Chapter Four - part four

   Russia was using that growing unrest and weakness to try and force a way into old Soviet Union states. Russia was openly hostile in some areas and apparently helpful in others. The telling detail for James was the massive growth he was seeing in the Russian military. China had been building massive ground armies and a much larger navy. Russia was also rebuilding massive ground armies, but they were also backing those with a larger Air Force. They still had a large navy, second only to the United States in large ships. China now had a larger navy than even America, but much of it was made of the smaller coastal defense type ships. The new Russian Air Force was now larger than and nearly as modern as the United States Air Force, while China still had far more planes than either of them. The fact that Russia now had the second largest standing army in the world was cause for worry too. When you added such a large Air Force to that huge Army and Navy it was very alarming. The United States had a well trained and equipped Army, but it was scattered around the world. Well over half of the Russian Army was within a few days move of the European borders. Even if the United States and NATO had every available Army unit in Europe ready to act, the current Russian Army along the borders would be half again larger in numbers. That was truly frightening when you looked at it closely.

   All of the Ukraine had fallen under Russian control long ago. Belarus had slowly collapsed and followed the Ukraine. Several other much smaller nation states had also fallen to Russia. They had been separate in name for a time, but now they were all just states within the whole of Russia. Russia was making a huge push in many areas all at once. Poland, Romania, Hungry and the Czech Republic were all in play and some were leaning heavily now. James had been stunned by some of the reports on the political conditions within those nations. James had known they were in turmoil, but he hadn't known how much of it was being generated from outside the borders. Russia was also pushing in other much smaller nation states along its borders. James hadn't believed most of Europe could be as close to falling as it appeared to be. He still needed more time, but he was relatively certain that if one more 'domino' fell then many more would quickly fall in a chain reaction. He just wasn't certain what anybody thought a few F/A-48's could do to change things or prevent any of it from happening.

   James spent two more full days and a good part of each night going over all of those intelligence reports very carefully. In the end his opinion hadn't changed a lot. It still looked like there were a lot of leaning dominos out there waiting for the first one to fall. The only real question was which one it would be and how many more it would knock down when it fell. He took a few hours to look over the files on those new officers he would be getting any day now. That had turned out to be a real bright spot in an otherwise very dark few days. He knew three of the five very well. The two Lt. Colonels had graduated with his class from the Academy. The good news didn't end there though. One of them was Jeremy and the other was Shanna. They had both been flying an F/A-48 for no less than eight years now. They hadn't ever served together, but they had both been flight leaders within a squadron. James now knew who two of his flight leaders would be. Since he would also be a flight leader that only left one more to find before the squadron pilots arrived. James contacted Lt. General Madison and set up a meeting. It was time to find out what command thought he could do about the situation in front of him this time. She told him she would let him know when she had arranged things with everyone that needed to be there.

   James wasn't certain who else might be there, but he suspected it would tell him more about what to expect. He couldn't have been more wrong. There were only three other people in the room when James arrived. The only other military officer was Lt. General Madison. The two others were both diplomats. One was from Austria and the other from the Czech Republic. They both seemed to be more interested in meeting James than in anything else. Once the introductions were finished they fell silent. James listened as Madison carefully explained why the two men were there. It seemed that Russia was talking of cutting back fuel supplies to them unless they allowed Russia to build new military bases inside both countries. They might have been less concerned with the threats if not for a massive build up of Russian troops in what had been Slovakia. Russia had moved in several divisions of troops during the last few months, supposedly on maneuvers. Now it looked as if they were preparing to stay there for some time. It appeared to them that Russia was up to something else along the borders of their nations. James soon heard those concerns from the men; concerns about the increased unrest fuel shortages might cause for them if they refused Russian demands. Once they had their say, and Madison had assured the two men that the United States was very concerned about all of this, the pair of diplomats left. She had also hinted that concern for them was the reason Colonel Cooper had assumed command of the 480th fighter squadron, which was the first squadron of F/A-48's to be based in Germany. It was only after the diplomats had been satisfied that something was being done and had left that James heard the full story.