Balkan Crisis

The **Balkan Crisis** or **Bosnia Incident of 2049** occurred when Turkey annexed the Caucasus region of Russia, scaring Poland in the process.

As the Japanese prepare for their attack against the American Orbital Command Network, the Turks stage a crisis in the Balkans, pushing the Poles to the absolute edge of war, even allowing facilities in the Caucasus to be attacked by Polish drones. While the Geneva peace conference is being mediated by the Americans, Japan prepares to strike, hoping the Americans would rather accept a world with three great empires than risk its own empire in another World War.

## History

The key American military threat no longer lied at Sea, but in Space. Since the Space Boom began in the late 2010s the United States had been quietly increasing its military presence in Earth Orbit and on the Moon, protective of valuable energy, mining, and manufacturing operations on Near Earth Asteroids and the lunar surface. During the 2030s the United States reached out to several contractors it had worked with on the commercial mining of lunar Helium-3 to develop increased infrastructure for commercial and eventually military ventures. Gradually the US abandoned the costly and ineffective policy of deploying overburdened infantrymen and petroleum burning vehicles to far corners of the planet to exert its power, to a system of rapid response, force projection technologies that could operate from mobile sea-based platforms and from US Soil directly. These systems still required a global command system, however and to that end the US began the construction of an extensive network of command and control satellites, all managed by three geostationary positioned Orbital Command Stations. Built in secret at the Tycho Shipyards on the moon, the Orbital Command Stations networked with unmanned spy satellites, refueling and repair facilities and orbital bombardment stations. No longer relying on vulnerable land based command centers, the United States could project its power with minimum effort and superb accuracy. Primary command and control moved to the Orbital Command Stations to limit the number of failure points, with space based systems seeming invulnerable to smaller powers. OCS Eisenhower was stationed over Uganda, OCS Kennedy over Papua New Guinea, and the main command station, OCS Reagan was stationed over Ecuador. These stations constituted the primary threat to the Turks and Japanese. Commanding fleets of hypersonic unmanned aircraft and coordinating Naval support around the planet, the Orbital Command Stations could impose devastating blockades on the Turks and Japanese. By 2050 war plans were well underway, and Japan knew that to secure its regional interests it had to destroy the American command structure in space, and prevent any future launches by capturing the American manufacturing and military installations on the Moon. As the Japanese prepared for their attack, the Turks staged a crisis in the Balkans, pushing the Poles to the absolute edge of war, even allowing facilities in the Caucasus to be attacked by Polish drones. While the Geneva peace conference was being mediated by the Americans, Japan prepared to strike, hoping the Americans would rather accept a world with three great empires than risk its own empire in another World War.