AKP regime. This unrest forced allied nations like France and Germany to deploy parts of their military inside their own territory, while the crackdowns on these riots were seen with a certain amount of criticism around the world, since more and more reports came up about Turkish EU citizens being treated rather violently during the upheaval. Following these clashes, a new wave of right-wing extremist attacks against mosques, Turkish restaurants and other cultural centers important for the Turkish community hit Europe as well, which was exploited by Turkish propaganda. Meanwhile in the Middle East, troops from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Oman, Israel, the US and Britain, supported by Libyan volunteers, Kurdish militias and former members of the Syrian and Iraqi militaries, were able to push deeper into the Turkish occupied areas in Syria and Iraq. Deîr al-Zour was the first city to be liberated, despite heavy resistance from Turkish troops and their allied jihadist militias, closely followed by Khanaqin and Hawja in Iraq. Due to the invasion of Turkey in the West and South, the Turkish army left most of the fighting to its mercenary forces in Syria and Iraq, so that more Turkish troops could be ordered back to Turkey as reinforcements. During the retreat, the Kurdish Genocide saw a final phase of escalation, since many occupied Kurdish villages were burned down and flattened by Turkish artillery and aircraft, while countless massacres where committed against the local Kurdish civilian population, including children. Turkey merely stated it „cleansed the area of terrorists and enemy spies“ during its retreat back to the border, and denied any wrongdoing. The scale of these new massacres started to alienate more and more Kurds inside Turkey, who were rather loyal to their state throughout the war. Pro-Kurdish protests erupted once again in the southeast of Turkey, and were struck down with brute force. Civil war like clashes occurred in cities like Dyabakir, while the Kurdish population of Turkey was put under a curfew. Whoever violated this curfew became subject of arbitrary arrest and authorized lethal violents, since Erdoğan proclaimed that every Kurd who violates the curfew would be seen as a potential terrorist. Following this development, Kurdish extremists and terrorists linked to the PKK conducted new terror attacks against the Turkish policeforce and military, as well as political installations, leading the Turkish regime to increasingly deploy weapons of war inside its own territory. In order to support the Kurdish cause against Turkey, the Allies of Europe, Israel and the US intensified their weapons deliveries to Kurdish fighters in the entire Middle East, despite wariness of allied Arab nations. Since Turkey was forced to focus more on its western and southern boundaries, its allied militias and mercenaries were increasingly unable to hold off the advancing allied coalition in Syria and Iraq, leading to the liberation of Karkuk and Irbil. The Battles for Mossul and Aleppo saw only slow progress though, since jihadist forces loyal to Turkey entrenched themselves in urban area, while booby-trapping large parts of the cities, causing heavy casualties among the Allies and the local civilian population. At the same time, due to the collapse of Iran and allied advances against Pakistan, the Allies managed to secure the Arabian Sea and the Gulf to such an degree, that Indian troops could be transported safely through the Persion Gulf and the Suez Canal, in order to serve as reinforcements for the Allies at the southern flank of the Turkish front. While thousands of Indian soldiers poured into the Middle East and increased the pressure on Turkey and its proxies, the Allies in the west kept closing in to Istanbul. Inside the Turkish metropolis, protests of members and sympathizers of the more secular and Erdoğan critical CHP party erupted, who blamed Erdoğan for the war against the Allies and his failure to prevent Turkey from being invaded by the Allies. Turkish security forces, parts of the military and regime-loyalist civilians clashed with those protesters, which rapidly escalated into violent confrontations and the use of lethal force. Allied propaganda exploited this violence by characterizing it as the „Massacre of Istanbul“, while trying to distribute images of the incident among the Turkish community to steer up resistance against the regime of Erdoğan. Since most of Turkey and the Turkish diaspora showed unwavering loyalty to their leadership, these efforts had only minor success. With Russia leaving the war to a large degree, the Allies of Europe were able to free up larger portions of their military and equipment along the former Western Front, and sent them towards Turkey. Unlike the allied strategy against Russia, which planned to push the Russians out of allied territory back into its own boundaries, while seeking an Armistice, the aAllies followed a different strategy against Turkey. The Allies intended to crush the military and economic capabilities of the Erdoğan regime, while completely destroying Erdoğans power apparatus, which mimicked the way the Allies of WW2 defeated Nazi Germany. Since the objective was not the pushback, but rather the destruction of the regime, the Allies assembled more and more heavy firepower at the Turkish Front and launched a large scale bombardment of Turkeys military position and industrial strongholds, while allied aircraft increasingly targeted centers of political power inside Turkey, leading to rising numbers of civilian casualties. In East Thrace, the allied armies of Europe, Australia, the US, New Zealand and recruits from Egypt and Libya reached the outskirts of Istanbul, leading to one of the bloodiest and most devastating battles of WW3. The Battle for Istanbul raged on for almost two and a half months, with nearly 100 thousand casualties for Turkey, and almost double for the attackers. Masses of artillery pieces pounded the enemy lines on both sides, but since the Allies enjoyed aerial superiority, as well as a modernized artillery arsenal with increased firepower due to the years of fighting against Russia at the Western Front, the Turkish army increasingly lagged behind the enemy, leading to horrendous losses. Simultaneously, the allied amphibious invasion at the coastline, despite fierce resistance from the Turkish defenders, managed to secure more and more beachheads, while utilizing their advantage in the air to advance towards more and more Turkish coastal cities, including Izmir and Antalya. After the end of the third month of battle, the Turkish regime, despite knowing about Istanbul's symbolic importance, realized that clinging on the city, and East Thrace as a whole, will only lead to disproportionate casualties and a lack of manpower to defend the rest of Turkey until the vast majority of the population gets mobilized, which is why they decided to effectively abandon Istanbul. The remaining soldiers in Istanbul, as well as large parts of the civilian population kept on fighting, and were willing to martyr themselves for their country, leading to more suicidal attacks being conducted against allied targets. The Allies on the other hand responded by shelling and conducting airstrikes directly against Istanbul itself, causing the highest number of civilian casualties caused by the allied war effort in Europe during WW3. Air- and missile strikes, as well as continuous bombardment by artillery thinned out the Turkish ranks to such an degree, that the Allies were able to march into the city, where locals and soldiers alike entrenched themselves in urban terrain. The fighting inside the city lasted for another month, until only smaller pockets of resistance remained, while anti-Erdoğan forces sympathetic to the CHP joined the fighting on the allied side. The Hagia Sophia was among the historic sites captured by the Allies, who used it for the first Christian church service in centuries on Christmas Day 2029. This was meant as an humiliation of the enemy and propaganda material for the Allies, while resulting in a massive outcry in the Muslim community worldwide. As a result of this, Erdoğan organized the public execution of prisoners from allied countries in Ankara, many of which were civilians taken hostage before the war, in the pretext of alleged terrorism, in order to use them as leverage against European countries and the US. While allied nations were outraged by these acts, terror attacks conducted by Erdoğan-loyalists and Turkish sympathizers in Europe reached a all-time high, leading to the deaths of more than 2 thousand civilians in Europe in 2031 alone.
== 2032 ==
=== Pakistan surrenders ===
After many years of brutal fighting, including the usage of nuclear weapons, Pakistan, as the only revisionist nuclear Revisionist Power left besides China, was brought to the brink of collapse. Allied forces from India, the US, Australia and the UK reached the outskirts of Islamabad after years of siege, war of attrition and even the exchange of nuclear strikes, since most of Pakistan's military command structure had been disrupted. Due to the fact that Pakistan's military leaders authorized a nuclear attack without the goodwill of the government, Pakistan's leadership overall became increasingly dysfunctional, while large parts of the country still suffered from the consequences of India's nuclear retaliation strikes. Millions of Pakistanis were left without sufficient medical care, while millions more faced famine and diseases related to nuclear fallout and radiation. Since Pakistan's neighbor Iran collapsed under the combined pressure of the allied invasion and domestic unrest, allied forces, with the support of Baloch insurgents, managed to close up with their counterparts at the southern Iranian-Pakistani border, around Mand and Zahedan. Due to the fact that China pulled out its troops in Pakistan in order to protect its own border, while the central Asian republics left the war after Russia's dropout, Pakistan was left with almost no reinforcements whatsoever, which put it in an increasingly precarious situation. With most of its air force being destroyed, and the military command being in dissonance with the government, the Pakistani forces lacked a clear guidance to defend themselves, leading to increasingly chaotic situations all over the country, including cases of friendly fire. Since the bulk of Pakistan's functional military forces was gathered in and around the capital, the Pakistanis also lacked in enough manpower to prevent the Allies from occupying much of southern Pakistan. Quetta was one of the largest cities to fall into allied hands after relatively shortlived siege and aerial bombardment campaign, leading to new calls of Pakistan's military command to use nuclear weapons in retaliation against India, which was heavily rejected by the government. Allied troops and Baloch insurgents then advanced further north, allowing the Allies to consolidate their dominance over Pakistani territory west of the Indus River, leaving only parts the Islamabad Capital territory, the North-West Frontier and some regions of the federally administered tribal areas unoccupied. Similar to Iran and Turkey, Pakistan also used terror cells in allied nations to install fear into the civilian population, leading to terrorist attacks in India and the UK as their main target, while the attacks themselves ranged from mass stabbings, truck assaults and even shootings and suicide bombings. As a result the Pakistani diaspora in India and Europe became the target of anti-Pakistani violence, leading even to massacres against ethnic Pakistanis in India, while Pakistani communities became the victims of right-wing extremist crimes and assaults from ethnic Indians and Hindus in Europe. Turkey was the last Revisionist Power that sent weapons, mercenaries and other resources to Pakistan, in order to relieve pressure from itself in the Middle East, but since the Allies continued to advance in Turkey, the regime of Erdoğan could not afford anymore to spare resources for Pakistan, leaving Pakistan de facto isolated in the war. After the fall of Jhelum, Pakistan's government realized that the war cannot be won anymore, while assaults of the Pakistani army became increasingly suicidal in nature, additional thinning out the Pakistani manpower reserves. Following this re-evaluation of its situation, Pakistan's leadership signaled willingness to negotiate, which was rejected by the Allies as long as Pakistan does not officially surrender. Heated discussions erupted between the Pakistani government and the military command, which intended to continue the war until the very end, no matter how many casualties Pakistan would have to endure. Despite this severe dissonance between political and military leaders, the government of Pakistan formally announced its surrender against the Allies, which left the military command outraged, similar to how the German Supreme Army Command reacted to the Armistice of Compiegne in WW1. While representatives from Pakistan met with Indian and American officials to negotiate specifics of Pakistan's surrender, fighting still continued between Pakistani military forces and insurgents in Balochistan, as well as Kashmir, where Pakistani troops and civilian militias engaged in a guerilla style campaign against India, resulting in several massacres committed against the Kashmiri Muslim population. Simultaneously, several politicians who advocated for surrendering to the Allies were abducted and executed by members of Pakistan's military, which lead to an increased fracture of Pakistan's armed forces.
=== The Eastern Front: Breakthrough of the Allies ===
After a series of massive defeats along the entire Eastern Front, China was faced with the real threat of being invaded by allied forces. Although the allied invasion of Chinese territory was halted in the Chinese-Vietnamese border region, the Chinese were unable to push the allied forces of Vietnam, the US, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Indonesia out again. Additional allies crossings into Chinese territory were made along the Chinese border with Myanmar, while the US and other allied fleets managed to come closer to the Chinese coastline, since China started to run out of missiles to counter the approaching enemy. B-2 bombers were able to push deeper into China, allowing them to hit important industrial targets, like the weapons factories in Chengdu, while the Allies started to attempt more Air raids against Beijing, now that most of Koreas airspace was under allied control. The years of attritional warfare put a severe strain on China's stockpile of offensive and defensive weapons, despite it still being able to inflict higher casualties on the Allies than vice versa. These shortages caused China to loose its dominance over various sectors of the Eastern Front, due to the sheer numbers of enemy armies and the incredibly long front that stretched over harsh terrain. This allowed the Allies to take advantage of several openings that were created along the Eastern Front, which lead the Chinese cities of Nansan and Mengding to be taken by Burmese, Thai, Indian and Americans, therefore forcing the Chinese to build a new line of defense East of the Mekong River in China's Yunnan region. In the Himalayan mountains, the fighting between allied and Chinese troops, after years of deadlock, saw new movement after the defeat of Nepal. Since China had to cover a very wide and large area in the Himalayas, while trying to prevent allied breakthroughs in Korea, Yunnan and the Chinese-Vietnamese border region, the Allies were able to cross into the Chinese parts of the mountains while not being detected. Reason for that were the severe hits against revisionist satellite and reconnaissance systems during the war, which lead China to lose its advantage in recon-satellites. Attack helicopters and long range missiles launched from India were used to assist the invading infantry troops, since traditional heavy fire support could not be delivered sufficiently through the often inaccessible territory. Especially special forces, like the British Gurkha Corps, were able to infiltrate the Plateau of Tibet, allowing them to assist Tibetan freedom fighters in their battles against the Chinese military presence, which became more successful after China being additionally distracted from the Uyghur uprising in Xinjiang. Simultaneously, China lost most of its defensive positions in the Himalayan mountain following its retreat from Nepal and Kashmir, leading it to take a completely defensive stance along its southern border. During the allied advances in the Himalayas, the invading armies in Yunnan managed to take Tengchong, while also conquering Jinghong and advancing towards Lincang. China tried to relieve pressure from its vast, but still overstretched forces, by conducting long range missile strikes itself, hitting targets in India, Thailand, South Korea, Japan and US pacific territories, but due to the lacking numbers of available missiles, these attacks remained limited in their results. China still possessed a sizable arsenal of hypersonic missiles, those weapons were mostly assigned to carry nuclear warheads, and were therefore held back in order to retain a nuclear advantage over the Allies. Since China's conventional missile arsenal was largely decimated, US carriers, that were surprisingly insignificant for most of the war in the East due to having to stay out of reach of Chinese missiles, now were able to come closer China's coastline as well, allowing the Allies to deliver more air support to allied forces fighting in Hainan and Taiwan. After almost half a year of fighting, the Chinese forces occupying Taiwan increasingly faced defeat, due to China being unable to deliver enough reinforcements and supplies to the occupation force after the Allies established naval and air superiority. Since the Chinese were therefore cut off from vital resources, while the Allies were still able to ship in more men and material, Taiwanese resistance fighters and allied troops from the US, Japan, the UK, the Philippines, South Korea, Australia and increasingly Malaysia and Indonesia managed to retake more and more regions of the island, until on February 20th, 2028, the Chinese forces on Taiwan had to surrender after suffering disproportionate and gruesome casualties. In Korea, the Chinese put up heavy resistance, by digging in along the entire border, while using as vast network of land mines, tank ditches, heavy machine gun and artillery fortifications and other measures to inflict severe casualties on the Allies. Nonetheless, the allied advantage in airpower and material allowed the Allies to break through the Chinese lines in several sectors of the border, leading Dandong to be occupied by Japanese, American, British, Australian, South Korean and other allied forces. Additional breakthroughs were successful around Tumen and Hunchun, resulting in new waves of civil unrest in China, since especially the younger generations were increasingly critical of Xi Jinpings leadership during this war. While riots and street fights once again escalated in Beijing, Shanghai and HongKong, the Allies managed to land enough troops on Hainan to secure most of the island for themselves, leading Hainan to become a new launching point for allied air and naval operations against the Chinese coastline.
=== Operation "Wolf Slayer": Turkey faces defeat ===
After the fall of Istanbul and East Thrace, the Allies managed to push deeper into Turkey on all fronts, leading to unprecedented carnage for both sides. Turkish forces destroyed all bridges and tunnels connecting Istanbul with the eastern part of the Marmara region, while allied bombing raids continued to devastate Turkish military positions and industrial targets. In order to avoid further casualties, the Turkish army started to relocate closer to Turkeys biggest cities, so that the densely populated areas would discourage the Allies from targeting them directly, out of fear to hit civilians. In Turkey's Aegan region, the invading allied forces from Greece, France, Egypt, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the UK, the US, Croatia and Germany, despite suffering horrendous casualties, managed to close in to the outskirts of Izmir, which became the target of concentrated aerial and missile bombardment. Large parts of the Turkish population have been mobilized at this point, although most of the civilians who joined the ranks of the Turkish military were forming militia like forces, while having little to no training. The guidance of Turkeys military was also plagued with strategic issues, since many competent generals have been removed during Erdoğans purge of political enemies, leaving Turkeys military with less capable leaders on the battlefield. Since the majority of the population was hostile to the Allies, and many larger cities have been turned into fortresses by the Turkish army, the Allies followed a strategy similar to their Iran campaign: circumventing highly populated cities in order to push deeper into the country, while besieging larger concentration of Turkish forces inside these metropolises. Çanakkale, Marmaris, Kas, Alanya and Selcuk fell into allied hands, while in the Levant, allied troops from the GCC, Egypt, France, the US, France, the UK, Israel, India and volunteers from Libya finally managed to take out jihadist militias loyal to Turkey in Aleppo and Mossul, allowing them to advance further north into Turkish occupied territory. Turkey, because of the increasing pressure on all fronts, was forced to retreat out of Lebanon, where the Turkish army fought against Israeli forces. Due to the increasingly precarious situation, the regime of Erdoğan decided to pursue nuclear weapons of its own making, in order to retaliate against the Allies in a more discouraging and destructive way. Turkey was able to assemble larger quantities of radioactive byproducts from its nuclear power plants due to deals it made in secret with Russia. Turkish scientists tried to enrich these substances, while using technological know-how it gained from the Allies, Russia, North Korea and Iran to develop delivery systems for any kind of nuclear weapons it may be able to produce. Since it lacked both in time and resources, the regime of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan decided to produce crude nuclear weapons, which were closer to „dirty bombs“ rather than sophisticated nuclear bombs and warheads. Intelligence gathered by Israeli and American agents about this development heavily concerned the Allies, and lead them to pursue a more offensive and aggressive approach against Turkey. Due to the widespread political and military support of the Turkish population for the regime, the Allies increasingly authorized more and more cities as allowed targets for aerial and artillery bombardment, since the regime-loyal population was categorized as „hostile forces“, similar to how they categorized the Turkish military. Since Çanakkale and Istanbul were under allied control, more allied naval forces were able to cross into the Sea of Marmara, after clearing the straits from sea mines. With this additional forces available, the Allies along Turkeys western aegan coast advanced further north, while the allied air force conducted intensified airstrikes against the Turkish defenders on the other side of the Dardanelles, so that allied forces could cross the Dardanelles strait to reach Turkish mainland. In the North, Armenian insurgents continued their guerilla warfare against Turkish and Azeri forces, which still lead to massacres against the Armenian civilian population, while Georgian artillery pieces and the air force conducted attacks against Turkish positions in the Caucasus mountains as well. In Cyprus, where Turkey increasingly struggled to send enough troops and resources to back its troops and the forces of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), due to allied air superiority and the losses Turkey suffered in the Mediterranean. The protracted fighting in the urban and hilly terrain of the small island tied down a significant amount of Turkish troops, therefore diminishing Turkeys available forces on other fronts, while the allied coalition of Cyprus, Greece, the UK, Egypt, the US, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal enjoyed increasing numerical superiority. The Allies delivered more and more material to the Greek cypriots, while Turkish positions in the occupied territory became the target of relentless bombing raids and missile strikes. Since simultaneously the allied expeditionary forces along the Turkish coastline advanced towards Mersin, despite suffering heavy casualties on a daily basis. In the Middle East, after the Fall of both Aleppo and Mossul, which marked the liberation of most previously Kurdish inhabited areas of Syria and Iraq, the allied Arab, western, Kurdish, Indian and Israeli coalition advanced towards Duhok and Quamischli, while additionally invading Turkish territory after the nonetheless costly Battle of Idlib. Forces from Israel, the UK, the US, France, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and Kurdish militias like the YPG and SDF attacked Reyhanli, while additional air, artillery and missile attacks were conducted on Samandag and Hatay. Turkish resistance was fierce, and the increasing number of provisional forces built up by civilians caused staggering casualties among the civilian population of Turkey. Especially the Saudi lead Arab coalition of the GCC and Egypt showed lacking regard of civilian life during their operations against Turkey, including the deliberate bombardment of civilian areas of almost no military strategic value, which was exploited by revisionist propaganda. Meanwhile, allied forces occupying larger parts of Iran were deployed to the Iranian-Turkish border, where they were joined by Kurdish forces that previously rebelled against the Iranian mullah regime. From there, the Allies opened yet another front against Turkey, leading to the first sortie raids against Hakkâri and Dogubayazit, while in the case of the latter, Armenian forces and insurgents joined the operation. Despite having mobilized large parts of its civilian population, the Turkish military was still overstretched and thinned out due to the many fronts it had to cover, leading to more and more allied breakthroughs into Turkish territory. As a result, Turkey had to abandon its Cyprus campaign, in order to free up more troops to cover all fronts, leading to the destruction of the remaining Turkish forces in Greek Cyprus and the TRNC, since these soldiers refused to surrender or to get imprisoned. Therefore, Cyprus was reunited for the first time in decades, although Turkey accused the Allies of slaughtering and displacing Turkish cypriots, something for which there are no proofs to this day. Hatay and Kilis fell into allied hands, while Cizre and Hakkari soon followed after.
=== The Battle for Tibet ===
Meanwhile, after breaking through in both the Korean and Himalayan sectors of the Eastern Front, Chinese forces, for the first time since WW2 had to fight off an invading force on Chinese soil, heightening the risk of total nuclear escalation. Indian, British, American, Australian and Gurkha special forces supported the Tibetan and Uyghur uprising against the Chinese, although only the former received military supplies. Since the Chinese had to fight off Southeast Asian coalition, supported by the US, Australia and India, Chinese troops additionally were engaged in heavy fighting against the Allies around Kuandian, Baishan and Yanji. Millions of soldiers on both sides were amassed to take down the enemy, making the last phase of WW3 the most costly of the entire conflict. The Chinese communist party under the rule of dictator Xi Jinping was increasingly overwhelmed by the various crisises that were engulfing China simultaneously: Allied forces invaded the Yunnan, Guanxi, Jilin and Heilongjiang regions, uyghurs fought back against Chinese genocidal violence, allied forces started to pour into Tibet and also occupied Hainan and Taiwan, while protests against the regime erupted in almost all larger cities. All of which happened after years of allied blockades and heavy wars of attrition, leading China to lack in vital resources in basically all important areas, may it be military supplies or even goods for their civilian population. These shortages, as well as Xi Jinpings increasingly brutal crackdowns on his own population inflamed the already present civilian unrest, leading to calls for the removal of the communist party's regime. The widespread mass surveillance of the regime on its people allowed Xi Jinping to locate the most vocal critics and initiators of protests in China's biggest metropolises, where they were rapidly arrested and sent into Chinese „re-education camps“ that were originally meant to hold and/or exterminate Uyghurs and other undesired parts of the population. In Tibet, first contingencies of allied troops managed to pour into the plateau, where they assisted their special forces and Tibetan freedom fighters with smaller field artillery, shoulder launched missiles and helicopter attacks, although the latter lead to heavy losses for the Allies. India deployed its Special Frontier Force (SFF), a unit of ethnically Tibetans and Gurkhas created after previous border conflicts between India and China in the latter half of the 20th century. Many Tibetan refugees living in India for decades joined the ranks of the SFF, in order to fight the Chinese for Tibetan freedom. The coalition of allied troops, special forces and Tibetan rebels, in combination with Chinese forces being overstretched over and distracted by multiple fronts simultaneously, allowed the Allies to take the Tibetan cities of Dege, Kanmar and Nedong, which forced the Chinese to create a ne defensive line north of the Yarlung river. As a result of the tactical retreat, the Allies managed to conquer Lhaze and Xigaze, as well as Zanda. While the Chinese conducted heavy bombing strikes against the invading allied troops and insurgents in Tibet, allied river forces attempted an unconventional method of invading China, by going up the Bhramaputra river, which originated in the Yarlung, after destroying various dams and water poorer plants with airstrikes and artillery Heavily armored river speedboats attempted this mission and served as yet another distraction of the Chinese, which additionally thinned out the reserves of the revisionist defenders in Tibet. Simultaneously, the Allies continued their advance on land by pushing through the chokepoint corridor between the Maquan and Shiquan rivers, resulting in various ambushes and mass casualties for the Allies. Nonetheless, since so many Chinese troops were tied down elsewhere, the Allies managed to cross the Yarlung river in several sectors, allowing them to threaten Tibetan capital Lhasa. At the same time as the Allies advanced towards Lhasa, allied forces reached the outskirts of Xinjiang, where they started to assist Uyghur insurgents in their rebellion against the Chinese after the Fall of Rutog. The resulting frontline in the Plateau of Tibet allowed the Allies to assault the outskirts of Lhasa, which lead to yet another devastating battle of WW3. China deployed its electromagnetic surface-to-surface rockets, which were used not only to inflict heavy casualties on the Allies, who relied on entering southern China and Tibet through remote and treacherous routes, like the Sino-Nepal Friendship Bridge after being reconstructed by the Allies, as well as the Khunjerab Pass that connected Xinjiang with now occupied Pakistan. As a result of the fighting, ethnic Tibetans in other Chinese regions like Sichuan and Gansu started to riot too, while in India, Chinese agents and mercenaries tried to assassinate the elderly Dalai-Lama, as a mean to strike the morale of the Tibetan rebels. The attempt failed, and only further inflamed the will to fight of the Tibetans, which proved to be a strategic and political advantage for the Allies. During the Battle of Lhasa, both sides deployed light weight battle tanks specifically built to fight in high altitudes and mountainous terrain, like the Chinese ZTQ and a newly designed Indian tank armed with a 105-millimeter gun and anti-tank missiles, giving both sides some form of cover for their infantry troops. At the same time, the allied forces occupying most of Hainan launched their first amphibious invasion of Chinese mainland, while airborne assault units were dropped close to Xucheng, while Leicheng became the target of aerial and naval bombardment. This once again forced the Chinese to redeploy troops from other regions to the new Front that has opened, leading to the weakening of Chinese defenses in Tibet and the border regions close to North Korea. As a result, the defending forces stationed in Lhasa were weakened and under-supplied to such a degree, that the Allies finally managed to take the Tibetan capital after months of brutal fighting, leading to celebration all over the world.
=== The Incirlik Crisis: Turkey falls ===
With more and more Turkish cities either being destroyed or falling into allied hands, Turkish dictator Recep Erdoğan saw himself forced to pursue even more radical means to somehow turn the tide of this war. Allied troops from Europe, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand where advancing in the west, Israeli, Arab, Kurdish and Indian forces pushed into the south of Turkey and Armenian insurgents supported by Georgia harassed Turkish forces in the north, while the entire country at this point became the target of intense artillery bombardment, missile strikes and bombing raids. The lead to a staggering number of Turkish casualties, both military and civilian, while more and more Turkish cities were devastated by allied bombing campaigns. Because of this, the regime of Recep Erdoğan pressured its scientific community to weaponize its nuclear capabilities as fast as possible. Turkeys attempt of creating nuclear weapons of its own making proved to be a dead-end, with Turkey lacking in sufficient fissile material to create a valuable weapon, especially since they faced shortages in nuclear materials due to Russia's cooperation in nuclear technology development dwindling down after its defeat in the west. As a result, Erdoğans regime decided to follow a different, more radical approach, and launched an attack against the isolated and besieged American NATO base of Incirlik, which hosted various US nuclear weapons. While Turkish forces broke through the multiple rows of defensive fences, Turkish artillery and aircraft pounded the fortified structures of the base, allowing its forces to infiltrate the compound. While the American soldiers still present tired to hold the enemy off as long as possible, the personnel inside base used this time to enter the disarmament codes into the B61 gravity bombs, rendering them useless as functional devices. However, this escalation panicked the Allies and raised concerns about a serious nuclear armament of Turkey, since it could still use the fissile matter inside the bombs. Reverse engineering new devices around the fissile matter was seen as unlikely, but not impossible, since the full extent of the Revisionist Powers exchange of nuclear know-how with Turkey was unclear, although there was still the possibility that Turkey could simply used the fissile matter of the American weapons to create dirty bombs, potentially threatening the lifes of millions of people as a consequence. While the supreme allied command held an emergency meeting with representatives from the US, France, the UK and other allied nations, the Turkish army managed to conquer the base and obtain the weapons stored within the facility, but not without killing every American inside. Erdoğan and millions of his followers cheered about this success, and proclaimed that Turkey would now be a nuclear power and impossible to defeat for the Allies. While the regime celebrated its conquest, the allied invasion of Turkey continued, despite heavy resistance of Turkeys large population. In the South and Southeast, allied forces kept advancing into Turkeys Kurdish inhabited regions, leading allied troops, spearheaded by Kurdish militias and insurgents from Syria, Iraq and Iran, to reach the outskirts of the largest cities of this area, like Gaziantep, Dyabakir, Sanliurfa and Van. Kurdish separatists and rebels inside Turkey, supported by PKK members and sympathizers, as well as the so called Freedom Falcons Kurdistan, joined in on the allied offensive, leading to brutal fighting between Turkish forces and regime followers with the Kurdish population of Turkey. The regime of Erdoğan saw this fraternization of Kurds with the Allies as proof that the majority of Turkeys Kurds would be treasonous, and authorized „appropriate measures“ of his forces to deal with the insurgency. Turkish artillery started to shell the largest Kurdish population centers inside Turkey, despite the Allies not having conquered many of them yet. The Turkish army and civilians loyal to the regime swept the Kurdish regions of Turkey officially to neutralize terrorists and separatists. As a result though, the Turkish forces basically repeated the same practices they used in Syria and Iraq during the Kurdish Genocide, leading to countless massacres being conducted against Turkeys own Kurdish population, while various villages were burned to the ground. These atrocities helped to turn public opinion of the Turkish-Kurdish population, as well as the international community against the Turkish regime of Erdoğan, which lead to more and more countries openly supporting independence for the kurds, including shipments of weapons and resources to Kurdish fighters. In the West, the allied coalition of Europe, the US, Australia, New Zealand and Canada managed to advance to Bolu, Karabük and Bursa, although the expeditionary forces in the southwest of Turkey were bogged down in attritional warfare around Manisa, Denizli and Karaman. With the majority of Turkeys fleet being destroyed, and Russia becoming neutral, allied forces from Europe managed to perform a series of new amphibious and airborne invasion along Turkeys Black Sea coast, leading several beachheads and coastal cities to fall into allied hands, like Zonguldak, Samsun, Ünye, Ordu and Trabzon. In the North, the Turkish army was forced to retreat out of Armenia, in order to free up more forces for the defense of the homeland, leaving only Azeri troops and Turkish mercenaries from Syria and Libya to continue the occupation. A request by Georgia to station allied troops in its territory to assist in the Caucasus campaign was rejected by the AUF at the same time, since staying out of Georgia was part of the peace negotiations between the Allies and Russia following the Armistice of Minsk. In order to circumvent these agreed on conditions, allied troops from India, the US and European nations were transported to partially occupied Iran, so that they can support Armenian rebels and Georgia by advancing into the Caucasus through northern Iran, risking that Azerbaijan might attack the Allies in support of Turkey. The Allies sent an ultimatum to Turkey after the taking of the Incirlik base, which stated that Turkey shall hand over the nuclear weapons it obtained in Incirlik and force Erdoğan and his regime out of office, or otherwise the Allies would make no more peace-negotiation offers until the unconditional surrender of Turkey. Erdoğan and his followers rejected the ultimatum and declared that Turkey will fight no matter what, even if it has to martyr itself. Turkey also stated that it has now the power to destroy every capital in Europe and lead „Allahs army“ to victory over the West, Israel and all „infidels“ who oppose Turkeys greatness. Additionally, Erdoğan responded to the ultimatum y once again executing allied civilians in public, as well as prisoners taken by the Turkish army. Because of the rejected ultimatum, and the realistic threat of a nuclear armed Turkey, the Allies decided to end the war once and for all by authorizing nuclear strikes on their former NATO partner. After a sudden call for retreat of allied forces in the southwest of Turkey, allied submarines from France and the UK launched nuclear tipped missiles at Incirlik, leading to the almost complete anhililation of the city, and hundreds of thousands of casualties immediately, both among the Turkish military and civilian population. The nuclear strike shocked not only the Erdoğan regime, but also the entire region, raising concerns about a potential future nuclear arms race in the Middle East. The regime of Erdoğan was caught off guard by the attack, since it never expected the Allies to actually resort to nuclear weapons use as a first strike option. Due to the allied air superiority and advantage in long range missile and artillery attacks, the Turks were unable to transport the heavy US weapons out of Incirlik yet, meaning all devices were destroyed in the nuclear strike. Following the destruction of Incirlik, the Allies once again made an ultimatum, which stated that Turkey should unconditionally surrender, or further nuclear strikes might happen against other Turkish cities, naming Ankara as one specific example. After the fall of Bolu, allied troops closed in to the Turkish capital, which was now in range of even medium ranged allied artillery and missile systems, leading Erdoğan to call for his people to take to the streets in response. The strategy behind this was that Erdoğan intended to use the civilian population as a human shield to prevent further allied air, missile and artillery strikes, while the Russian S-400 systems provided protection against allied aircraft. The nuclear strike still created rifts inside the Turkish regime and military leadership. The few remaining oppositional forces, as well as various well known Turkish military leaders reached out to Erdoğan and the AKP, in order to convince them that too many Turkish lifes were at risk, and that the war should be stopped. In several cities where oppositional parties still had higher support, especially among the younger generations, as well as Turkish minorities, Turkish citizens started to riot against the regime, while on the other hands tens of thousands of citizens indeed took to the streets in loyalty to their leader. The result were civil-war like clashes and rising civilian casualties stemming from fighting between anti-, and pro-Erdoğan citizens. When the allied armies reached the outskirts of Ankara, thousands of civilians intermingled with the Turkish military and took up arms to fight against the enemy, while burning allied flags, engaging in mass-prayers and hailing their leader. Allied long range artillery started to shell Turkish positions around Ankara, in order to take out the S-400s, similar to how they neutralized Russian air-defenses at the Western Front. The bombardment was indeed enough to hit and destroy the Russian made anti-air defenses, which allowed allied attack helicopters and fighter jets to perform precision strikes against the Turkish military inside Ankara, while heavily bombarding the presidential palace and the Turkish parliament. The regime still rejected the ultimatum though, and despite their initial declaration, the Allies refrained from conducting new nuclear strikes. Instead, they decided to perform a strategic bombing campaign of Ankara, in order to force the resistance into submission. This strategy was later on widely seen as controversial, since it resulted in unprecedented civilian casualties, but allied leaders later justified it by declaring that the majority of the Turkish population was actively supporting the regime on the ground, and was therefore seen an enemy forces, not civilians, which is a highly disputed position to this day. The bombing lead to the destruction of most of the city, while thousands of civilians and military members were killed in the process. Since most of the defending forces were destroyed, the Allies managed to march into the city, where they engaged in brutal urban warfare, similar to the Battle of Berlin. Erdoğan, who fled into bunkers during the initial bombing once again rejected calls of his subordinates and military advisors to surrender for good, and instead called for his people to fight to the last man, woman or child, since they were all in his eyes willing to become martyrs. Erdoğan himself and his closest associates tried to flee the capital through armored convoys, but since Turkish defenses were neutralized, allied attack helicopters and fighter aircraft were able to follow the convoy and ambush it. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the core of the AKP died in the flames of their destroyed vehicles, while their charred bodies were put on display by allied Kurdish and ethnic Armenian forces, although claims of them actually being the remains of Erdoğan is disputed. With Ankara falling into chaos and destruction, and allied forces taking important cities in all directions, the remainder of the Turkish military saw no other chance for securing Turkeys survival then to surrender to the Allies.
=== The Armistice of Taipei: World War 3 comes to an End ===
After gaining ground in Tibet, as well as invading China through the Korean Peninsula and Southeast Asia, the Chinese communist party started to loose more and more control over the situation. Civil unrest reached a rampant high, while more and more service members became increasingly frustrated with the failures of Xi Jinping and his allies on the battlefields. In the eyes of many Chinese nationalists, the defeats of China were to blame not only on the Allies, but also on the regime, which was seen as an embarrassment and humiliation of Chinese greatness. While the Tibetan freedom fighters already fought side by side with the Allies, Uyghur rebels in the Xinjiang region now also became a relatively sophisticated insurgency, due to the new supplies coming from the allied side. Uyghur insurgents, along with Tibetan, Gurkha, Indian, American and Southeast Asian forces managed to assault and liberate various "re-education camps“ of the Chinese regime in Xinjiang, unveiling the horrors that have been taking place there. Even though the Chinese were able to halt the allied invasion while suffering horrendous casualties, the pressure on the communist party still increased steadily. Allied stealth bombers and fighter aircraft kept entering Chinese airspace in order to decimate industrial, military and even political parties deeper inside the Chinese heartland, while Chinese security forces started to loose control over the situation in multiple metropolises simultaneously, including Hongkong, Shanghai and even in parts Beijing. Especially in Hongkong, where the public remained resistant and pro-democratic and Western for years, civil Opposition to the regime of the Chinese communist party was astonishingly high, leading to unprecedented violence from Chinese security forces. Due to the pressure on all fronts, and the rising frustration and demoralization of the Chinese forces, Chinese troops and security personnel engaged in a last ditch effort to squash the resistance in Hongkong once and for all, in order to stop the intensifying destabilization of China. The result was the Hongkong massacre, during which almost 2000 civilians of the city were killed by regime forces, that also deployed military grade weapons to Hongkong. Armored vehicles moved into the city, while the Chinese air force conducted some minor strikes against the cities power grid as a mean to induce fear among Hong Kong's population. This only intensified the resolve of the Hongkong freedom movement, that started to receive cover from the sea by allied naval assets striking Chinese positions in the outskirts of Hongkong. Due to the still ongoing invasion and the rebellions in Tibet and Xinjiang, the Chinese regime decided to use its resources on different fronts and therefore called off the Hongkong campaign, which was seen as a victory by the cities pro-western population. While Hongkong and allied propaganda celebrated the retreat of the revisionists out of the city, the Chinese saw this as yet another humiliation by the hands of the Allies, leading to discussions about potential nuclear weapons use to cripple the allied advance as much as possible. The ongoing destabilization of China, as well as the considerations of the regime to resort to nuclear weapons lead to a fracture of the Chinese military and political establishment. Various generals and military leaders started to mutiny when they were ordered to crush Chinese civilian uprisings with force, while the political landscape of the Peoples Republic started to show signs of splintering. Local politicians like mayors of many larger Chinese cities declared that they would not obey Xi Jinping's orders anymore unless he stops the war, while multiple members of the communist party started to get rogue and declare that Xi would have been voted out and therefore would not be the leader of China anymore, much to the despise of the parties establishment. As a result, heated discussions erupted inside China's political leadership, making it dysfunctional in the process. The Chinese military was therefore left without clear guidance, which lead to new massive casualties for the revisionist defenders. Another factor that contributed to the demoralization and destabilization of the Chinese armed forces was an ongoing outbreak of COVID-19 among the soldiers of both sides, that left several thousand troops incapacitated because of fever and lung infections. Meanwhile allied troops from the US, India, Australia, the UK, New Zealand and the ASEAN states who advanced into China through the Sino-Vietnamese border and through the amphibious invasion that was launched from Hainan, marched into Hongkong and were celebrated as liberators, while in the west, allied forces and Uyghur rebels took Shache and Keshi. The Takla Makan desert prevented any further advance of the Allies in the west, while in the east, fighting between the Chinese and allied forces from Japan, South Korea, the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines and Indonesia remained static in a line stretching from Anshan over Jilin towards Mudanjiang. While the fighting slowed down and ended up in a deadlock, reports came up about Islamist mercenaries from Turkic nations in Central Asia joining the fight in Xinjiang in support of the Uyghur insurgency, although these claims were later disputed by the Allies. As a last mean to stop the Allies, China conducted one last barrage of long range missile attacks, hitting vital allied targets in Korea, Japan, the Pacific, Southeast Asia, Taiwan and India, while keeping the majority of its hypersonic missiles ready, should the Allies use nuclear weapons against it in retaliation. At the same time, the Allies held secret negotiations with the central Asian republics, in order to convince them to allow an allied military presence in their territory, so that a new front into Xinjiang can be opened. Allied forces positioned in occupied Iran and Pakistan prepared for an invasion of Afghanistan, in order to reclaim dominance in this strategically vital country, while also controlling the flow of Islamist fighters pouring into China. Meanwhile, riots in Shanghai kept escalating, leading them to be remembered as the „Shanghai uprising“ and forcing Chinese troops to secure the city the same way they did in Hongkong throughout the war. As a result, violence against Chinese citizens in Shanghai was also on the rise, while the allied foothold in China became more sophisticated. The already unstable Chinese regime continued its infighting, with more and more members of the communist party blaming Xi Jinping for China's military defeats, leading to the formation of an anti-Xi coalition inside the communist party itself. The oppositional faction of the splintered party demanded Xi Jinping to step down, leading him to order the arrest of any critical party members speaking up against him. Because of these actions, in combination with years of allied blockades, internal struggles, foreign invasions and military setbacks, an even larger portion of the party broke with the regime, while many generals and police force leader refused to follow Xi Jinping's orders anymore. The newly founded „People's Party of China“ (PPC) once again declared Xi Jinping to be ousted, while calling itself the legitimate leading party of China. Due to the massive frustration of the Chinese armed forces with the current regime, most of China's military started to adhere to the calls of the new provisional government, and when they received orders to take Xi Jinping and his remaining supporters of the communist party into custody, they followed through. Xi Jinping and various members of the CCP were arrested by Chinese troops while being in the midst of a meeting about China's strategy going forward, leading to both pro-, and anti loyalist protests to erupt in Beijing. While supporters and critics of Xi clashed with each other in the Chinese capital, the PPC along China's leading generals and military leaders held an emergency meeting, where they discussed reaching out to the Allies in order to stop the war once and for all. Despite mixed emotions of the military leadership about the results of the meeting, the Chinese government decided to call for an armistice. As soon as the news broke, fighting inside China was halted so that the allied command could evaluate and discuss the situation. Various voices in allied countries called for a continuation of the war, so that China would be fully neutralized as a military, political and economic threat, but the allied civilian population and the vast majority of representatives agreed that the war should be ended for good. Diplomats from Europe, who were already involved in brokering the Armistice of Minsk offered to mediate between the two sides, even though the US wanted to retain as much control over the negotiations as possible. As a show of dominance and as a humiliation of the wavering Chinese, the military representatives of China who were sent to negotiate the armistice had to travel to liberated Taiwan, since the Allies demanded Taipei to be the setting for the process. The negotiations themselves were long and protracted, since a wide array of allied nations wanted to achieve their objectives through the armistice, while the Chinese signaled severe objection to allied plans of destroying Chinese territorial integrity. Despite Chinese resistance and skepticism, both sides finally came to an agreement: allied forces would pull back into Korea and Southeast Asia, while the occupying forces in Tibet, Hainan and Taiwan would remain alongside the allied naval presence. In exchange, China would halt all hostilities towards allied countries and stop the support of any faction currently still fighting against allied forces. After the agreement was signed by all parties involved, the Allies proclaimed the Armistice of Taipei, which marked the end of World War 3. The news created a wave a relief and happiness all over the entire world. People in the US, Europe, Asia and many places more took to the streets and celebrated for days and weeks straight, while the Chinese felt duped by allied claims of victory. Nonetheless, the end of the war marked a turning point in human history, since the largest and most devastating war in history has finally come to an end.
== The Aftermath ==
WW3 proved to be the largest and most devastating war in human history to date, changing history itself like few conflicts ever did before. More than 300 million people were killed as a direct result of the war, while millions more died in the following years and decades due to the long-term consequences of the conflict, like famines, widespread diseases, the destruction of infrastructure and political stability, as well as the results of chemical and nuclear warfare. With many former Revisionist Powers still in disarray, and a collapsed world economy, all sides quickly started to plan for the reconstruction of the international community, in order to achieve stability, prosperity and peace again. This was the reason why the representatives of both the Allies and Revisionist Powers, as well as provisional governments of occupied territories mediated a peace conference in Reykjavik Iceland, in order to negotiate the post WW3 world order. The negotiations proved to be immensely tense and protracted, especially due to disunity among the allied positions, since the US under Donald J. Trump tried to utilize the Reykjavik conference to re-establish America as the most dominant power on the globe, while other allied factions, like the Europeans tried to pursue a more easing approach. Disunity was also among regional powers trying to benefit from the post-war order, like India and other Asian powerhouses, for example Japan, who tried to gain as much advantage at China's expense as possible. Another issue that lead to tensions and squabble was how the world should prosecute and charge war criminals who perpetrated unprecedented atrocities during WW3. While defeated Revisionist Powers, such as Turkey were put on trial for their crimes, others, like China and Russia proved to be very resistant to war crime prosecution, while the majority of allied nations denied any war crimes from their side. Nonetheless, the Reykjavik Peace Conference, as well as a large multitude of follow up conferences, trials and negotiations lead to various changes of the world order, some of which shall be listed in the following:
# The attending representatives of allied and revisionist nations, as well as the provisional leadership of occupied territories agreed on the foundation of a new international organization, intended to replace the UN, while securing peace, human rights, global prosperity and stability: The League of the United Nations. The LUN was supposed to upheld international law, while also being able to intervene in military conflicts through its armed branch, the LUN Stability Corps, in order to prevent those from ever escalating into global wars ever again.
#The attending nations agreed to a gradual pullout of allied troops occupying former revisionist territory, while an exchange of POWs was mediated.
#The members of the newly formed LUN agreed to the secession and later on unification of West Timor and West-Papua with Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste based on the Armistice of Jakarta.
#The LUN decided to grant autonomy and independence to the Kurdish people of the Middle East, leading Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran to loose territory in order to found Kurdistan. The newly formed Kurdish state will host a permanent and heavily armed presence of the LUN Stability Corps. Resistance was fierce against these plans, but due to the total collapse a d occupation of Turkey and its neighbors, every attempt to prevent the foundation of Kurdistan proved to be futile.
#The LUN mediated the re-unification of Korea and Cyprus. While Kim-loyalists kept resisting the unification efforts under the leadership of Kim Yo Yong in Korea, Cyprus saw the displacement of various thousand of Turkish Cypriots, who fled to Turkey similar to Turkish people in the former southeast of the country, after the foundation of Kurdistan.
#The LUN, as well as the AUF organized a series of war tribunals, in order to prosecute war criminals of both sides. As a sign of reconciliation, Chinese and Iranian representatives agreed to extradite various generals who were responsible for war crimes in Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam, Tibet, Xinjiang as well as Iraq and Syria. Russia refused to do so, and instead sagged various Russian generals who were responsible for indiscriminate bombing and war crimes against Ukrainians, in order to hold trials of its own.
#Chinese officials extradited Xi Jinping, who was put under house arrest after being toppled by rogue members of the former communist party, was among the most prominent figures being brought to the court of The Haag, where he was found guilty of war crimes and his responsibility of starting WW3. He faces a life time in prison in a LUN prison in Taiwan.
#After the short-lived Korean Civil War, various Kim-loyalists and Kim Yo Yong herself were put on trial in The Haag as well and were found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
#During the heavily guarded Yerevan trials, many Turkish politicians and military leaders were found guilty of crimes against humanity not only during the war, but also in the years prior. As a result, Turkey remained under occupation during the time of its rebuilding and democratization, while losing East Thrace and Istanbul in addition to its southeastern territories. It was forced to pay severe reparations to Kurdistan, Greece and Armenia, while additionally being forced to acknowledge not only the Kurdish but also the first Armenian Genocide. During these trials, the EU was also charged with giving symbolic reparations to Greece, Cyprus, Armenia and Kurdistan because of its appeasement policy towards the AKP dictatorship before and during WW3.
#Russia agreed to the implementation of an international zone of control in its former exclave of Kaliningrad, which was renamed „Kingsberg-Oblast“ and became the LUN headquarters aside from Reykjavik.
#Based on the agreements surrounding the status of the Kingsberg-Oblast, the LUN decided to apply this system of zones of international control to other disputed territories, in order to avoid future conflicts, while creating buffer zones between warring nations. These international zones of control host a permanent presence of the LUN Stability Corps, while the local residents are free to choose their nationality as they please, while the zones themselves enjoy a certain amount of autonomy and economic support. This system was therefore applied to Kashmir, Nagorno-Karabakh, East Thrace and Crimea, while talks are underway to implement international zones of control in Western Sahara, South Ossetia, Abkhasia and Tigray.
#Despite initial allied promises, the Uyghurs in Xinjiang were not granted independence, despite calls for the foundation of a free East Turkestan. Reasons for that were presumably fears that this move could enable new outbursts of Islamic terrorism or pan-Turkic ambitions in Central Asia, while plans were already underway to grant independence to Tibet. Because of this, granting East Turkestan statehood were seen as too much of a risk, since it could have created even more tensions with the new Chinese government that was recovering fast from WW3. Instead, Xinjiang was given much more autonomy compared to the pre-war era, while a LUN peacekeeping mission is still present in Uyghur territory.
#Similar to Kurdistan, Tibet was allowed to split from China, while hosting a permanent presence of the LUN Stability Corps, which was not allowed to station Indian troops inside Tibet.
#Hongkong was once again given much more autonomy inside China, while effectively returning to its pre-2020 status permanently. Hongkong also hosts a permanent LUN peacekeeping mission to assure the freedom and security of the city.
#Taiwan became fully independent and was integrated as a sovereign member of the LUN, while hosting various LUN installations.
#Following the Euro-American Split and the beginning Second American Civil War, the European members of NATO, as well as Canada, decided to dismantle the organization and use its infrastructure and resources instead on the AUF, which made additional security treaties with Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.
#Since the US was not able to relocate its overseas nuclear weapons back to the US without creating additional political conflicts during the Euro-American split, while being in need of financial influx, the US and the European host nations agreed in secret on a sale of the weapons. This way, the number of nations deploying nuclear remained unchanged, while the US received needed money and avoided logistical and political issues which would have enrolled if the US tried to pull these weapons out of their host nations. As a result, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany became nuclear powers themselves, although the weapons in Germany were put under joint AUF supervision, which means that Germany cannot unilaterally access these assets without consulting its European allies. This mechanism was implemented in order to keep compliance with the Final Treaty with Respect to Germany of 1990.
Despite he foundation of the LUN, which was supposed to prevent future wars and armed confrontations, various follow-up conflicts erupted after WW3, the largest of which was the Second American Civil War. Even though these conflicts broke out relatively soon after WW3, the interventions of the LUN, AUF and the LUN Stability Corps, as well as diplomatic efforts were able to prevent these conflicts from escalating into broader military confrontation. Here a list of some of the follow-up conflicts of WW3:
# Shortly after the official end of WW3, allied troops occupying Turkey engaged in a short war against Turkish ally Azerbaijan in order to secure Azeri gas supplies to Europe, while also putting an end to the occupation of Armenia by Azeri forces and Islamist mercenaries carried in by Turkey before and during WW3. The conflict lasted around 2 months and resulted in a complete Azeri retreat back into the pre-2020 borders of Azerbaijan, leading to the liberation of Armenia and the de facto occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh by allied forces.
#Following the severe economic and financial devastation, as well as the unprecedented loss of life and the crippling of its military prowess because of WW3, the US saw an escalation of political tension and division which already stemmed from the pre-war era. As a result, the deep political division of the American society following the first and prolonged second presidential terms of Donald J. Trump erupted into the Second American Civil War, which additionally diminished US political, economic and military power. During the conflict, Republican loyalists in the south and center of the US engaged in various violent hostilities with pro-Democratic states of the American coast, that banded together as the „West“-, and „East-Coast Pacts“ against the militias devoted to former president Trump and his associates. The war remained inconclusive, but lead to the end of authoritarianism and pseudo-fascism in the US, while an American reintegration process into the global community was started.
#During the aftermath of WW3, a Belarusian Civil War erupted when pro-western forces surrounding previous oppositional politicians in Belarus tried to crack down on the remnants of the Lukashenko regime. The conflict lead to the risk of reignition of tensions between the EU, AUF and Russia, and was ultimately resolved by an AUF and LUN stability Corps intervention and joint diplomatic efforts of European and Russian representatives.
#A Korean Civil War broke out when the final remnants of the Kim dynasty and therefore North Korea collapsed after WW3. A military junta comprised of Kim-loyalists and North Korean military commanders kept engaging in an anti-western insurgency, in order to resist the unification of the peninsula under southern and American supervision. Allied forces managed to obtain the remaining North Korean nuclear weapons, while the insurgency under Kim Jong-un's sister, Kim Yo Yong was crushed, leading the last supporters of the past North Korean regime to form terror cells, which performed various attacks over the following years.
#After WW3, most of Syria, Iraq and large parts of Iran were occupied by the Saudi lead Arab coalition. In the immediate years after the war, Saudi Arabia administered the occupation of Syria and Iraq, and created a de facto zone of Saudi control, in which Saudi Arabia tried to establish an enlargement of its reign by distributing its currency, purging critical opposition and ethnically cleansing religious and ethnic groups it deemed undesirable. When the LUN, of which Saudi Arabia was not part of, demanded Saudi Arabia to hand over the control over the occupied territories, Saudi Arabia refused to do so and tried to use its oil reserves as a weapon to blackmail the worlds leading powers into submission. When Saudi Arabia additionally sponsored terroristic attacks in Europe, Canada and Australia, while committing various massacres and backing the Republican loyalists in the Second American Civil War, the LUN decided to break down its reign in the Middle East. What followed was the first intervention of the LUN Stability Corps, which liberated the occupied territory of Syria and Iraq, while toppling the Saudi wahabi regime, leading to an international occupation of Saudi Arabia.
#Following WW3, the European allied powers tried to root out the authoritarianism and anti-democratic movement in Europe, which was partially responsible for European fraternization with the Revisionist Powers, while weakening Europe's unity. The attempt of enforcing the rule of law and implementing mechanisms to uphold it reignited tensions between the EU and the so called „Visegrad-states“ Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Because of the emergence of European military and political power after WW3, the EU proved to be more assertive and unwavering in its stance against the „V-4“, who tried to block any efforts of upholding democratic mechanisms for securing the rule of law, while also demanding Ukraine's expulsion out of the AUF because of Hungarian demands. When the EU cut off funding for the V-4, Poland and Hungary took a more aggressive approach and started to harass EU traffic and trade, while creating a political gridlock in Brussels. The now called „Visegrad-Rebellion“ also caused new military tensions, when Hungary mobilized its forces as a show of strength against the EU, while also initiating a series of clashes with Ukraine and Romania over alleged human rights violations against ethnic Hungarians in both countries. Italy joined the „Visegrad-Resistance“ due to disputes over immigration and alleged Italian war crimes against migrants in the Mediterranean, leading Italy to harass maritime traffic as well. The Visegrad Rebellion also caused a new worsening of relations between the UK and the EU, due to British support for the V-4 against the EU as well as new aspirations of the UK to exit the AUF after WW3 in opposition of a unified European army beyond war-times. This desire to leave the alliance was later dubbed „AUFXIT“ in satirical reference to the Brexit. After a comparatively short AUF intervention against Hungary, as well as severe economic sanctions and blockades against the Visegrad states, the intense pressure on the right-Wing governments of the 4 Visegrad nations, as well as Italy grew to such an extent that democratic movements, under assistance from the EU and AUF, got enough public support to enable new elections that brought up more pro-EU governments. Only Hungary remained belligerent to a certain degree.
#The heightened military presence of France inside French Guyana lead to massive tensions between Brazil and France, which believed the French presence to be a threat against Brazilian interests on the continent. Brazil accused France of trying to internationalize the Amazon forest, which would take away part of Brazil's sovereignty and limits its exploitation of the rainforest. As a result, the Brazilian and French navies engaged in various harassment operations against each other, while the Brazilian army had several standoffs with French Guyana. Only dedicated diplomatic efforts of the LUN prevented all out war from occurring in the first half of the 21st century, although tensions remained high.
#In Africa, the conflict between Egypt and Ethiopia over water reserves escalated into a new military confrontation, where Egyptian and Ethiopian forces actively targeted each others territory, while Egypt additionally supported secessionist insurgencies in the Ethiopian breakaway region of Tigray. The conflict, which was escalated by climate disasters, also spread over to other nations hit hard by droughts, disease, famine and the late consequences of WW3. This was the reason why Eritrea and Sudan were caught in the crossfire of the first of the „Water Wars“, with many similar conflicts erupting in Africa for the rest of the century.
#An Israeli civil war erupted after WW3 due to the ongoing occupation of all Palestinian Territories as a result of the war, leading to new hostilities between Israel and the Palestinians, while the conflict spread to inner-Israeli Arab communities as well as to the liberal Israeli youth that protested still present corruption of various politicians and questionable military decisions that were both seen during WW3
#Due to rising tensions following British support for the V-4 states during the Visegrad rebellion and the subsequent British backing for Brazil during the French-Brazilian standoff, France started to back the re-militarized claim of Argentina on the Falkland Islands, which lead to a new series of military clashes with the UK. France, alongside other EU members also supported Scottish aspirations for independence, leading to a worsening of relations between the EU and the UK that ultimately resulted in military escalation in the English Channel, the North Sea and various overseas territories, which was later on nicknamed the "Brexit War".
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