The
Real World is a Messy Place
The Empire’s Corps series (currently eight books on Kindle) is intended to serve two
purposes. First and foremost, it is
intended to be great entertainment, precisely the sort of books I like to
read. Second, it is intended to
illustrate many of the problems facing our world, be it the poor state of
education (Reality Check)
or the issues in dealing with an insurgency with insufficient resources (The Empire’s
Corps) or the poisonous effects of bureaucracy and political corruption
(When The Bough Breaks). One of those problems is just how politics
can cast a long shadow over military operations
... And how politics can lead to poor
decision-making processes.
One of my readers suggested that the
situation in Retreat Hell,
the new novel in the series, was similar to the situation in To The Shores,
the previous novel. That is only true on
the surface (and not really even then.)
The military issue of To The
Shores was remarkably straightforward.
All the heroes had to do was get from Point A to Point B before time ran
out, which involved fighting their way through a succession of enemy
strongpoints and mobile forces that tried to bar their path. There were, at least on the surface, no
outside powers that might become involved, nor was there any need to pacify the
galactic media or the locals themselves.
The whole war boiled down to a simple march up through enemy defences.
Retreat
Hell presents a very different situation.
The only thing worse than having allies,
as Winston Churchill once pointed out, is not having allies. And allies can be very useful, particularly
in the modern field of war. Our soldiers
may be the deadliest on the planet, but when they are forced to interact with
local civilians they have very real problems understanding or relating to them. Thus we have the problem of our soldiers
becoming convinced that the local civilians are all against them, which tends
to lead to abuse and a general lack of concern about their lives. And having the ability to put a local face on
military operations helps to move the burden of the war onto our allies, which
is the only long-term solution to some of the problems we face.
However, having allies also has its
downsides.
It is a simple fact of geopolitics that
every country has different political priorities. America and Britain grew powerful through
command of the seas; France, Germany and Russia simply couldn't afford to build
formidable navies when they also had to build vast armies. In modern days, American attempts to limit
the ABM commitment to Poland have been resisted by the Poles, who fear Russia
(with good reason) and want a much greater sign of American commitment to their
defence.
Our allies have also caused problems in
the War on Terror. The requirement to
use Pakistan as a supply line into Afghanistan has made it difficult for us to
strong-arm Pakistan into abandoning the Taliban completely. Pakistan has been hedging its bets in the
region, which makes a great deal of sense when you realise that the Pakistanis
fully expect us to abandon Afghanistan sooner or later, while they cannot do
the same because Afghanistan is right next door. Further, as our allies have local problems of
their own, they cannot always support us to the extent we would wish. For example, the provisional Iraqi government
was none too keen on the idea of turning against Shia militias in Basra and
Baghdad, as these militias provided a key source of support (and would be
potent enemies if turned against the government.)
For Retreat
Hell, the Commonwealth is faced with a comparable no-win situation.
The insurgency on Thule is opposed to
the Commonwealth. If it wins, and it has
a very good chance of winning, the Commonwealth will be asked to leave
Thule. If that happens, a powerful
industrial node will be lost to the Commonwealth. Complicating matters is the simple fact that
a hostile interstellar empire is right next door and is clearly supplying
weapons to the insurgents, which raises the spectre of them handing the planet
over to the outsiders as soon as they win the war (and thus tipping the
military balance further against the Commonwealth.) And the hostile power might just invade on
its own.
So what choice should the Commonwealth
make? Send assistance to a local
government that is far from ideal or leave it to sink or swim on its own?
If they don’t send help, they will lose
access to Thule when the insurgency takes control. And the Commonwealth’s reputation will be
called into question by every other planet facing internal troubles. But if they do send help, they will have work
with their allies and their allies may want the Commonwealth to act in ways
contrary to their own best interests.
And they would run the risk of exposing their flanks to a sneak attack
...
Which choice should they make?
Retreat
Hell can be downloaded from Amazon Kindle; free samples are
available here.
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