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A Sci-Fi Fictional Setting

Better computers would also mean a better guiding systems for those missiles, better technology means a more destructive weapons, and so on ...

Yes, and all that means better ability for humanity to rebuild once the war's over.
 
The New York Times
Opinion
How the hell did we survive the war?
By: Kwame Johansson, New York Times Op-Ed Columnist.
July 13th, 2125

I still remember it like yesterday, that day when President Camille Hirabayashi announced to the Press Corps about the declaration of war her office received from the People's Republic of China, it felt that a ball dropped somewhere at 24 West 13th Avenue that day, and when it dropped, everyone in the Palace exploded in a frenzy of questions over to the President.

Is the declaration of war caused by the RIMPAC exercises.

Is the declaration of war caused by India's repeated attempts to secure the Brahmaputra river valley. A country which, incidentally, is allied with the NAU.

Is the declaration of war caused by ASEAN's joint condemnation on the Chinese operations at Northern Myanmar and Laos against the Republican Terrorists.

In truth, this was all a factor into China's declaration of war against the NAU and her allies, the failing war effort in Southeast Asia, the concentrated push by India to pressure the Chinese government, and the latest exercises in Hawaii, which involves defense against Ballistic Missiles as It's main focus. All of this was a factor, and all of this was what drove Premier Jia Peng to issue the declaration of war.

This isn't the issue though, even a person who only has surface level knowledge of Asia Pacific politics knows that this is a long time coming. The question though, is how in the world did the NAU survived, while China doesn't.

Firstly, yes, it is true. The NAU does have an extensive anti ballistic missile system network. It is a system that has been deployed since the mid to late 2080s and has been improved upon multiple times. It features projectile carrying satellites, missile cruisers stationed in Japan and Taiwan, and mobile and fixed site installations on the American West Coast.

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(A North American 'Space Defender' Satellite installation, it carries around 500 AIM-200LRI Anti Ballistic Missile Projectiles, Picture obtained from the Department of Defense Archives, Circa 2099)

tri1.jpg

(Image taken of a North American 'Amarillo Class' Missile Destroyer firing It's main gun, Picture obtained from the North American Navy Archives, 2095)

But, as per recently declassified archival records from not only the Department of Defense, and also from Memos of the Hirabayashi administration shows, these overlapping defense systems are never really meant to withstand a full on barrage from the full might of the Chinese Nuclear Arsenal. It is designed, per policy memos from the DOD indicates, to withstand a barrage of roughly 500-1000 Missiles headed into the direction of mainland North America. And during the first couple months of the war, as is very well known, the Chinese fired all of It's arsenal, some 13.000 Nuclear Warheads of varying sizes, into the NAU and It's allies.

So, as the title of this article suggests. How the hell did we survive the war?

Luck, and focus. There is no other feasible explanation as to how the NAU suffered so little during the course of the war, the missile defense system performed much better than even the most optimistic expectations of the DOD, only allowing a grand total of 10 North American Cities to be destroyed or nearly destroyed. Names in which we are all familiar with.

It might not be the most pleasing answer to hear, but per archived memos, multiple accounts of the missile system working throughout the war, and retrospective review of the missile system conducted by the DOD, there isn't any other way to explain how North America Survived, when the European Federation joined the war 3 months after, most of the missiles fired by the Chinese and Russians headed into their way, sparing North America from the ravages and near destruction Europe suffered.

The important question to ask now though, is how do we rebuild? and what should we do now that the war is over, and all of North America's geopolitical rivals gone? that is a question that is being in the process of being answered, and we can only hope that we wouldn't make the same decisions that lead us into the fateful day in 24 West 13th Avenue. The day the ball dropped for all of us in the Press Corps.
 
Smithsonian Historical Archives, Country Profiles, Mid to late 21st Century.
Countries of the late 21st Century.

European Federation.
1200px-Flag_of_Europe.svg.png

The European Federation was formed in the year 2035, with the signing of the 2nd Maastricht treaty, finally giving European states that are members of the EU 'levels' of membership that they desire to be in. 1st level states are essentially a part of the supranational organizations in full, giving up their sovereignty to Brussels in exchange for benefits such as a more coherent monetary and fiscal policy, becoming a part of a larger economic union, and essentially becoming part of a much larger whole. Originally, only the Benelux, Germany and France were 1st level members, but soon enough, Ireland and the UK followed, and that is closely followed by southern European states, and finally, EU members in the Balkans, the Baltics, and Eastern Europe followed 10 years after that. Northern European members were the last to join. With the EF finally gained It's modern borders by the mid to late 2060s.

The European Federation, despite issues with the United States, and later the North American Union, does maintain their now decades old military alliance with each other. NATO was only further reinforced after the tumultuous decades of the 2010s and the mid 2020s. With the US maintaining their forward bases in Estonia and the Baltic States, this is later reinforced with North American troops as the decades went by. The main cause of this maintenance? the rise of China and the rise of Russia's new President, Nikolayev Kresinskiy, in mid to late 2030s. Kresinskiy was... quite a figure in Russian politics, very dogged in his political battles and never, ever gives up. He managed to reunite the Russian Federation with Belarus after extensive talks in the mid 2040s, and started integrating Eastern Ukraine, South Ossetia and Abhkazia, and even the entirety of Kazakhstan after a surprisingly short, but victorious war. Faced with a Russia bent on 'restructuring the European Continent' (Taken from Kresinskiy's Speech at the Duma at the 2050s), Brussels decided that maintaining their alliance with the US, and later NAU, was preferable instead of going at it alone.

This is, of course, inflammed tensions even more, and was one of the many reasons for the conflagration of events into the third world war, and the subsequent new world order afterwards. With Russia joining the war effort 2 years into the third world war, Europe quickly issued a declaration of war against Russia, and hostilities between EF forces and Russian forces in Eastern Europe started immediately. By the time the war ended in the year 2110, with the signing of the Istanbul Peace Treaty. Eastern Europe and sizeable chunks of western and Central Europe was devastated by nuclear fire and the occasional strategic bombing by Russian and Chinese bombers. The European Federation survived well enough, with most major cities such as Paris, The Benelux Metroplex and London surviving, but Eastern Europe and the Balkans was particularly affected after the war, receiving the brunt end of the war against the Russians, cities like Warsaw, Krakow, Belgrade, Sofia and many others were nearly devastated. With Warsaw in particular having almost 70% of it's infrastructure and buildings wiped out.

Nonetheless, with the end of the third world war, another new chapter of the EF is unfolding, with allies such as the NAU, India, Japan, Unified Korea and the Republic of China victorious, democracy, now more than ever, is now the dominant form of government throughout the world, and with no other major powers to challenge the EF on the European Continent, the EF's main priority right now is rebuilding, and perhaps reforming shattered nations in their image.

Capital City: Brussels, Southern Benelux Quarantine Zone, European Federation.
9ERnhs_MEIl5tm9FPKEfXjv-GWTEAfLVqD3iKIuGeg4.jpg

(View from a drone, picture taken of the dividing barrier between the neighborhoods of Anderlecht, Saint Giles, Uccle and Ixelles from the rest of the city)

A city of only 12 million people, mostly as a result of the hostile environment within the Southern Benelux Quarantine Zone, Brussels was particularly targeted by Russia during the third world war, although it is heavily defended, some nuclear warheads did manage to get through the defenses, heavily devastating southern Brussels and nearly wiping out the Belgian countryside, the City of Antwerp, and almost all of Flanders in general. Brussels, while nowhere near devastated, is still residing within a massively radioactive zone, with the logical result being millions of people dying from the radiation poisoning, an event that the people of Brussels now call 'The suffering'.

With cleanup efforts still underway after the war, and immigrants from Eastern Europe and Russia streaming into the capital of Europe, the services of the city was quickly overwhelmed, slums popped up, with most of it consisting of members from the recently arrived immigrants, slums which are located in southern Brussels, areas which, coincidentally, has the highest levels of radiation throughout the city. Out of all the capitals of the major surviving states, Brussels is the city that is dealing with the most issues currently, time will tell if Brussels will come out of this stronger, or will the city collapse under It's own weight.

Other Major Cities: Paris, Benelux Metroplex, London, Dublin, Barcelona, Madrid, Torino, Milan, Marseilles, Nantes, Brest, Stockholm, Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig, Munich, Prague, Vienna, Thessaloniki, Budapest, Bratislava, Gdànsk, Lyon, Lisbon, Valencia, Naples, Zagreb, Edinburgh, Glasgow. Other major cities not listed are either destroyed or reduced significantly.
 
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