Rast-approved:
Despotic governments can stand 'moral force' till the cows come home; what they fear is physical force.
(Eric Blair)
The events in Canada at the start of the campaign season completely up-ended the 1950 US House elections. President Patton immediately issued a partial mobilization order that sent half of the US army to within 100 miles of the Canadian border (though peacetime deployment already saw a quarter of the army in this area). He also sent a fleet to pursue the British task force, and called most of the rest of the Atlantic Fleet to rendezvous off of Norfolk.
The media was in an uproar. People were glued to their radios and televisions, newspaper sales skyrocketed, and rallies- not much of a fact of political life in the States since the 1930s- made their way along thoroughfares large and small across the country (though mostly in New England).
Some people were scared, others were angry. With all this recent adventurism- in Asia, in Latin America, and most recently in Africa- the government had let the nation’s most dangerous foe sit unchallenged right next door! Indeed, many people felt the government was complicit in actively encouraging them to think the British weren’t controlling Canada, that Canada was a free land that made its own decisions, a solid buffer between the States and the madmen in London. There was a bit of truth to this statement, but there was no active conspiracy- rather, many American politicians had simply fallen for the lie themselves.
While the nation was confused about whether to support war or simply a greater defense, one thing was certain: the so-called parties of appeasement were to be punished at the polls. These included the Farmer-Labor Party and the Free Market Party. The niche anti-war faction in the Progressive Party was nearly wiped out, but most of the party had always been in favor of a strong and engaging foreign policy. The seats that they lost were made up for by more bellicose left-wingers taking former FLP districts.
But the main beneficiaries were the two parties most heavily shaped by the British expatriate community: the Conservatives and the Liberals. Unfortunately for the two parties, they often fought over much of the same electoral ground, and somewhat blunted their advantage.
The other surprise winner was the relatively resurgent right-wing America First Party, given new life and purpose with this recent attack. While still ideologically muddled, the party had learned to be an umbrella for a number of interesting strains of thought on the right.
At the end of the day, the Progressives squeaked by with the largest margin. Within hours of the polls closing, Alice Roosevelt made the unorthodox move of contacting President Patton to join her in a meeting with Conservative leader Sam Rayburn and Liberal leader Henry Cabot Lodge. In Roosevelt’s mind, the country needed a stable government faster than usual, and there was only one clear coalition that would work. The FLP and FMP were discredited as peaceniks, and the AFP were just insane. No, the three major parties would have to form a unity government, and best not to be coy about it. She wasn’t happy about working with the Liberals, but there was no point in petulance.
Patton was there to help them discuss strategy. In many ways, this was the easiest part of their meeting. One could ignore hostile governments as long as they were dictated by reasonable, stable systems. No one, not even the almost absurdly willfully ignorant COMECON could possibly characterize the current British system as stable or reasonable. The ruin of the world was in the hands of a whimsical few; such a situation could not stand. As reluctant as Rayburn, Roosevelt, and Lodge were to end this farce, they agreed that there was no other option. Patton had less natural reluctance to seek out confrontation, but of course even he was wary of a nuclear battlefield. His 18th-century mindset was entirely opposed to the concept as dishonorable.
They eventually agreed on a three-pronged approach to the British Problem.
First, they would increase military spending. The navy, just beginning to show its age, would be thoroughly overhauled and modernized. Hopefully, they could sell off some of their perfectly good but unremarkable old ships to their new allies in the Havana Pact, China, and maybe the WAU. The army had spent the last decade focusing on supply chain optimization, which remained of crucial importance in a potential war against vast, sparsely-populated Canada. However, a second watchword now entered their vocabulary: mobility. The (relatively small) US Army was 100% auto-mobile, but now they would seek to make it 100% mechanized, with personnel carriers and helicopters being tested for large-scale orders. Meanwhile the nation’s modern air force, one of the best in the world, would seek to maintain its edge. Additionally, significant funds were thrown at the problem of the Arrows, to see if they could be detected and shot down, or possibly diverted from their targets.
There would also be an increased focus on civil defense. Civil defense was already a significant priority for the US. All railburgs built after 1943 were required to have municipal shelter space for 1/3rd of residents, with most private homes and apartment buildings also featuring hardened underground spaces. Over 700 miles of subway track had been laid in the US in the past decade, with 2,000 miles more in the planning stages. These tunnels would hold literally millions of urban Americans in an emergency. Funding was laid out to retrofit public buildings, schools, and hospitals with underground shelters. Strategic supply stockpiles would be set up around the country. Preparedness systems would be put into place. A study would be commissioned on the use of mine shafts for large-scale sheltering. And discussions were begun on putting into place redundant military and government command posts in the event of an emergency.
These moves were meant to placate the electorate more than anything. Everyone (except for Patton) assumed that their real strategy was contained in the other two prongs.
The second prong would be diplomatic. The US would seek to capitalize on its recent upturn in international standing by supporting the efforts of other nations to undermine Britain. The Havana Pact was certainly interested in removing the British presence in the Caribbean. Most of the rebel movements in the region were financed directly by London and answered to Kingston. The Argentines had long wanted the Falklands; the Indians, Sumatrans, and Siamese actively claimed the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Both the Japanese and Australia/New Zealand coveted the British Pacific territories of Fiji, the Solomon Islands, and a myriad of Polynesian and Micronesian dots in the sea. The Japanese were a special case, definitely not a welcome crowd in Washington these days. Cooperation was probably impossible, but it was worth sounding them out on this one front...as long as the Chinese didn’t find out.
Third, and most contentious, would be an increased infiltration of Canada through both its unprotected hinterland and its under-policed New England border. Despite the change in government, cross-border families still managed to subvert border controls on a regular basis, and communication was frequent. For now, no direct overthrow of the Canadian government would be attempted or even considered. They already had contacts amongst the Quebec nationalists, but such open hostility would be fatal at this stage. Rather, this would be an information game. Every aspect of society would be tracked, the national mood monitored, fault lines discovered and catalogued for later exploitation. Nothing would be initiated that couldn’t be plausibly denied. Agents would be drastically compartmentalized and easily disavowed.
The military spending would ramp up immediately in the lame duck session, with the Liberals agreeing to vote in favor and the Progressives agreeing to ignore the protests of the FLP. The diplomatic approach would obey the natural pace of that sphere, and always in the background, never publicized. The clandestine approach would begin team-building immediately, but ramped up deployment of agents wouldn’t begin until at least late 1951.
Once the immediate response was worked out, the moment of political unity passed quickly. The coming months would be a difficult negotiation to reconcile the agendas of the center-left and center-right parties of the nation. This put Sam Rayburn in a very powerful position, as his centrist voting block was generally crucial to achieving any result. And the nation was fortunate to find him in such a role; he was proving himself to be the greatest political compromiser of the age. If the PP-CP-LP coalition lasted three full years, the country would have Sam Rayburn to thank.
Still, the domestic agenda would be no picnic to set in place...
