Been Winning So Long, I've Lost It - The Long War TL

[Blochead]

Oh, God. Oh blessed India.

This is a masterpiece. But the scariest part about it, to myself? Alt-McCain throughout the early part of this TL did pretty much everything I had believed Bush & Howard should have done during/after 9/11 - focus on bin Laden and the Taliban, don't invade Iraq.....and look how it turns out!

And I must say: I prefer your treatment of such an incendiary subject to the irresponsible wankfest still going on over in the execrable “One Nuke in 9/11” thread.

Right, the early part of the TL is what I thought would be a reasonable response to terror. Of course a lot of other stuff occurs too, mainly involving Pakistan, and allowing a coup in Iraq was high on the Saudi agenda but I'm not sure how much the US wanted to play that game in OTL.

As for the whole "wankfest" thing, no matter how dystopian things get, it will be VERY difficult to get the US to resort to Tancredo's "nuke Mecca" etc sort of discourse. Indeed, were such a loose Pakistani nuke scenario to occur today, I would expect a far more cooperative government and less chance of war. It was mainly due to the instability of Pakistan in TTL to begin with that made things here get really out of hand.

The US is leaving Pakistan? Selective service activated? Massive demands mad throughout the middle east.... ahhh!

Well, not quite leaving - what role US forces play next will be quite different.

 

[Archangel]

The death toll is going to be immense.

 

[maverick]

Damn, this Timeline truly defines the trope "It got worse"

It is also a wonderful deconstruction of the War on Terror genre, or just a very detailed and suspensful common worse case scenario dystopia...in any case its awesome!

Otherwise, did you get the PM I sent you? I hope it was useful.

 

[Workable Goblin]

My God, Pakistani-Indian nuclear conflict...you, sir, are a master of horrific-yet-plausible. Damn, I'm happy this wasn't OTL.

 

[FDW]

Keep this up, the dystopia makes my lips tingle!!!

 

[Blochead]

Damn, this Timeline truly defines the trope "It got worse"

It is also a wonderful deconstruction of the War on Terror genre, or just a very detailed and suspensful common worse case scenario dystopia...in any case its awesome!

Otherwise, did you get the PM I sent you? I hope it was useful.

I did get the PM you sent me, sorry for not replying back. It was very helpful indeed - I plan on going back to some of the regions and catching things up to the present moment in the TL just so the stuff that comes afterward can unfold with the global situation min mind.

 

[Historico]

Wow...was not expecting for India and Pakistan to finally go Nuclear, in the aftermath of the Bombing of Boston. I am kinda more interested in looking at the Domestic response to the Attacks such as What will be the total number of dead in Boston during the intital attack and from Radiation Poisining? Might we finally get the Draft reinstated if were going to be hunkering down in the smoldering remains of Pakistan? Wouldn't All the stress from the attacks may be worsening Johnny Boy's health?..so I still have a hunch that we may end up with a President Thompson before this is all over with. But anyways fantastic update BH...Keep this TL comming

 

[Praeses]

I personally don't think that a draft is going to be instituted yet, its more likely the pentagon is going to get more money to increase the size of the US army (the majority of defense spending goes to weapons development atm) and the draft would only occur if they were unable to meet those requirements.

Given what has happened ITL, I dont think they're going to have problems finding volunteers for the army.

As for hunkering down in Pakistan, i think the general idea is to keep the Taliban, etc from escaping as its pretty inevitable that India is going to invade as Mumbai is a smoldering ruin, etc...its going to be a pretty nasty war/occupation, but at least we have a more stable and trustworthy partner now....

 

[Gwendolyn Ingolfsson]

I personally don't think that a draft is going to be instituted yet, its more likely the pentagon is going to get more money to increase the size of the US army (the majority of defense spending goes to weapons development atm) and the draft would only occur if they were unable to meet those requirements.

Given what has happened ITL, I dont think they're going to have problems finding volunteers for the army.

Yeah, but don't forget about the impending wars with Iran, Syria, Iraq, possibly Saudi Arabia and Allah only knows who else. That's an awful lot of places to conquer/garrison, on top of all their other commitments.

This is starting to look alarmingly like Che Guevara's "Two, Three, Many Vietnams" scenario. I hope I'm wrong. I never thought I'd see a TL that makes Bush's handling of the war look positively Lincolnesque by comparison!

 

[Blochead]

Damn, this Timeline truly defines the trope "It got worse"

It is also a wonderful deconstruction of the War on Terror genre, or just a very detailed and suspensful common worse case scenario dystopia...in any case its awesome!

Otherwise, did you get the PM I sent you? I hope it was useful.

Yeah, but don't forget about the impending wars with Iran, Syria, Iraq, possibly Saudi Arabia and Allah only knows who else. That's an awful lot of places to conquer/garrison, on top of all their other commitments.

This is starting to look alarmingly like Che Guevara's "Two, Three, Many Vietnams" scenario. I hope I'm wrong. I never thought I'd see a TL that makes Bush's handling of the war look positively Lincolnesque by comparison!

To ease any confusion, the ultimatums delivered to other countries were nowhere near as harsh as that delivered to Pakistan, which the US already suspected was the origin, directly or indirectly, of the nuclear attack. But the intended effect was certainly to intimidate them.

Keep in mind that McCain also faced a much uglier 9/11 attack to begin with. So the purpose of this timeline is hardly to praise Bush, though it is inspired by much of the fear of what the war on terror could have been (remember MoveOn's "Daisy" ad from the run-up to Iraq, anyone?).

 

[Unknown]

At least I'm safe from being sent overseas, given that I am 150 pounds overweight. Talk about can of worms, Pandora's box, and it got worse.

How much worse can it get?

 

[Workable Goblin]

I personally don't think that a draft is going to be instituted yet, its more likely the pentagon is going to get more money to increase the size of the US army (the majority of defense spending goes to weapons development atm) and the draft would only occur if they were unable to meet those requirements.

McCain did say he was going to institute Selective Service...so the draft is on.

 

[Snowman23]

So, list of nuked places are..

• Boston
• Indian Fleet in Arabian Sea
  
• Indian Nuclear Launchers in Rajastan
• [FONT=&quot]Karachi[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Mumbai (Bombay)
  [/FONT]
• Rawalpindi
• Lahore

Did I miss anything else?

That has to be 10 million+ casualties.........

 

[Arachnid]

Proof that doing the right thing is the wrong thing to do.
I'm mean you would think that a intelligent, reasonably articulate war hero would be the best person to be 44th President. You would think that getting Bin Laden would be a good thing. You would think that focusing on a country where Madrassa's actually do churn out suicide bombers, not a secular (though nasty) dictatorship would be a good thing.
But no, the brown stuff has hit the spinning object.

 

[Alikchi]

Bumpity bump for excellence and my anticipation.

 

[Gwendolyn Ingolfsson]

Bumpity bump for excellence and my anticipation.

So let it be written, so let it be done.

 

[Orville_third]

Wow...this is cool. Wonder who else will go next?

 

[Blochead]

Proof that doing the right thing is the wrong thing to do.
I'm mean you would think that a intelligent, reasonably articulate war hero would be the best person to be 44th President. You would think that getting Bin Laden would be a good thing. You would think that focusing on a country where Madrassa's actually do churn out suicide bombers, not a secular (though nasty) dictatorship would be a good thing.
But no, the brown stuff has hit the spinning object.

Well, not quite. All of these policy steps could have turned out much better than I described. However, it is definitely an exercise in unintended consequences, and particularly a reflection on how lucky we are that the United States never turned the War on Terror into WWII.

McCain did say he was going to institute Selective Service...so the draft is on.

Yes. How rapidly it will initiate is another question. But you can bet the White House doesn't want to get caught with no federal troops to respond to a domestic nuclear attack if/when another bomb goes off.

Once again I apologize for the lack of updates. But with finals ending soon, there should be some more material coming up in a bit.

 

[Gwendolyn Ingolfsson]

Once again I apologize for the lack of updates. But with finals ending soon, there should be some more material coming up in a bit.

Yay! I was just thinking about this TL the other day.

Happy holidays to you!

 

[WestVirginiaRebel]

So I take it that Pakistan is now effectively out of the war...

I'd like to see more about the long-term effects of radiation on the East Coast and, of course, Katrina.

Looking forward to how this affects the 2006 mid-term elections (no Speaker Pelosi?)

I'm also concerned about The Mac's health. And Thomspon's probably wouldn't be much better by now. So, whoever's Speaker of the House by 2008 (John Boehner?) may have to wind up becoming President.

I haven't heard a great deal about Mexico. Does this mean troops on the border with the increasing drug violence that may now be war-related?

Who runs on the Democratic side in 2008? I assume the country is still in a hawkish mood four years after Boston, so maybe we see Hillary get the nomination...

So, I guess we really do live in the best of all possible worlds. Comforting thought...