The beginning of the Apocalypse

     "Mr President, the Russians have invaded Germany," said National Security Advisor Scowcroft to President George Herbert Walker Bush as he sat in the Oval Office. "Prepare the Situation Room and assemble the Chiefs of Staff. Tell them I will join them," replied Bush. Bush was now perplexed. "What to do? First the coup against Gorbachev, then the abrogation of the INF treaty, then the increase of troop levels in Eastern Europe and Afghanistan, then the support to Saddam Hussein and now this," he thought.

    Indeed the recent events in Europe were a cause of worry to the US. It all started in 1990 when Mikhail Gorbachev was killed after a successful coup by a hardliner communist faction within the Soviet Communist party. The new Soviet chief Vladimir Yeltsin immediately undid all the things done by Gorbachev. He stopped Perestroika and Glasnost, increased troop levels in Afghanistan and retook control of Eastern Europe by deposing non-communist governments and increasing troop levels in communist governments as well as abrogated the INF treaty. Thus the Warsaw pact was active again! He also offered arms sales to Iraq as well as provided diplomatic support in its occupation of Kuwait and helped thwart the attempt of the US forces to liberate Kuwait. Now the USSR was clearly winning the Cold War and the legitimacy of the US as a superpower was at stake.

    Bush thought, "Now what to do? How do I restore credibility to my country? Already the CIA has failed in Afghanistan. Our armed forces have failed in Kuwait. Communist governments have again sprung up in Eastern Europe and the USSR has an advantage in the armed forces over us." In fact, numerically speaking the Soviets outnumbered the US in terms of the armed forces, a fact which worried Bush very much. He knew that there was the only option left now and he did not want to think about it. That option was to start a nuclear war with the Russians. However, starting a nuclear war was not without its perils as a nuclear first strike would mean an assured retaliation. The President was already shivering at the thought of nuclear war. He thought, "Well I should have considered such a prospect before. The moment Yeltsin came into power, it was a tripwire. I did the right thing in raising the DEFCON level to 1. At least this has given us the time to mobilize forces quickly." Bush sighed as he entered the situation room.

    Inside the situation room, the mood was very grim. The enemy had already overwhelmed the German army and was laying siege on Berlin where the 101st airborne division was deployed. The US was lucky that Germany was reunified before the coup otherwise the US troops in Berlin would have been encircled already. General Austin, chief of staff of the Army was saying that " Mr President the situation looks very grim, we have been surprised. Probably the enemy had been planning this for a few weeks. The military exercises in Poland conducted recently are proof of that. Our lack of medium-range and intermediate-range nuclear assets due to the INF treaty further limits our response and we have destroyed most of our tactical nuclear assets. Now the only thing left to do is to launch a first strike on the USSR." Bush knew that the General was right. He opened his nuclear football in order to access the launch codes and organize a nuclear attack knowing well that his decision would begin the apocalypse.