Into the Breach

Chapter 04 Regrowth

 

After every recession there has always been a slow, tiresome, but ultimately successful recovery. And so the world entered the healing stage, and slowly but steadily, by increasing domestic production, by popular uprisings against the state, one way or another, nations started regaining their former power, well most of them at least.

While the United State’s neighbours were fairing very well, Mexico having launched massive campaigns against corruption, and Canada growing closer ties with the other Commonwealth Countries. America, however, was still plagued by protests, inefficient system, high level of radicalization, and with the new crisis, the weakness of the budget partition was put in full light.

Protests escalated to riots, riots to political violence. As far-right and far-left groups clashed, only be interrupted by the government forces. Yet with the budget cuts, the American army was overextended in its military bases around the world. Diego Garcia was return to Mauritius for instance, and the military bases in Bahrein and Kuwait had their effectives highly diminished. The non-existent welfare meant that thousands starved, which only increased radicalization.

Furthermore, The cartels that were evicted from Mexico, were desperately trying to set up their bases of operation on American soil, which further overextend their military.

 As tensions ran high in the American continent, it was completely different in Africa, indeed Morocco, had, under its King’s pressure, given autonomy to the South of the country, thus bringing an end to the Sahrawi conflict. Likewise in Somalia, Somaliland was brought back into the fold with a high degree of autonomy, and with the joint promise to fight against resurgent terrorism, Libya after reuniting during the third world war re-established the monarchy that had been deposed by the brutal dictator Gaddafi, also reinstating all the social policies King Idris had campaigned.

Up north, Armenia settled the Karabakh dispute once and for all with Russian support, beating the Turkey-backed Azerbaijan in a series of small skirmishes. The tensions between Lebanon and Syria had also somewhat died down, with a 20 years peace treaty being established, however it was no secret to anyone that after this treaty expires, all bets were off concerning these two.

As for Palestine, it appeared that it would be the sight of the only violence in the region, as the civil war reached its height despite the on-going crisis. Crisis which had the effect of significantly scaling down all the foreign help the two parties were counting on. And so, what would have been a victory for Fatah became a long stalemate for both sides.

But it was far from being the only sight of violence of the era. One year passed, then two, and the American situation seemed unsustainable, as violence continued due to the worsening living condition. Then one day, the powder keg blew, and all-hell broke loose.

First a few skirmishes between gun owners of differing political views. Evolving into shady gang wars at night. Until finally political militias set themselves up to occupy various neighbourhoods, tearing the country, states, cities, families apart.

The government soon found allies on the moderate right, or in other words the supporters of the two-party system. On the far-right various white supremacist groups such as the National Socialist Movement, the Ku Klux Klan, the Atomwaffen Division, The Base, Combat 18, and the Order of the Nine Angles coming together, recruiting from a large pool of operatives from groups such as the Proud Boys.

On the other side of the spectrum was Antifa, while no real structure exists in that movement, all their members were rapidly leaning towards anarchism, especially now that their dreams could become true with the government losing its grasp on the country. Of this violence, Alaska had none.

At the request of the local government Canadian troops entered the state, and forcibly disbanded all the militias there. After a referendum it was decided that Alaska would become a fully-fledged province of the country. Similarly, Hawaiian independence movements rose up, unfortunately for them the American navy was present, and repressed any separatist attempt.

On the mainland, it was then that the battle for the soul of the United States of America had officially begun.