Invasion: Germany

The Invasion of Germany, also known as the Battle of Germany or the Berlin Blitz was an intercontinental attack (and counterattack) on Germany and the European Union by China, Turkey and the Russian Union State and populist forces and employed the first-ever large-scale use of autonomous weaponry in place of heavy armor. The battle overshadowed the WWII conflict by a wide margin.

The inevitability of this conflict was foreshadowed before WWIII even began with Russian and Belarusian involvement in the Gaza-Israel conflict that began in 2006, during the Syrian Civil War, and finally culminated in the Second Winter War on New Years 2022 and the Balkan Offensive on 18 April 2026, when Russia and Belarus invaded or attacked the Balkans, leading to three years of non-stop conflict involving erratic skirmishes between the UN and pro-Russian forces. Turkey and Russia led by the Wagner Group sought to return the Balkans to authoritarian rule, and eventually the rest of the region, in a "Crusade" to restore the Russian and Ottoman Empires, hoping to eclipse the United States and EU in power and establish an "Inter-Imperial State".

2027
June – The Scottish Prime Minister and the House of Commons call on RECON for an emergency summit between IF and NATO powers in regards to a massive buildup of troops and armor on the border between Scotland and England. NATO declines the invitation, but the IF attends with rigor, still at odds over Pharaoh’s justifiably unfulfilled demand that the US cede Virginia, Georgia and the Carolinas back to the Crown. Just a week ago Queen Elizabeth II had died, and Great Britain, transformed by the British Civil War, Rebel England and Third Global Conflict, splits the Monarchy down the middle between those loyal to England and those supporting a reunification of Britain. The latter are forced into exile, but Scotland and Ireland pledge to defend them from their political opponents.

The highlights at the meeting are Pharaoh’s steady – but gradually declining – cooperation with Syria and Greece invading the French island of Corsica. Apparently, Pharaoh had cooperated with the Kim Regime and Turkish MİT, Islamist and JaF assets to sow conflict in the Middle-East and Central Asia to distract from the invasion of Corsica, due to the presence of anti-Pharaoh rebels on the island. Through cooperation with RECON, the British government-in-exile begins plans for a coup to overthrow Chancellor Pharaoh and his supporters in London. Meanwhile, RECON-Unit 1-11 and NATO forces arrive in Corsica to beat back Turkish-backed forces attacking the island. Unit 1-11, with heavy assistance from France and Sard rebels, defeat the Turks and free the Corsican people from enemy hands.

August – The EU and U.S. declare military action, steamrolling the North Aegean, Peloponnese and Crete, and invading Malta, Northern Cyprus and Tunisia, before Turkey's launching of an ICBM barrage at French and Italian bases across the Mediterranean, Central Greece and South Aegean from forward operating bases in Crete and the North Aegean, in addition to the detonations of two nuclear warheads in Cappadocia by NATO out of retaliation against a Turkish–Russian invasion of Cyprus and an unsuccessful Turkish-led Invasion of Syria. Nearly a million are killed almost instantaneously. NATO and IF are on-site within the hour, with Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Poland and Spain committing a majority of their amenable military forces supported by the 67 NATO-Allied UN (as well as the other 20 Nations openly opposing COSECTOR) into UNTAES and UNMIK zones in Serbia, where a Turkish–Hungarian Joint-Force led by Transylvanian Dictator Dragomir Radu is waging guerrilla warfare. Hungary, supported by Turkish and Szekely ultranationalist paramilitary and armed battalions and armies led by Radu and the Russians, attempts to establish a foothold, but Coalition forces are able to beat back the invaders by September.

Late August – Turkish–Russian infiltrators seize upon the finance-weary Balkans to bolster and erect an effective bulwark powerful enough to threaten most of Eastern Europe. An international summit convenes between the EU, Scotland, NATO and beleaguered Ukrainian opposition in Bratislava, Slovakia, at the behest of the Slovak President in Grassalkovich Palace - the last stronghold of Czechs, and Slovaks of the Slovak Republic of Central Europe - Slovenská Stredoeurópska Republika (SSR). It is when the leaders of NATO are convened that a bombing eliminates most of NATO’s command structure… immediately followed by an occupation and invasion of Slovakia and the Czech Republic by Turkish Ground Forces. The invasion of Europe by a Turkish force and the Turkish-Russian offensive earlier that month provides a distraction, putting the entire region into shock. Meanwhile, Turkey had - utilizing a ground force consisting of over a million in manpower, 10,000 tanks, armor and artillery as well as hundreds of rocket projectors - finished off the weakened Greek, Egyptian and Israeli military destabilized by the ongoing insurgency, and occupied this and other countries shortly after a rigged unification of Moldova and Romania (which results in the collapse of both countries) at the behest of pro-Moldovan and pro-Russian elements within the Romanian government (primarily out of opposition to Radu, who himself was elevated by pro-Eurasian Yugoslavs). At the same time of the Turkish occupation of Romania occurred, so too did the unification of Eastern Ukraine (and in time, the rest) with Russia, Transnistria and Crimea - overseen by the Kremlin and CoSECTOR. Even before Russia had dissolved the Czech and Slovak military and infrastructure, the new ultra-nationalist-imperialist government in Russia laid claim to the allegiance of well over 20 million across Eastern Europe and an occupied territory encompassing nearly 1 million kilometers (619,669.25 miles) at its height. Ukraine would collapse in on itself the following year due to crumbling infrastructure, oligarch's embezzling needed funds to facilitate protracted war-footing occupation of such scale, and a temporarily-successful push from Moscow to re-annex Ukraine into the Eurasian successor state to the Soviet Union.

Turkey and Russia's carrier task force enter and occupy the Balkans, utilizing 2 million soldiers, 8,000 AFV, 5,000 tanks, 500 MLRs, and 600 SPGs, as well as half of their air force – roughly 5,000 craft to push the Allies back. The Turks and Russians, led by Radu, Beijing and infamous Ukrainian Secret Police Chief Nikita Kravychko, shut down the Romanian communes by pouring over a third of their entire military strength into the regions, quickly locking down the city and setting up a forward operating base to allow their air craft to join in on the bombardment and invasion of the communes. Before anything can be done, the Turks and Russians quickly shut down Austria, sending half of the invasion force north, and the other half south – back into the Turkish-occupied Austrian South. Their MLRs and SPG – as well as all air powers – remain in Austria, but are suspiciously ordered northeast shortly thereafter. With over a third of their missile strength aimed for mainland Europe, the Russo–Turk force drives home their implied message with one final saber-swing. The top-secret U.S. orbital strike (Directed Energy Munitions Orbiter – “DEMO”) program (stationed in orbit over Western Europe to safeguard the United States’ NATO allies from potential Eurasian attack in the 21st Century) went offline in early August and by August 11th it was made abundantly clear that this was a Turkish-caused problem. Controlled by Ankara, Budapest and Moscow by this time – the Turkish government faced a sizable NATO-spearheaded invasion from European forces roughly a week later and used the weapon on the resistance in Szeged, Csongrád County, and Austria, destroyed and rendered vast areas of the region uninhabitable, killing an estimate 286,664, a still-devastatingly-high body-count that could have been as high as 1,000,000 had RECON not done their part to get as many civilians and resistance fighters to safety.

Unfortunately, their actions prove for naught. A few minutes later, before the weapon can be shot down, the Turkish presidency orders a DEMO strike on Malta out of retaliation for the EU's threats. The island nation is destroyed, and rendered uninhabitable – 651,023 people are killed instantaneously. Turkey immediately after invades Serbia from Bulgaria and Romania leading to the Siege of Novi Sad that lasts through varying, tapering degrees of escalation throughout WWIII, and the destruction wrought by this time provides enough of a distraction to allow Turkey, which had been (unknowingly) cooperating with Budapest and Moscow since the end of the Cold War to pioneer the penultimate orbital WMD, to unleash a monster upon their enemies the likes of which nobody to ever walk the Earth has ever before witnessed.



September 2027 – Hidden amid the thousands of satellites and pieces of debris orbiting Earth, a weapon system far beyond the level of technological advancement of any combination of dominant economies or militaries the forces of Earth could ever hope to bolster sat just beyond the prying eyes of the Human Race. Turkey, China and Russia gain official jurisdiction over the COSECTOR’s secret joint-army of MAWS – Mechanized Autonomous Weapon Systems – pledging to use them against their enemies. Whereas about half of NATO’s forces were tied down in the Middle-East, Europe was left without much defense at home, and most European nations had virtually no standing military left, economically dependent on the United States after the Cold War. In major European capitals and cities – Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Bonn, Geneva, Oslo, Madrid, Strasbourg, Manchester, Yorkshire and Athens – as well as Lima, Bogota, Toronto, Vancouver, Guatemala City, San Salvador, Quito, Puebla and Montreal on the American continent (although all inbound for the United States are shot down by US ICBM barrages) over 3,100 MAW units deploy from orbit all across the planet into standby mode, bearing the flags and insignia of the countries of Turkey, China and Russia (all found to be under the control of the Cumhurbaşkanlığı Külliyesi and Zhongnanhai), as well as a cadre of smaller MAWS from the Latin American countries of Chile, Argentina and Peru (also under the control of the Cumhurbaşkanlığı Külliyesi and Zhongnanhai). Upon activation, just 50 MAWS are able to lay waste to an entire countryside. The death toll tops 100,000 within just 48 hours of global MAW activation. It isn’t a moment later; however, that RECON and NATO are assembled for an emergency summit at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. It is here that it is discovered that not only do Russia, China and Turkey possess an estimate 2,550-strong MAW force – but as do the French, Scottish, US, Canada and South Korea (Germany, India, Poland, the Netherlands and Switzerland also possess smaller, cheaper MAWS), with a combined force of over 4,200 – the Scottish and US possessing a combined 2,308 of the units prepped and ready to go as was the Koreans' (whose had been kept secret since the early 1970’s) Archer One (1,892). With units inbound for Europe, and some deployed into America, the Joint-Chiefs assess that although the two sides’ MAW forces are evenly matched, they denote that unlike the NATO and IF MAWS which involve some form of human interaction into the Autonomous equation, the hulking Turkish, Chinese and Russian MAWS are 100% literal, AI-powered killing machines.

U.S. media coverage
Beginning with the initial 9 September 2027 MAW deployment into Central and Northern Europe until the cessation of hostilities in Europe in early 2029, the major U.S. news networks of Fox News, MSNBC and CNN covered the violence ceaselessly, in stark contrast to the decades-long US-led drone warfare in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Japan and Belarus between 2001 and 2022, which were poorly covered by American media, particularly regarding Iraq. The international community highly criticized the U.S. for this behavior, leading to historians in the late-22nd century to contest the official narrative of a "turncoat Union State leading an Anti-UN resistance movement," emphasizing the collapse of the U.S. and China as a "delayed reaction" to systemic corruption, decades of unilateral aggression and the largely-neutral role played by the U.S. and British Commonwealth implicating the UN as a whole as the instigator of WWIII.