World War 2.5

The early 21st century was a time of instability and conflict, proving those who said that the end of the Cold War was the end of history dead wrong. The September 11 attacks proved that America was not invincible, and provoked American invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. These wars destabilized the region, and along with the Arab Spring revolutions of 2009, 2010 and 2011, opened the road*for the rise of the United Islamic Republic.

Rising from the ashes of the Arabian Spring and the broken pieces of Saddam's Iraq, the UIR quickly expanded throughout the Middle East, imposing its destructive form of fundamentalist Sunni Islam. Only the Iranians, themselves hardly secular and restrained, were strong enough to resist the UIR tide.

But while the West believed that the UIR was the greatest threat to it, history had other plans. The Russian Federation, long believed to be friendly to the West, if not neutralized, arose as a new threat. President and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a former KGB man, was deeply saddened to see the Soviet Union fall, and wanted to remake it without all of the flaws. Communism would be replaced by Slavic nationalism. The Party would be replaced by one man - himself. Many Russians agreed with Putin, believing that he was Russia's only hope of regaining lost glory. The opposition to his regime was quickly stamped out by the FSB and Putin's supporters. Homosexuals and Muslims were, illogically enough, scapegoated as pro-Western, anti-Russian agents. Putin slowly consolidated his power throughout the early 21st century, before he went public as the Vozhd of the Greater Eurasian Union in 2014, shortly after the annexation of Belarus.

The year 2014 also saw the beginning of Eurasian expansionism. After Belarus, which welcomed Russian troops, Moscow went after Ukraine next. Although traditionally pro-Russian, the Ukrainian government was overthrown and replaced with a pro-Western regime. Fearing that the Eurasians will lose important assets in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, Putin moved quickly, seizing these areas before the Ukrainians could react. It was believed that war would begin with this bold move, but at St. Petersburg, a settlement was reached between the West and Eurasia - the Eurasians could keep their Ukrainian territories, but could take no more of the former Soviet Union; that would mean war.

But war did come. In 2015, the Eurasians attacked the Baltic states, intending to annex them into the Eurasian Union. The states of the European Union, at least those still loyal to the West, and the United States declared war. The Eurasians subsequently advanced through continental Europe, their lightning attack surprising all. The Eurasians managed to occupy the entirety of continental Europe by 2016. In the meanwhile, they cooperated with the UIR and Iranians in the Middle East, providing much-needed weaponry to the UIR during their war against the Israelis.

Meanwhile, in the East, tensions grew between China and Japan. The two were already fighting an undeclared naval war, and had been since 2007, but the war in Europe and their alliance with the Eurasians made the Chinese bolder. In 2015, amphibious landings were initiated in Japan, prompting a declaration of war from the United States and its regional allies. This prompted further attacks around the region, including invasions of Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines.

The Chinese invasions led to the Indians imposing trade embargoes against the Chinese. With Eurasia now as their only trade partner, the Chinese believed they could knock out India in a lightning strike and force them to reopen their markets. They did so via a surprise attack in 2017. This would prove to be a disastrous miscalculation, starting a bloody war between the two most populous states in the world. In the meanwhile, with Putin the master of the Eurasian continent, the Eurasians decided to strike at their most despised enemy - the UIR.

It is 2018, and it seems that the impromptu alliance between the Americans, Indians and UIR will lose to Eurasia and China. With the aid of the Iranians and Israelis, the Eurasians are ravaging the UIR's northern territories, forcing retreating UIR forces to burn the oil fields as they retreat. Although hailed as liberators at first, the Eurasians had no love for Muslims, and Eurasian Muslims were already being herded into ghettos. In occupied Europe, a dogged resistance movement distracts the Eurasians, but not enough; only ten percent of the Eurasians' total military forces are stationed in Europe. The United Kingdom does remain free, and filled with American troops. In Washington, American president William Church promises that the Americans will never surrender until the Eurasians are defeated.

In the East, the Chinese proved to be bloody occupiers, and are suffering from resistance movements all throughout their new empire. The Japanese proved to be fanatical defenders, and Chinese brutality has done little to encourage the Japanese to surrender. The collaborationist regime under the Japanese Communist Party is far from popular. Meanwhile, the Chinese continue to defeat the Indians, but the Indians are beginning to stiffen their resistance.

Nuclear weapons rest in their silos; the widespread proliferation of satellite-guided ABMs since the 1990s have rendered the weapons largely obsolete. The high technology used in the early years of the war has been expended; all sides are using weapons made during the later stages of the Cold War. The Americans are planning an ambitious invasion of the European continent, which their erstwhile UIR allies are demanding. The UIR has declared several fatwas against the Eurasians, and many UIR clerics have declared that any man who dies in combat against the Eurasians will go immediately to Heaven. And in*the outskirts of Moscow, there are discussions on a "final solution" to the Muslim problem.