Twilight 2014

[Tom Kalbfus]

Remember the precursor to the 2300 campaign, it was called Twilight 2000, and by the way, it had nothing to do with vampires! Seems like for now we have a scenario for Twilight 2014, it is an interesting year, it is the 100th anniversary for World War I or the Great War as it was often called If you remember the scenario for Twilight 2000, it began in Poland around August to December. Basically is was World War III. How would Twilight 2014 be different?

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

How would Twilight 2014 be different?

To start with, the US becomes second-world. While Russia is the sole first-world power.

 

[Rick]

The 'Final War' in the Twilight 2000 setting was following the old idea of the USSR as an aggressor and US/NATO being caught up in a war not of their choosing across the breadth of Europe initially, from Poland to France, with eventual counter-attacks back into Poland and Warsaw Pact countries.

In 2014, there are no Warsaw Pact countries; NATO is on the Russian border and, rather than Russia, the USA appears to be the more aggressive state! Plus the 'technology gap' between East and West military equipment has shrunk significantly.

I think if you were looking at a scenario for Twilight 2014, you would have to have a total rethink - perhaps some extremist terrorist group using nuclear weapons to provoke a war between East and West?

 

[steelbrok]

Russia annexes parts of the Ukraine, Ukraine fights back, asks west to honour the commitments made...

 

[Rick]

Russia annexes parts of the Ukraine, Ukraine fights back, asks west to honour the commitments made...

The Ukraine situation is more likely to end up as a political slanging match between NATO and Russia, refereed by OSCE on who broke the provisions of the 1997 Founding Act first, whilst Ukraine messily divides itself in two - pro-european west and pro-russian south-east!!

The Ukraine military has been so badly neglected in the last decade that I don't think it would be able to put up any sort of a fight even if Russia was stupid enough to invade.
Despite the hyperbole and propaganda from BOTH sides, I just don't see Ukraine being the first step to war.

 

[dmccoy1693]

Even though they are not saying so publicly, the interim Ukrainian government is happy that peninsula is gone. That party lost the national election by 0.5 million votes while they lost that region by 1 million votes. If Russia stops there, they will not be too upset.

Having said that, Russia has been doing this little trick for a few years now. Georgia lost part of its territory and Russia and a smattering of other countries that Russia paid off as independent nations.

The only way this will spark WW3 is if Russia tries this with a NATO country (aka Poland or one of the Baltic stares).

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Even though they are not saying so publicly, the interim Ukrainian government is happy that peninsula is gone. That party lost the national election by 0.5 million votes while they lost that region by 1 million votes. If Russia stops there, they will not be too upset.

Having said that, Russia has been doing this little trick for a few years now. Georgia lost part of its territory and Russia and a smattering of other countries that Russia paid off as independent nations.

The only way this will spark WW3 is if Russia tries this with a NATO country (aka Poland or one of the Baltic stares).

That has been predicted by George Friedman in his book THE NEXT 100 YEARS: A FORECAST for the 21st CENTURY He predicted a second Cold War in 2009, he forcast that Ukraine would be invaded. He predicts that Russia will collapse after it has exhausted itself with a much shorter Cold War, and then Poland and Turkey will descend upon it like vultures on a carcass. Poland will pick up the Slavic pieces, and Turkey the Muslim parts. He also predicts that China will collapse and that Japan will build another empire out of its parts. The United States will ally with Poland while Japan allies with Turkey, not all that different from the Twilight 2000 scenario, which predicts that Russia will collapse also, but for different reasons.

 

[Rick]

Now that sounds like a much more interesting scenario - although Twilight 2040 could be a more reasonable timescale. You'd be looking at a much, much smaller Russia, a sino-japanese pacific rim power bloc (with an aligned India and possibly as far south as Australia and New Zealand) and a bigger Europe with a more Easterly centre. Given the amount of US debt that China now holds, the US might decline a little as well.

 

[Sigtrygg]

We are roughly at the same place we were when Germany took Austria.

If Russia take eastern Ukraine then its has echoes of German occupation of Czechoslovakia.

If Russia stops there there will be no war. If Russia tries to take ethnic-Russian areas from a NATO affiliate that's when the missiles start flying.

Let's call it T:2015 to give it time to happen.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

I think NATO would do nothing regardless of what the Russians do. NATO is like the UN these days.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Well why did they join NATO in the first place if they didn't want to defend themselves? you think Poland cares if Russia swallows up all of Ukraine including territory that used to belong to Poland as recently as the 1930s. Poland is a NATO member, so is the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Romania, if they want to have a collective defense against Russia, since they were so recently satellite countries of Russia, I think most of them would rather remain free and independent of Russia that go back to being Satellite countries as they once were. Countries that are further away from Russia will tend to be more indifferent, those that are closer will take a more active role, or might even act alone. For instance if Russia invades Western Ukraine, Poland might decide to take back its land before the Ukraine completely collapses, Though Spain might try to appease Russia because it is far away and it feels safe for the time being. The main difference in a Twlight 2014 scenario is that there is no Warsaw Pact.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Russia will take what it wishes and no one will or can fight back.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Russia will take what it wishes and no one will or can fight back.

Russia has a $2 trillion economy versus EU's $15 trillion economy. So your saying there is nothing stopping Russia from taking all of Europe and ending up with a $17 trillion economy because Europe won't oppose him? That seems hard to believe. Do you think the Russians will cross the English Channel and take over Great Britain without opposition? Prove it!

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Russia will take what it wishes and no one will or can fight back.

Russia has a $2 trillion economy versus EU's $15 trillion economy. So your saying there is nothing stopping Russia from taking all of Europe and ending up with a $17 trillion economy because Europe won't oppose him? That seems hard to believe. Do you think the Russians will cross the English Channel and take over Great Britain without opposition? Prove it!

Russia talking all of Europe and Britain is your idea.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Russia will take what it wishes and no one will or can fight back.

Russia has a $2 trillion economy versus EU's $15 trillion economy. So your saying there is nothing stopping Russia from taking all of Europe and ending up with a $17 trillion economy because Europe won't oppose him? That seems hard to believe. Do you think the Russians will cross the English Channel and take over Great Britain without opposition? Prove it!

Russia talking all of Europe and Britain is your idea.

You did say, "Russia will take what it wishes and no one will or can fight back." What if Putin wishes to be emperor of Europe, will someone stop him? Putin's ego ca inflate very easily if we don't give him any resistance, that is what happened to Hitler after all.

Well the question does come down o just how much of Europe, Europe is willing to let Russia have. Say if Germany says to Russia, "Go ahead take Poland, we don't mind," don't you think they might worry about France saying, "Go ahead, take Germany, we don't mind," and then Britain could say, "we lost enough men in France in World War I and II, maybe that was enough, lets let Russia take France. Then the United States could by isolationist again and let Russia take Britain. How stupid do you think we are? When the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii wasn't a state, why should we care about it? None of the lower 48 states were attacked.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

You did say, "Russia will take what it wishes and no one will or can fight back." What if Putin wishes to be emperor of Europe, will someone stop him?

Is that what he wants?

 

[GypsyComet]

SInce T:2k is not a Mongoose product, this probably needs to go to the Off-Topic Board. http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewforum.php?f=126

 

[Condottiere]

Putin is making Russia tread water, because in the long term, Russia has bet it's future on energy and resources, with a declining Orthodox demographic, increasing Islamic radicalism, bourgeoisie brain drain, capital flight, bureaucratic graft, unsettled foreign investors, mafia encroachment, and a lot of rather unpleasant things that you can think of.

The Russians will probably have to hock their country to the Chinese, at cutrate energy prices, while the oligarchs prepare their nest eggs in London and set up just in case exile homes in West Europe.

The Chinese may actually survive and overcome their forthcoming economic, demographic and environmental tsunami.

 

[enderra]

NATO is on the Russian border and, rather than Russia, the USA appears to be the more aggressive state!

You must not be following recent world events too closely. I don't want to get into a big politics discussion, and I am not going to claim that the US is a peace-loving, innocent nation, but Russian aggression in recent years is as transparent as the infamous Iraq power point slides were ten years ago.

That said, as others have pointed out, Ukraine is not likely to directly trigger WW3. However, a somewhat plausible scenario might be that Russia, emboldened by Western division, actually tries the same trick on Lithuania (no, I do not think Putin would be that stupid, but then, stranger things have happened before).

Alternatively or additionally, if the EU decides to get serious about sanctions - especially if they stop buying russian gas - it could easily crash the Russian economy. There are nervous jitters already (as reported by the Russian finance ministry). Perhaps Putin decides that attack is the best defensive; or perhaps he genuinely sees it as a pre-cursor to NATO invasion. Be that as it may, if Russia is threatened with sinking into 1990s poverty again, it may act out of desperation. I'd probably go with such a scenario.

 

[Balfuset790]

You did say, "Russia will take what it wishes and no one will or can fight back." What if Putin wishes to be emperor of Europe, will someone stop him?

Is that what he wants?

Blanket one-line statements like this, and the previous comment above, without any sort of explanation or justification don't seem all that helpful.

The point is we're speculating based on the fictional history of an old RPG combined with modern news and politics. Saying that 'no-one will or can fight back' and then responding to further supposition with a question that amounts to 'prove it' seems counter-productive. Maybe you'd care to elaborate a little bit on why you think Russia would go unopposed if they decided to move further afield from their current Ukrainian incursion?