Prologue

Since it's role in the suppression of World War II, the United States of America had been the dominant force on Earth. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, no one would dare to challenge the might of the overwhelming superpower. In March of 2007 the Japanese began building up an army and navy in violation of the treaties signed in 1945. Before the United States could begin its diplomatic objections, the Japanese army overtook the small peninsula of Korea in a matter of days. They pressed into China in an attempt to duplicate the Chinese campaigns of the 1930s. 200,000 Japanese troops were able to press North and west through China, overwhelming the cities of harbin, Shenyang, and even Beijing before the Chinese army could be mobilizied to respond. The two armies met just southeast of Beijing and fought for almost a month without ceasing. The Japanese suffered thousands and thousands of casualties through the battle. As they retreated north, they were met by almost 150,000 men of the Russian army who had just crossed the Amur river. Trapped between the massive Russian army, and 25 million Chinese, the Japanese were annihilated. Massacred almost to the last man, hey beat a hasty retreat across the Sea of Japan. They were not pursued, and the Japanese sat still on their islands to lick their wounds. Three days after the last Japanese soldier climbed back off the boats, the first ICBM hit. In the course of 4 hours the Chinese and Russian governments authorized the firing of nearly 20 missiles with average yields of 20 megatons. Japan, and the Japanese people, were wiped off the globe.

The world was appalled. In a little more than a month, millions were dead and an entire culture had been wiped out. NATO and the UN held special emergency sessions to find some way to censure the Chinese and Russians without threatening the delicate quasi-peace that held. In response to the economic sanctions and formal censure that Russia and China endured, they withdrew from the United Nations. The Russo-Chinese Alliance was formed, consisting or Russia, China, Unified Korea, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Laos. Acting as an Anti-NATO, the RC Alliance met under the idea of maintaining their cultural independence from the corrupt western world. Acting from pure Russian-style imperialism, Kazakhstan moved rapidly with borrowed Russian troops and overtook the nations of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, annexing them into Kazakhstan. The UN saw this move as an unjustified act of land-grabbing and ordered UN peacekeepers to occupy the capitals of the conquered nations to try and maintain their freedom. Flying figurative flags of peace, the planes with the peacekeepers were quickly shot down upon entering the newly expanded Kazakhstan airspace.

Once again, the UN stood aback, shocked to the core by the actions of the Alliance. After another emergency cession of both the Security Council and the UN General Assembly, the Secretary-General issued a directive to the Alliance that their actions would no longer be tolerated, and any further land-grabs would be resisted by UN, European, and US troops. The Alliance laughed at this and sat back for almost a year of relative peace.

April 2008 saw something few wanted to see. The Army of Allah, a coalition of Middle East states that had formed in late 2007 in response to the Alliance's actions, including Iraq, Iran, and Syria, marched almost 400,000 troops, and overwhelmed their neighbors of Jordan, Kuwait, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. This united Arab front wasted no time declaring war on the expansionistic and imperialistic forces of this new Alliance. As thousands of Arab troops marched into what once was Turkmenistan, the unprepared Kazakh armies fell back into Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan declared neutrality, which was, oddly enough, respected by all sides. War raged for almost a year, until February of 2009, before the UN even took an official stance. This change in policy was effected largely by the Russian threat to use nuclear weapons to resolve the war more quickly. The UN issued an ultimatum to the Alliance that any further use of nuclear weapons would result in the nuclear destruction of the offending nation.

Immediately following this announcement, newly inaugurated US President Colin Powell announced that the US would support the UN's decision. Three days later, Russia launched ICBMs at each of the Arab nations' capitols. The Russian president laughed at Powell's repeated demands that he self-destruct the missiles, until the US launched ICBMs of its own. Russia backed down and destroyed the missiles, the US shortly followed suit. The threat of nuclear destruction had been averted, for now.

On the first on March 2009, a terrorist smuggled a nuclear warhead into Red Square, and detonated it. With the capitol destroyed and the government gone, Russia was left in chaos. Without the support of the Russian army, the Arab armies overran Kazakhstan and the war ended inside of a month. With one of the two major nations in the Alliance effectively gutted, the Alliance itself soon fell apart. The world saw relative peace as the ravaged nations attempted to rebuild. Russia reverted to its old Stalinist style government and the capitol was moved to St. Petersburg.

In November of 2018, fueled largely by raising oil prices and a rash of serious natural disasters, the stock market saw its deepest crash in American History. The Dow Jones, which had been stable around 17,000 for almost a year, dropped to 6,000 inside of 3 weeks. By the end of the year, more than half of the United States was out of work, and it was getting worse. The east coast had been ravaged by a series of 3 killer hurricanes, the Midwest was raked up and down by savage thunderstorms and numerous large tornadoes, and the west coast was decimated by a 9.3 quake along the San Andreus fault.