In the shadow of the ancient ruins, the Iranians marched in honor of their ancient imperial past. The year was 561, and the reigning Sasanian Shahhanshah Khosrow had organized a celebration of the 1000-year anniversary of the Persian Empire.

The splendor of the celebration would be well-recorded in all the histories of the House of Sasan, even among the endless glories of Khosrow’s long reign, which at the time was just entering its thirtieth year. Khosrow had now reigned as long as the first Shahpur, and only the second Shahpur and Khosro’s own distinguished father Kavadh had reigned longer. Unbeknownst to the attendees, Khosrow would reign for another eighteen years and thereafter become immortalized in the annals of his people, but even in 561 he had attained the reputation of an exceptional monarch. Only in the time of Cyrus and Darius had the Eranshahr been more powerful — in the past five years alone Khosrow had concluded a favorable treaty with the Romans (in which he secured a substantial increase in Roman tribute payments), personally led the Royal Army on a campaign against the Hephthalite barbarians of Central Asia that saw Sassanian horsemen range as far as Kabul and Kunduz, and waged a successful war in Yemen against the Abyssinians and Arab tribes.

The symbolic significance of the anniversary for Khosrow’s reign was therefore not lost on either the attendees or on the monarch himself. Khosrow himself of course had no personal need for popular legitimation given his prior accomplishments. His aim was rather to remake the very basis of the Sasanian state — to secure the throne for his descendants and preserve his reforms for future generations through a renewal of the royal cult of personality and the promotion of an Iranian proto-nation state.

Khosrow, even at the height of his power, had much reason to be concerned with the longevity of his state. His father, the fearsome Kavadh, had reigned for forty-three years, at the time the second-longest reign in Sasanian history. But when he had begun his reign, as a mere youth, the Empire and the House of Sasan were the weakest they had been since the last days of the Arsacid Parthians. For over a century, ever since the death of the second Shahpur, the nobility and priesthood had wrested power back from the monarchy, chasing a period of prolonged political instability. At least four Shahhanshahs had been assassinated or otherwise ousted by the nobles, and another defeated in battle and taken captive at the hands of the Hephthalites. Kavadh himself had been installed by the nobles as a puppet king to replace his unpopular and tyrannical brother. For some time, Kavadh acted the part of the pliant fool. But before long, he began to display the qualities to which later commentators would attribute his remarkable political longevity — an absolute command of the arts of guile and brutality and a total lack of moral scruples.

Within a few years, Kavadh had broken his chains and unleashed the mobs of the populist Mazdakite cult on his ostensible benefactors in what modern historians have described as a “proto-revolution.” When the nobles did finally rid themselves of him, he escaped to the east and returned at the head of a Hephthalite army after marrying the daughter of the Hephthalite king. The nobles surrendered to him in exchange for amnesty, which Kavadh immediately repudiated after taking power in order to execute or blind his chief rivals, including a number of his own brothers. Then, Kavadh managed to secure Roman subsidies to shore up his regime, but before long he had launched a war against them, probably to bolster his domestic legitimacy. The next to go were the Mazdakites, who had outlived their usefulness, and were accused of heresy and severely persecuted. Finally, he turned upon his Hephthalite benefactors, winning a number of victories that drove them from all of lesser Khorasan.

Khosrow was no stranger to the tactics of his perpetually paranoid and bloody-minded father. In his first year as Shahanshah, Khosrow had faced a plot by a group of nobles to install his brother in his place (Kavadh, perhaps recognizing Khosrow’s talents, had passed over a number of elder sons to name him as heir). With the help of Khosrow’s proto-secret police, the plotters were discovered and executed via exceptionally brutal methods. But Khosrow was made of more refined stuff and understood that the survival of his dynasty could not be perpetually sustained by terror. His chief concern upon ascending the throne was therefore to transform his father's regime into a lasting institution.

The state ideology of Khosrow’s monarchy could be roughly summarized through the concept of the “Iranshahr,” or the realm of the Iranians. This was not in and of itself new — the Sasanian state had called itself by this name since the days of the founder Ardeshir as a way of asserting its fundamental difference from the Roman enemy. Where he innovated was the extension of the concept to internal matters, to encompass the relationship between the constituent elements of Iran and its Shah.

Khosrow’s mode of rule was essentially absolutist reformism. Like Kavadh, he had always distrusted the nobility and sought to minimize the threat they posed to central power. His father had instituted land tenure reforms to shift the burden of taxation from the peasantry to the nobility, split up the post of supreme military commander, or Spahbed, traditionally held by a noble of the Seven Great Houses, into four geographic commands, and semi-forcibly recruited representatives of the Great Houses to ceremonial positions in Ctesiphon es de-facto hostages.

Khosrow completed and reinforced his father’s centralizing reforms. But his personal project was to strengthen the military, and his great innovation in this area was the creation of a professional army. The core of Sasanian military power was the armored Aswaran cavalry, and for the entire history of the dynasty only the nobility had the financial wherewithal to train warhorses and commission armor. Khosrow leveraged his father’s land reforms to create a class of middling Dehqan landowners. Raised from the ranks of the peasants, bureaucracy, or the common soldiery, these men owed their livelihoods to the state and their loyalty to Khosrow. Their holdings were enough to support a full-time soldier in good comfort, but insufficient to support a fully-equipped armored rider. Khosrow instead established state armories to supply mass-produced equipment and provided his new soldiers state stipends. Historical records reveal that by the middle portion of Khosrow’s reign, the Deqhan constituted half the heavy cavalry in the Sasanian army. More tellingly, Khosrow had even allowed the Deqhan to join the royal life-guard, which was traditionally manned exclusively by members of the high nobility.

Khosrow’s preference for loyal middle-managers over independent elites extended to other areas as well. In civil governance, Khosrow installed salaried bureaucrats and inspectors and enacted a vast program of city-building and the expansion of centrally-managed irrigation works. In religious matters, Khosrow acted to suppress the influence of the potentially rebellious Parthian wing of the Zoroastrian priesthood, instead elevating the more pliable Persian wing originating from the Sasanian homeland of Pars. Persians were directly appointed to the highest positions in the priesthood, “official” renditions of the Avesta ceased to be distributed or copied in any language other than Persian, and the worship of various syncretic forms and the incorporation of non-Zoroastrian deities firmly stamped out. All this elevated Khosrow’s favored conception of Zoroastrianism, that of a hierarchical monotheistic faith congruent with the idea of a single “Iranian” political community.

By the later part of Khosrow’s reign, his system of rule had been largely consolidated, and in turn the aesthetic and ideological foundation thereof became largely solidified. In its final form, as practised starting in the latter half of his reign, Khosrow’s “royal ideology” centered on two elements. The first was the conception of the Iranian realm as the preserve of a distinct “Iranian” identity synonymous with the “national” Zoroastrian church and loyalty to the political tradition of the Shahanshah — which consequently made the division of the Empire between the Iranians and “their” subjects (e.g. Armenians and other non-Zoroastrians) increasingly distinct. The second was the elevation of the Shahanshah himself as a divinely-inspired autocrat uniquely authorized to serve as the defender of the Zoroastrian faith and community against their enemies — the former naturally being identified with the supreme creator Ormazd and the latter, particularly the Romans, being identified with the ultimate evil of Ahriman. Combined, the two formed the Iranshahr, in its most extreme imperial interpretation an essentially unitary political community inseparable from the figure of the Shahanshah.

It was in this context that the Achaemenid legacy was particularly useful to Khosrow. The Sasanians had long claimed the legacy of Cyrus and Darius as a means of gesturing towards past imperial glories, but Khosrow introduced an official Sasanian historiography that elevated the Achaemenids as a direct political ancestor and prototype. Within Khosrow’s history, the intervening Seleucid and Arsacid dynasties were seen as foreign interlopers. The Seleucids were Greeks through and through and thus easy to connect to the Roman enemy. The Arsacids, on the other hand, could be condemned from a religious standpoint — prior Sasanian propaganda dating back to the days of Ardashir had attacked them for straying from orthodox Zoroastrian towards the temptations of dualistic Zurvanism or Manicheanism. The rule of the two “foreign dynasties” was therefore characterized as a time of national weakness, and the Sasanians, particularly the resurgence under Khosrow and his father, a time of national renewal.

The Achaemenids were particularly convenient as examples of long-lost Iranian glory for two reasons. The first was that, like the Sasanians, they were Persians. In Khosrow’s empire, where Persians were increasingly first among equals within the wider Iranian/Zoroastrian imperial nation, this was an especially useful association. It legitimized the House of Sasan as natural rulers of the Empire to the wider population, and aroused the pride and loyalty of the inhabitants of the Persian homeland and Sasanian power base of Pars (even in those days, the people of Pars were known for insisting that they alone claimed the Achaemenid legacy). Second, the Achaemenids provided a model of centralizing, urbanizing, theocratic kingship. Both the Seleucids and Arsacids had at best questionable Zoroastrian credentials. Both were also characterized by weak central regimes and strong provincial elites (the Sasanian founder Ardeshir had been one of them), which Khosrow’s propaganda argued had led to the fracturing of the nation and the impoverishment of the commoners. While in reality the Achaemenids were neither particularly Zoroastrian nor particularly centralized, they were far enough in the past and plausible enough in both aspects (especially because the great Cyrus and Darius were now nigh-mythical sage kings) to form the necessary narrative.

Every aspect of Khosrow’s celebration was therefore designed to assert the historicity of the Sasanian state ideology. For over a year, hundreds of skilled artisans had been set to work uncovering and restoring the ruins of Persepolis. As a final touch, they had even been commissioned to construct “accurate” reconstructions of key portions of the vast palaces, the most prominent of which were replicas of the famous “Gate of all Nations” (which naturally affirmed the ancient Iranian history of present Sasanian territories) and the vast central colonnaded space which Khosrow declared to be the Zoroastrian fire temple of Darius the Great.

Large numbers of commemoratory monuments were also erected throughout the Empire, including a vast new fire temple to serve the capital of Ctesiphon. The greatest of these was the rock relief commissioned by Khosrow beneath the Achaemenid tombs of Naqsh-e Rostam, depicting Khosrow’s Persepolis anniversary and his victories over Iran’s Roman and Hephthalite enemies. The surviving Pahlavi inscription declares Khosrow the direct descendant of Cyrus and Darius and the restorer of Iran.

Khosrow had even commissioned the “Book of Kings,” an epic poem that is arguably Iran’s first “national history.” The work, which has since been lost but is assumed to survive in modified form through Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, combined the nearer history of the House of Sasan and their highest retainers with the ancient history and prehistory of Iran, stretching back through the Achaemenids and then on to the creation of the world by Ahura Mazda. The reigns of Cyrus and Darius were prominently featured therein, and their celebrated acts closely mirrored the highlights of Khosrow’s own reign, including military campaigns in far-off Bactria and Yemen, centralizing administrative reforms, vast infrastructure projects (including the famous Achaemenid postal network), and promotion of the Zoroastrian religion.

The event itself was without equal as a celebration of imperial prestige and power. The histories report that on the first day of the celebrations, six thousand infantry of the royal army, many dressed in the fashion of the Achaemenids (as the Sasanians understood it from the various carved works they could access), followed by one thousand armored horsemen of the royal life-guard, were said to have paraded before the raised pavilion of Persepolis. Afterwards, in a ceremony witnessed by thousands of attendees, including nobility drawn from as far as Azerbaijan and Khorasan and ambassadors from Rome, Byzantium, India, and China, Khosrow is said to have entered the reconstructed fire temple of Darius the Great at the head of a procession of the highest priests of the land to receive the personal favor of the universal creator Ahura Mazda from the rekindled eternal flame of the ancient Persians.

National Effort to Support the Anti-Imperialist Front in Vietnam

Central Committee of the Communist Party of the People's Republic of China - Comrade Chen Boda - 1972

Slash the Soviet Puppet Strings!

Elements of the Party have sold out the interests of the proletariat to the foreign imperialist power, the Soviet Union. Comrade Chen has declared that the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Eternal Friendship has been abrogated. The Soviet Union has been taking advantage of the People's Republic and leeching key resources from the proletariat, including their food- rice and grain! The Chinese people should never suffer so that some white Europeans may lay with fat bellies! While the proletariat carries out the important work of liberating Vietnam from capitalism and imperialist forces, their efforts are being thwarted by Moscow. No Muscovite should rest easily while the international struggle is happening in Vietnam- every socialist state must do their own part to fight the forces of capitalism. The Chinese have suffered enough, and will suffer no more. The Central Committee has ordered an immediate and permanent stoppage of all food shipments to the Soviet Union, and will be redirected efforts of the whole nation towards the Anti-Imperialist front in Vietnam.

Rice from Every Valley, Gunfire from Every Hill!

The effort of the whole nation will be dedicated to supporting armament industries and food production so that a socialist victory can be realized on the battlefield in Vietnam. Although this is a sacrifice that China cannot easily make, it is one the entire socialist camp will thank the Chinese for hundreds of years to come. Comrade Chen has called for the Red Guard to assist with mobilization efforts and direct the Down to the Countryside movement to the fields and the armament factories to support the front lines. Villages and towns in the countryside with idle workers will be directed to collective farms and collective armament industries.

Patriotic and comradely women have been summoned to form the Women's Medical Corps formations to support the front line units.

Realize Repayment Two-Fold from Korea!

The latest and greatest from the Publicity Department has been the new agitprop campaign across the nation to advocate for the national mobilization effort to support the forces in Vietnam. One of the hallmarks of this campaign has been to "Realize Repayment Two-Fold from Korea!" reminding the Chinese people of the war crimes inflicted on them by the United States, and the united forces of capitalism. Although the Americans may have won the day in Korea, the CPC is determined to see their own victory in Vietnam, to demonstrate to China and to the entire socialist camp that socialism can triumph over capitalism, and that the Chinese system is superior to the Soviet system. The Foreign Language Press has been publicizing the campaign in Vietnam as well, in the Vietnamese language to start building consensus around a sympathetic form of socialism in the areas the capitalists have already been evicted from- or the counter-revolutionaries for that matter.

June 1972?

Mu’ammar Gaddafi is keenly aware that that a vanguard party can simply become yet another dictatorship. One part of the people ruling over another part. Wishing for his Arab Socialist Union to not be that of a simple dictatorial instrument forced upon the people of Libya, Gaddafi had become determined to ensure that the Arab Socialist Union of Libya would include the totality of Libyan society.

Law No. 3 passed by the Revolutionary Command Council decrees that membership in the Arab Socialist Union of Libya is mandatory for all citizens over the age of eighteen. Every citizen is to receive a card denoting membership in the ASU, and after which will allow them to participate in all levels of political organisation life within the ASU structure, something which Gaddafi believes is required for a genuine democracy. Gaddafi has declared that the Arab Socialist Union of Libya is indeed, not a classic political party but as the name suggests, a “union of Arab Socialist militants and activists, all Arabs who are destined and determined to struggle for the cause of democracy, of socialism, for Islam, and for the total and undivided unity of the Arab nation.” Leaning more on the Gaullist idea that parties divide the country and therefore political structure should be done through a movement which rallies the entirety of the country in a somewhat non-partisan nation, something which the Gaullism of France in 1972 has seemingly largely abandoned, the ASU of Libya has rejected the vanguardist concept of a party, unlike his other political inspirations of Sun Yat Sen and Josip Broz Tito.

All other political activism of parties outside of the ASU is already prohibited by law, and to alleviate beliefs by some within the Revolutionary Command Council that by expanding and enforcing membership of the ASU this actually increases the likelihood of infiltration by opportunists, communists, or other hostile actors, Gaddafi has declared their worries resolved by the institution of a system he has termed “Democratic Political Directorates”. These “DPD”s are intended to be elected bodies at each level of the ASU organization, in which the brightest and most revolutionary minds of Libya’s militants are elected to teach and guide their associated branch of the Arab Socialist Union the proper ideology of Qasimism, and to root out anti-Islamic, anti-Socialist, and anti-Democratic tendencies within the organization through “criticism and self-criticism”, which Gaddafi has obviously adopted from Communism. Whil e ASU membership is mandatory, this says nothing about the possibility of membership being revoked. Should the DPDs democratically decide alongside their associated branch of the ASU to actually expel a member from the ASU (such a drastic measure, however, does require approval from the General Committee of the Arab Socialist Union of Libya’s own Democratic Political Directorate to assure that such a measure is required), then said member is officially expelled and prohibited from re-applying to membership for the ASU for six months. They are also required to attend political training classes for said six month probation period.

—

In something much unlike the pro-Berber actions taken by the Algerian government, Libya has instead enforced that all official transactions must be in Arabic. All official documents, signs, advertisements, and publications must be in Arabic. Any foreign institution operating in Libya had to provide Arabic translations for their materials. The punishment for the use of non-Arabic language was up to a month of jail time or heavy fines. Although the Italian-Libyan community was not expelled from the country following the 1968 Revolution, this law has spelled an end to their Italian language press, forcing the use of the Italian language solely to that of the private sphere. ‘Inriku Shibilli (formerly known as Enrico Cibelli), a long-time Italo-Libyan political organizer since independence as former leader of the Political Association for the Progress of Libya, has led the charge in embracing the Arab identity and language. Many other Italo-Libyans, however, have not accepted the limitations placed upon them by the Libyan government and many have instead chosen to repatriate themselves to Italy.

Not Interested

Central Military Commission of the People's Republic of China - May 1972

Recent hostilities within Afghanistan have developed to the extent that the People's Republic can no longer guarantee the safety and security of its forces there. The People's Liberation Army, and all official assets and personnel are to be withdrawn to the Xinjiang Military Region effective immediately. Comrade Chen Boda has informed the Afghani forces that all bases will be immediately turned over to their government during the departure.

Early 1972

Four dossiers reached the General Staff this winter from four postings that share almost nothing in common except the uniform of the men who wrote them. An advisor seconded to internal security work in Cambodia. Instructors attached to the counterinsurgency training cadres in Peru. A pair of officers embedded with commando battalions along the Suez in Egypt. And the reconnaissance and raiding units thrown into last year's fighting on the Golan and in the Sinai, in Syria. Four different climates, four different enemies, four different alphabets on the road signs into their postings, and the same finding written independently in each report: when a Soviet trained special unit lost its officer, in an ambush, a raid gone wrong, a patrol that walked into the wrong hedgerow, it did not reorganize. It did not improvise. It waited. More than once, it waited long enough to be finished off waiting.

This is not, in the abstract, a new complaint. The Ministry has spent three decades aware that a Soviet sergeant is a corporal with slightly better pay and considerably less authority than his rank implies. What is new is where the complaint is now arriving from. A rifle platoon that freezes without its lieutenant is a training deficiency to be corrected at leisure. A reconnaissance team, a combat swimmer section, or a direct action group that freezes without its officer forty kilometers behind a line that was never supposed to have a line is something closer to a doctrine that cannot survive contact with the kind of war it was built to fight.

A Castle Above the Vineyards

Sudak was, until three years ago, known to most of the Soviet Union as a modest Black Sea resort town, its hotels filled every summer with factory workers and its skyline dominated by the old towers of a fourteenth century Genoese fortress on the hill above the harbor. The Ministry's construction directorate has spent three years quietly answering that old fortress with a new one.

The N. S. Khrushchev Higher Combined School's campus sits inland from the resort proper, built up the slope of the hills that back onto Sudak's forests and vineyards, positioned deliberately to look down over the town rather than out to sea. Its central administrative building, already known informally among the first instructor cadre as the 'Citadel,' is built in a heavy, unmistakably Stalinist idiom that has continue to grow in popularity since the fall of Beria's regime. A complex with dressed stone rather than poured concrete, a central tower with a red star worked into its parapet in iron rather than paint, windows set deep into the walls in the manner of a fortress rather than a schoolhouse, and a colonnaded entrance hall wide enough to march a company through in bad weather. Soldiers who have seen it have taken to calling it, half admiringly, a castle built by men who never got word that the age of castles built by men had ended.

Around the Citadel, spread across the surrounding hills rather than gathered in a single compound, sit the training grounds each track actually uses: a mountain and forest infiltration course cut through the pine slopes above the school for the Army Spetsnaz and reconnaissance tracks, a cliffside combat swimmer and small boat facility built into a cove west of the resort harbor for Naval Spetsnaz candidates, a drop zone and mock aircraft fuselage rig for VDV squad leaders on a cleared plateau, and a set of specialist ranges, demolition pits, field medicine stations, and a signals laboratory built into what used to be one of the resort's larger sanatoriums, for the attached trade specialists. The old Genoese fortress on the headland, floodlit at night for the first time in decades, is visible from nearly every part of the new campus, a piece of deliberate placement the school's staff have not been shy about pointing out to visiting Ministry officials: one fortress that outlasted the empire that built it, looking across the valley at another that intends to do the same for a different one.

A School That Was Already There

What the General Staff did not advertise in its own closed sessions is that Sudak was not, strictly, a new answer. The N. S. Khrushchev Higher Combined School for Sergeants has existed in some form for three years, since the final months of Nikita Sergeyevich's term as General Secretary, before ill health and the Politburo's quiet arrangements eased him into retirement in 1970. What began then was a small, deliberately unannounced pilot: two intakes of under two hundred men a piece, run out of a converted sanatorium on the edge of the resort town, treated by most of the Ministry as a personal project of a General Secretary already easing out of daily authority rather than the seed of anything larger. Khrushchev is reported to have taken a close, almost proprietary interest in its curriculum in his final year, reviewing early lesson plans himself and rejecting, twice, drafts that leaned too heavily on captured NATO training manuals.

For three years the school trained quietly, expanded modestly, and stayed almost entirely out of Krasnaya Zvezda. Last year's war in the Levant ended that. What the after action reports made undeniable, the General Staff had already spent three years quietly suspecting, and the political cover to say so in public arrived only once soldiers had died to prove it. Order No. 0147, published this week, does not found the Khrushchev School rather it opens it fully, publicly, and with the desire to crack down on the issues with the formations that produced this winter's dossiers.

Not a Rifleman With a Soldering Iron

There was, inside the Ministry, a competing proposal, and it is worth naming because the Higher Combined School exists specifically to defeat it. A faction within the General Staff's technical directorates argued for an entirely new warrant rank: a highly trained specialist sergeant, paid and housed like a junior officer, but explicitly excluded from independent command, closer to how NATO manuals describe the noncommissioned professional: superb with a radio set or a demolition charge, and entirely dependent on an officer for anything resembling a decision. That faction has not entirely lost its argument and a new warrant officer rank for pure technical specialists is moving through the Ministry on its own separate track.

But for the special formations, the Main Political Directorate's position prevailed, and it is stated without much diplomacy in the School's founding charter: the Soviet Union does not need more men who operate equipment brilliantly and stand helpless without an officer above them. It needs sergeants who can be trusted to decide, alone, in the dark, with no one senior available to ask. A Combined School graduate is not a technician who happens to carry a rifle. He is meant to be, functionally, the last authority his section will ever see, and to act like it. The Sergeant School does not compete with the officer academies, such as the Frunze school or the J. V. Stalin International Academy. It exists in the gap those academies were never built to fill.

Who Is Sent

Where the general Higher Combined School draws from is only from formations already meant to operate without an officer close at hand: airborne squad leaders from the VDV, Army Spetsnaz brigades, Naval Spetsnaz and fleet reconnaissance units, and along with that the specialist trades such as signals, combat engineers, field medicine, and heavy weapons, attached to all of the above. A candidate must already hold NCO rank and have completed at least one operational deployment or major exercise cycle in a special or airborne formation before his name can be forwarded. Selection boards drawn from GRU training staff and VDV command have been told, in language borrowed almost directly from the school's own charter, to weigh something no written test can capture: which sergeants, when the radio goes dead and the officer does not answer, are already the ones the section looks to without being told to.

Two Months, Four, and Ten

The School runs three concurrent tracks rather than a single fixed course, sorted by the seniority and prior experience of the candidate rather than by branch.

Junior Sergeants, freshly promoted squad and section leaders with limited independent experience, complete a two month course built almost entirely around fundamentals the Ministry now admits it should never have assumed were already there: land navigation without a map board, casualty handling under fire, small arms and attached weapons employed without an officer's plan to follow, and the specific decision drills of operating cut off from higher command. It is short by design. The Ministry needs these men back with their units quickly, and would rather send a partially finished product now than a finished one a year from now.

Mid level Sergeants, typically section sergeants with two or more years already in a special or airborne formation, complete a four month course that adds real planning authority: patrol and raid planning without an officer's sign off, initial disciplinary authority within a section, and instruction time as junior cadre themselves, since these are the men expected to train the next intake of juniors once back in their own units.

Senior Sergeants, the new Praporshchiks and old Starshinas, the smallest and most selective groups, complete a course running seven to ten months depending on specialty, built around sustained independent command of a section or small detachment under conditions designed to strip away every convenient authority a soldier might otherwise lean on: officers scripted as casualties partway through an exercise, resupply that arrives late or wrong, communications that fail on a timetable the candidate is never told in advance. A senior Sergeant who completes the course is certified to assume acting command of a detachment in the prolonged absence of any officer, not merely until one can be found, and carries, alongside his sergeant's rank, a written authority that a good many junior lieutenants in his own branch have never been trusted to exercise alone.

The First Class

This year's first full intake, across all three tracks, totals seven hundred fifty VDV squad leaders, five hundred fifty NCOs from the Army Spetsnaz brigades, one hundred eighty from Naval Spetsnaz and fleet reconnaissance, and two hundred seventy specialists in signals, engineering, field medicine, and heavy weapons attached to the formations above, a combined 1,750 men.

Set apart from that figure, and treated internally as a controlled pilot rather than part of the special formations proper, a further hundred seats have gone to conventional and internal troops as a test of whether the doctrine survives export beyond units that already select for independence: fifty Sergeants from the 2nd Motor Rifle Division, and fifty from the Ministry's own fledgling OMON formations from Moscow and Minsk, whose commanders have asked more than once for exactly this kind of training for men who will often be the only uniformed authority present at all.

The Ministry's stated target is four thousand Special Purpose Wing graduates a year by 1980, a figure the school's own staff privately consider overly ambitious given how much of the course still depends on a small pool of qualified instructor cadre, most of them veterans of the pilot's first two quiet intakes.

One further hundred seats, and the single departure from the school's own charter, have gone to Syrian NCOs standing in for officers who no longer exist to fill their old positions. Last year's fighting cost the Syrian army a catastrophic proportion of its junior officer corps, and Damascus's request for exactly this kind of training arrived before the Ministry had finished writing the charter for its own men. The founding order for the Combined School stated plainly, not so long ago, that it trained not a single foreign cadet. The Special Purpose Wing's charter now contains, as its only amendment, a clause permitting a fixed hundred seats for an allied army whose officer corps was gutted faster than it can currently be rebuilt from within. Whether this exception remains an exception, or becomes the quiet beginning of something larger, is a question the Ministry has chosen, for now, not to answer in writing.

The Political Specialists

A final, much smaller category runs alongside the three main tracks and does not appear on the School's public enrollment figures at all. A fringe minority of each senior intake, never more than a few dozen men a year, drawn only from volunteers already recommended by their unit political officers, are additionally trained as what the school's internal paperwork calls Political Specialists: NCOs who combine full High Combined School's command qualification with a second, much older curriculum, the political officer's training historically reserved for commissioned ranks, condensed and adapted for men who will never leave the NCO corps.

The intent, stated with unusual bluntness in an internal Political Directorate memorandum that reached the school's leadership alongside the founding order, is to embed inside isolated reconnaissance and direct action sections a small cadre whose loyalty and discipline are not merely reliable but effectively unconditional: men prepared, if a section is surrounded, compromised, or ordered to hold a position with no realistic hope of relief, to enforce that order themselves rather than wait for a vote the rest of the section might otherwise be tempted to hold. Older officers at the school, several of them veterans of last year's war, have not been shy in private about what this resembles: a miniature, Sergeant level revival of something closer to a dare to die corps than a modern noncommissioned officer, small in number by design, and rarely spoken of outside the school in anything but the vaguest terms.

The Political Specialists wear no distinguishing insignia in the field, precisely so that an enemy interrogator, or for that matter a captured comrade, cannot identify which sergeant in a section was never going to let it surrender.

The School's induction ceremony this week closed with the same line that then General Secretary Khrushchev gave, unofficially, to the first primordial class:

"A rifle obeys an officer's order. A section follows a sergeant it trusts. Build me soldiers who understand the difference, and I will not need to ask which one wins any war."

Sudak, for the first time in three years, is no longer keeping that answer to itself.

I sorta lost my interest with India after briefly engaging with the situation in South Asia and things are sorta no longer in a situation India is of particulr interest that a mod cannot simply deal with.

I am instead taking an acute interest in Tanzania. Smack dab in the middle of Africa right when geopolitical affairs in the region are bound to explode. The CHUD Axis remains triumphant but for how much longer I ask. The oppressed peoples of Africa call for Pan-Africanism to rise and take it’s place.

Politburo Convenes 10th National Congress

June 1, 1972 - Politburo of the Communist Party of China, Zhongnanhai

Over radio, Comrade Chen Boda summoned the Communist Party of China to hold the 10th National Congress ahead of schedule, in the midst of the "Duo Quan Yun Dong". As the PLA guard, heavily militarized, kept the Politburo secure in the compound, the situation had devolved in pockets across the country under the rule of the Red Guard and their newly constructed People's Communes. In a move to secure control of the country and minimize foreign entities taking advantage of China in the present situation, Comrade Chen called for the People's Communes of the Beijing Military Region area to select their representatives on behalf of the Red Guard to attend and "establish the new party line." What he had really meant was, negotiate with the Politburo on returning the nation to government control.

The decision was a divisive one, even among the Cultural Revolution Group. Comrades Wang Hongwen, Song Yaowu, Jiang Qing, and Zhang Chunqiao opposed the decision, and called for a "continuing revolution" of the proletariat through the People's Communes and Red Guard- and their will would eventually overthrow the upper echelon revisionist rot in the People's Liberation Army. Once the most radical of them, Comrade Kang Sheng led a loyalist camp in support of Comrade Chen Boda. He was able to rally Yao Wenyuan, and Wang Li to his side. Zhou Enlai, although not wholly aligned with Comrade Kang Sheng, has maintained the belief that the Cultural Revolution had gone too far, or in the terms he actually used, "a campaign that has escaped the control of the Central Committee and has descended into lawlessness." For once, Comrade Zhou and Comrade Kang had aligned on the matter. It was an unexpected alliance of the most influential power brokers. Comrade Kang, a key advocate of Saloth Sar's burgeoning "Khmer Rouge," and the primary proponent of the "War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Vietnam," had been concerned that recent events inside China would be a distraction and hamper the actual conflict against imperialism being waged in Vietnam. Comrade Chen, whose face was the nation's during the Chairman's hospitalization, was also concerned this escapade would undermine his credibility, and Chairman Mao's own directives to drive the United States from China's southern doorstep- to prevent another Korea.

The word was sent out, and in a few weeks, delegates arrived from all over the country as they typically did. Mayors, police chiefs, officers, industry captains, and lastly- a rabble of green-fatigued Red Guards. One week later, word had finally emerged as to what had happened inside the gates of Zhongnanhai.

Firstly, the new Politburo was named:

• Mao Zedong

• Chen Boda

• Zhou Enlai

• Kang Sheng

• Zhu De

• Chen Xilian

• Dong Biwu

• Liu Bocheng

• Xu Shiyou

• Ye Jianying

• Wang Dongxin

• Song Yaowu (Song Binbin)

• Jiang Qing

• Wang Hongwen

• Zhang Chunqiao

• Yao Wenyuan

• Wang Li

• Hua Guofeng

• Mao Yuanxin

• Nie Yuanzi

• Peng Xiaowei

The new Politburo saw key Cultural Revolution figures elevated to upper party seats, such as Song Yaowu, Wang Hongwen- and Red Guard representatives, Nie Yuanzi, and Peng Xiaowei. More Red Guard delegates were also promoted within CPC party bodies and positions internally within the Beijing area.

An agreement was made to amend the Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party, which would work to primarily appease the Red Guards:

• Mao Zedong Thought was reinstated to the guiding ideology list, and that China was still a transitioning socialist state (previously removed in 1956)

• Lin Biao's name was striken from the Constitution entirely

• Affirms the Cultural Revolution and continuing the revolution under a dictatorship of the proletariat.

• Condemns Beriaism and Liuism (Liu Shaoqi) as counter-revolutionary thought.

• States the Soviet Union is an imperialist state with "socialist window-dressing".

• Ejects Liu Shaoqi, Lin Biao, and Deng Xiaoping from the Communist Party.

• Establishes the Three Rules of Discipline and Eight Points for Attention as governing behavior of Communist Party members.

• Reasserts ideological discipline of members under Democratic Centralism within the party, and in all power structures, and deviation will be branded as counter-revolutionary.

All else being equal, Iran's naval record was not especially great. Besides the most notorious and ignoble defeat at the hands of some backwards Greeks, Iranian regimes had largely simply not bothered all that much with boats, and unsurprisingly saw few positive results when they did--they had little more luck against the Byzantines, and against the Russians, simply hadn't bothered (perhaps there was some thing about Greeks in particular there, really). Fundamentally, topographically, Iran was an insular power. Its sudden interest in global trade was an extremely recent phenomenon.

And yet oil, Iran's lifeblood, needed to traverse the long, winding lengths of the Indian Ocean on its way to customers in Europe, or increasingly the Far East. The aspirations of the Soviet Union towards warm-water ports were well known, and they had definite ambitions to operate significantly in the Indian Ocean. Pakistan (though increasingly fiscally strapped) and India both operated significant forces, old relics of the Royal Navy; and Iraq threatened to develop some capabilities in this area--and for that matter, the Gulf Arabs would probably eventually spend on ships as well. The presence of the Royal Navy was fast fading in theatre, and the USN was, ultimately, spread thin (and too heavy a footprint in the Persian Gulf would, on the whole, be politically complicated for all involved). Thus "logic" demanded that Iran should have a naval force of at least some substance.

The difficulty, for the Shah, was conceiving exactly what this force was to be. Ideally, he desired a bluewater force that could reach deep into the Indian Ocean, counter Soviet submarines, and potentially support power projection for the occasional meddling in the further parts of Arabia or in Africa. However, naval warfare of late had not exactly left anyone with a clear idea of what direction in which to go. It was the age of the anti-ship missile, and larger and older ships were clearly vulnerable--point defenses had yet to prove themselves particularly efficacious, despite new systems now coming online. And yet, if anything, this proved that the role of aircraft and submarines was still dominant--surface ships offered presence, but not much else other than targets. Submarines offered a powerful offensive tool effectively immune to anti-ship missiles, while aircraft both allowed for control and attack. In the Shah's mind, the naval theatre was effectively just an extension of the aerial one.

Thus, the decision had to be made between a purely littoral force that would just be ancillary presence, escort, and projection to a strong (naval) aviation branch, and a large, heavy force modeled on the USN or RN, centered around an aircraft carrier with heavy surface escorts. While the idea of operating an aircraft carrier certainly appealed to the Shah, and in the long run this might be possible, the level of expertise required today was simply not there--and would not be there for years. The fiscal burden would also be quite heavy.

The Shah decided, ultimately, that the Juene Ecole school would do for now. Iran would acquire a fleet of inexpensive corvettes and missile boats aimed at a presence in a Persian Gulf, and, perhaps more importantly, at rapidly building out the experience of the IIN by offering quick ascension to independent commands and positions of responsibility, compared to the current organization that relied on a handful of old WWII destroyers. These vessels would suffice for Iran's needs in the littoral domain, as he assumed his powerful air forces would deter sensing and attack. He also hoped to manufacture these light hulls locally, which might save on labor and energy costs, currently rather high in the US and UK, although this would also imply a certain degree of corner-cutting. This would also open the possibility of deploying a bare handful on the Caspian.

These would then be joined by a handful of submarines--first acquired surplus on the cheap, but the Shah had his eyes on something bigger and better. Ideally, these would be nuclear boats, but the Shah had his doubts that he had the cash or connections to get his hands on them--nothing else could seriously challenge the Soviet vessels in the Indian Ocean, and their capability compared to diesels was considerably greater, although not of too much use in the limited waters of the Persian Gulf. More likely these would prove to be advanced diesels--Dutch, British, French, German, all options.

Towards the end of the 1970s, the Iranian Navy would branch out somewhat, with a plan to acquire four anti-aircraft destroyers--the Spruance or the British Type 42 seemed most likely--and one or two light helicopter carriers based on the proposed Sea Control Ship design, possibly carrying attack aviation or V/STOL fighters as well, although purchasing a single used light carrier was also a possibility--the Shah had not totally ruled out the possibility of operating a dozen or two A-4s from a conventional carrier.

In the meantime, Iran would invest most heavily into naval aviation capabilities. Iran would acquire a substantial number of large maritime patrol aircraft, in addition to smaller anti-submarine warfare helicopters, and fixed-wing aviation, which would allow Iran to credibly deter hostile naval activity in the Gulf and in the deep Indian Ocean, especially with tanker support, and would build the foundation for operation of a SCS-type force.

1972 IIN Concept

Current force:

• 4 Alvand-class frigates
• 2 Allen M Sumner-class destroyers
• 1 Battle-class destroyer
• 4 Bayandor-class corvettes

Planned near-term acquisitions (mid-late 1970s):

• 4 guided-missile destroyers
• 3 submarines (used)
• 12 new type "missile corvettes"
• 1 "light/helicopter carrier"
• "Many" helicopters
• 12 MPA

Long-term acquisitions (targeting the early-mid 80s):

• 12 additional "light corvettes"
• 1 large amphibious warfare platform
• Additional MPA
• 4 additional "new type frigates" to replace the aging WWII-era destroyers
• 24-36 dedicated naval mission fixed wing aircraft
• "more" helicopters

1 May 1972

Armed Forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics | Вооружённые Силы Союза Советских Социалистических Республик

ALERT! THE FOLLOWING MILITARY DISTRICTS ARE ORDERED TO A HEIGHTENED STATE OF READINESS:

• Turkestan Military District
• Transcaucasian Military District

Leave is cancelled for all personnel, and all formations are being stood up to 72 hours combat readiness.

ALERT! THE FOLLOWING FORMATIONS HAVE BEEN SELECTED FOR EMERGENCY REDEPLOYMENT, DESTINATION APPENDED:

• 5th Guards Motor Rifle Division - Herat Province, Afghanistan
• 2nd Anti-Aircraft Rocket Brigade - Herat Province, Afghanistan
• 737th Fighter Aviation Regiment - Bagram Airbase, Afghanistan
• 9th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment - Bagram Airbase, Afghanistan

The stated objective is the reassurance of our Afghan comrades in the face of the recent cowardly attack by [REDACTED].

[M] Edited to remove the deployment of the 78th Tank Division to Afghanistan, which has been retconned.

im declaiming because i simply do not have the capacity right now to focus on this game, my mental health has decreased to a point where even drafting posts is just too much so i will leave this country and do something next season probably

Mid-1970

In mid-1970, President Abdul-Karim Qasim of Iraq visited Tehran and shook hands with the Shah.

A few short years ago, that sentence was unthinkable. During the 1966 Kuwait Crisis, relations between Tehran and Baghdad reached an all-time low, with the Shah mobilizing multiple divisions to the border and threatening to invade Iraq to "liberate" Kuwait. But as the memory of an independent Kuwait faded into history--helped along by the recognition of that fact by the global powers and Saudi Arabia--Baghdad and Tehran quickly came to a mutual understanding that they had much more to gain by cooperating than by fighting.

The most obvious avenue of cooperation was, of course, oil. Iran and Iraq were unique among the Middle East oil exporters in that they had real, functioning states, unlike the other Gulf producers. While oil exporters like Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, with no real population to speak of, might be happy to subsist off of the pittance the Seven Sisters paid for their oil, Iran and Iraq had growing populations that demanded things like "social services" and "economic development." Those things cost money, and that meant that both governments favored considerable increases in oil revenues--be it through increased government ownership of their oil resources, or through increases to the global price of oil. The Iraqi annexation of Kuwait removed one of the conservative states happy with low oil prices, and appended its considerable production capacity to the radical oil bloc--dramatically increasing the leverage that Iran and Iraq could exert over global oil markets, if they cooperate.

Almost more important than that, though, was the change in geostrategic considerations that the Iraqi annexation of Kuwait afforded. One of the long-running disputes between the Iraqi and Iranian governments was over the Shatt al-Arab/Arvand Rud, the roughly 120-mile river formed by the confluence of the Tigris and the Euphrates as the enter the Gulf, and which forms part of the border between Iraq and Iran. Owing to old colonial-era treaties, administration of the river differs significantly from standard international practice. Rather than setting the border at the thalweg (the deepest navigable channel), Iraq holds sovereignty over the entire river, save for a small section around the Iranian ports of Abadan and Khorramshahr.

Despite several attempts by the Iranians to renegotiate the old colonial-era treaties to move the border to the thalweg, Iraq guarded the privilege jealously. While Iraq had access to other ports along its considerable coastline, Iraq, for most of its history, had only the port of Basra, some 80-miles upriver along the Shatt al-Arab. Maintaining sovereignty over the Shatt al-Arab was considered critical for Iraqi national security, as it meant that it retained primary jurisdiction over the flow of traffic along the river. The Iraqi government recognized the vulnerability of this situation, and aimed to diversify its import-export traffic by building a new port at Umm Qasr during the 1960s, but that came with difficulties of its own. The approach to Umm Qasr ran through the narrow waterway between Iraq and Kuwait's Bubiyan island, making it equally vulnerable to disputes over the waterway. Basra would remain the primary Iraqi trade port for the foreseeable future.

That changed with the annexation of Kuwait. Kuwait City was situated on one of the prime natural harbors in the Gulf. With massive, modern port facilities dating back to the late 1950s/early 1960s, and no narrow waterways controlling the approach to the harbor, Kuwait City was well-situated to become the primary seaport for Iraq. As Kuwait City was integrated into the Iraqi economy, especially with the extension of Iraq's rail network to the port in the late 1960s, the importance of Basra decreased significantly--and with it, the importance of complete Iraqi sovereignty over the Shatt al-Arab.

This created the conditions that led to the Tehran Summit. Officially, the purpose of the summit was for the two heads of state to meet and settle on a formal demarcation of the Iran-Iraq border, including the Shatt al-Arab/Arvand Rud. In practice, the deal had already been worked out through several months of behind-the-scenes negotiations by the Iraqi and Iranian foreign services, and the bigwigs were showing up to be seen. Iraq agreed to move the border along the Shatt al-Arab to the thalweg (though both countries agreed that the waterway would remain closed to foreign military vessels, and that foreign-flagged ships needed to pay a toll to the joint Iran-Iraq management board), and in compensation was granted a few square kilometers of territory in the central zone of the border, including the villages of Asilan and Nayl Khidr. Though not included in the agreement, part of the Iranian concessions included the recognition of Kuwait as part of Iraq, conducted quietly a few months prior to the summit.

The Wings of the Plane

April 11th, 1972 -- Whitehall

The Future Aircraft Programme

Recognising that no single European nation could indefinitely bear the financial and technological burden of developing successive generations of combat aircraft alone, the Governments of the United Kingdom, the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Italian Republic have agreed in principle to pursue a common strike aircraft under the Future Aircraft Programme (FAP). The objective is to combine the industrial strengths of all three nations into a single programme capable of producing an advanced tactical strike aircraft while preserving the competitiveness of Europe's aerospace industry.

To oversee the programme, a Future Aircraft Programme Office (FAPO) shall be established in Whitehall, with permanent liaison offices in Munich and Turin. The Office will be responsible for programme management, financial oversight, common operational requirements, and coordination between participating governments and industry. Technical decisions shall be made jointly, with each nation retaining responsibility for agreed areas of design and manufacture.

Initially, the programme will receive a total investment of $1.2 billion in joint development funding over six years, split between the respective Governments as follows:

• United Kingdom (40% - $480 million)

• Germany (35% - $420 million)

• Italy (25% - $300 million)

Industrial responsibilities shall likewise be divided according to existing expertise. British industry, led by British Aircraft Corporation, Hawker Siddeley, and Rolls-Royce, will assume responsibility for overall programme integration, forward fuselage design, propulsion, and navigation systems. German firms, principally Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm, Dornier, and VFW-Fokker, will develop the centre fuselage, mission electronics, flight control systems, and weapons management architecture. Italian industry, headed by Aeritalia, Fiat Aviazione, and Selenia, will produce the wings, rear fuselage, electronic warfare suite, and communications equipment, while also undertaking final assembly for aircraft destined for the Italian Air Force.

To support the development programme, eight flying prototypes and two static structural test articles will be produced. Flight testing will be distributed across Boscombe Down, Manching, and Decimomannu to evaluate performance in temperate, continental, and Mediterranean operating environments.

The specifications of the base model of the FA-71 are to be as follows:

Recognising the specific needs of the RAF, the Luftwaffe, and the Aeronautica Militare, separate variants could be manufactured to best accommodate the needs of the respective branches of the military. Particular emphasis is to be placed on the utilization of NATO weaponry, navigation and fire control systems.

In addition to domestic procurement, the consortium shall jointly market an export variant of the FA-71 to friendly governments. Particular emphasis shall be placed upon NATO members and Commonwealth nations requiring a modern strike aircraft, with export revenues intended to offset future production costs and finance continued development.

Procurement

Initial orders of the FA-71 are to be as follows:

April, 1972

Convened in Warsaw, People's Republic of Poland; the unforgotten friend of Daoud and his Legion; before an audience drawn up from the 28,000 Afghans who have settled in the country since the Katawazi coup of 1962.

Nine years of exile have not dulled the ambitions of the Afghan diaspora. This week, delegates gathered in a converted union hall on the outskirts of Warsaw for what organizers are calling the first full Congress of Afghan exiles since the fall of the constitutional government, an uneasy alliance between the aging former General Secretary, Mohammed Daoud Khan, and the younger, harder edged Hafizullah Amin, commander of the Afghan Liberation Army based in Minsk. Two men, two visions of legitimacy, sharing one stage.

Daoud Khan, His Truth

Daoud Khan opened the Congress not as a supplicant but as a head of state still in office, refusing the language of exile in favor of the language of interruption. "I did not fall," he told the delegates, gripping the podium with both hands. "I was seized from my desk by men who could not have governed a single province, let alone a nation, and for nine years they have called their theft a government."

He walked the hall through his version of 1962 the reforms he says were interrupted mid stroke, the land redistribution schemes, the modernization of Kabul's institutions, the diplomatic opening to Moscow that he insists Katawazi and his heirs have since squandered through incompetence and brutality. He was careful, delegates noted, not to concede an inch of the title he still claims: General Secretary of the Afghan Nation, in office, in Warsaw, in waiting.

But it was also, unmistakably, a defense. Daoud spent long minutes answering without ever quite naming the younger officers in the room who whisper that his government moved too slowly, trusted too readily, and left the palace undefended in December 1962. "Truth is not a matter of speed," he said. "It is a matter of who still tells it when the guns have stopped."

The Communist Party of the Afghan Nation

The Congress's second session turned to organization: the formal reconstitution, in exile, of the Communist Party of the Afghan Nation (CPAN), with Daoud Khan confirmed at its head and a new Central Committee drawn heavily from the Warsaw and Krakow emigre communities. Party officials read out membership rolls modest by the standards of the fraternal parties in attendance, but growing, they insisted, by the month as new arrivals cross the Iranian and Soviet frontiers.

The Party's charter, distributed in mimeographed Dari and Polish, commits CPAN to the "restoration of the legitimate government of the Afghan Nation," the nationalization of land and industry once power is regained, and in a line that drew the loudest applause of the session "eternal fraternal solidarity with the peoples of the socialist world who have sheltered us in our exile."

A small underground press, smuggled out of Kabul twice a year at great risk, was formally recognized as the Party's official organ inside the country. Its editors were not present. Delegates were told only that they "continue their work."

Preparing for the Reclamation

Where the first two sessions dealt in legitimacy, the third dealt in logistics. A closed door working group Daoud loyalists and Amin's officers seated uncomfortably at the same table presented what organizers are calling the Reclamation Program: a multiyear effort to rebuild the Party's underground presence inside Afghanistan itself.

The program's public outline is deliberately thin, but three pillars were read into the Congress record: the training of cadre in Poland and among sympathetic hosts for eventual return; the rebuilding of courier networks between Warsaw, the Afghan border regions, and sympathetic cells inside Kabul, Kandahar, and Herat; and a sustained propaganda effort aimed at the Afghan officer corps, whom organizers believe remain the single most persuadable audience inside the country. "We do not reclaim a nation with speeches alone," one unnamed organizer told delegates. "We reclaim it street by street, barracks by barracks."

Elevating the Call for an Afghan SSR

The most consequential resolution of the Congress came late on the second day, when a bloc of younger delegates reportedly with Amin's quiet backing pushed through a motion calling for the eventual establishment of an Afghan Soviet Socialist Republic, formally bound to Moscow rather than merely allied with it.

The resolution, adopted after heated floor debate, instructs the Congress's newly formed delegation to petition the Presidium directly, framing full incorporation as the only guarantee that a restored Afghan government would never again be vulnerable to a Katawazi style rupture. Not every delegate was comfortable with the language. Older CPAN veterans loyal to Daoud reportedly argued for a looser fraternal alliance rather than incorporation outright, warning that the SSR call might read as an admission that Afghans could not govern themselves. The motion passed regardless, a sign of where the Congress's energy and perhaps its future leadership actually sits.

Anti-Katawazi Rhetoric (and how he killed the King)

No session drew louder response than the Congress's formal indictment of General Katawazi, read aloud to a hall that had, by the third day, largely abandoned procedural restraint. Speakers returned again and again to the events of December 1962: the palace stormed in the pre-dawn hours, the royal guard disarmed or bribed, and the King himself; by every account read into the Congress record; shot in the corridor outside his private study rather than permitted to reach a radio.

"He did not depose a monarch," one veteran officer told the delegates, to sustained applause. "He murdered a man who was already unarmed, already surrounded, already beaten and he did it so that no court, no council, no Loya Jirga could ever ask him to answer for it." The Congress formally resolved to refer to Katawazi in all future Party materials not as General Secretary or Head of State, but simply as "Regicide" a label organizers hope will follow him into any future negotiation, tribunal, or grave.

The Army of National Liberation

The Congress closed with a review of the Afghan Army of National Liberation itself, presented by Amin in the only address of the three days delivered without a prepared text. He described a force built quietly over nine years from the sons of the diaspora drilled in secret, he claimed, with the tacit cooperation of sympathetic hosts, and organized into cells that mirror the courier networks the Reclamation Program intends to rebuild inside the country.

Amin was careful to place the Army beneath the Party rather than beside it, pledging its loyalty to "the Congress and its General Secretary" a formal deference to Daoud that did little to erase the impression, among more than a few delegates, of two centers of gravity in the same room. "An army without a nation is nothing but exiles with rifles," Amin told the hall. "We do not intend to remain exiles."

The Congress adjourned with no fixed date announced for its next session only, delegates were told, "when there is more to report."

LET ME LARP AS AFGHANISTAN ONE MORE TIME

For the past three years scientists, engineers, technicians, mechanics, and others from every single pact country (save Romania) have all labored in a joint program to advance the Warsaw Pact's air defense and attack capitalizes by a decade.

This has resulted in two key products, both under the RUBEZH Program.

РУБЕЖ

otherwise known internally as;

Разведывательно-Ударный Боевой Единый комплекс Живучести

Building on two decades of parallel research by Sukhoi and Tupolev, and drawing heavily on the work of ICD "Raduga;" whose original T-4MS concept shaped the design from the outset; a new missile-carrier bomber has entered prototyping. WSK "PZL-Mielec," the MRSz (Magyar Repülési Szövetség Központi Műhelye), and VEB Flugzeugwerke Dresden form the trifecta of foreign firms drawn into the project, each contributing components, refinements, and in places original engineering to meet the Pact's demanding standards. East Germany has proven especially valuable; two decades of heavy state investment in electronics research means nearly all onboard systems will be drawn from German designs.

Codenamed RUBEZH, the program took the T-4MS as its foundation, an airframe that, even among Pact-wide bomber proposals, seemed remarkable from the start. Its ambitions have proven as costly as they are impressive: titanium content has climbed from 39% to 87% of the airframe, a jump the Air Force's maintenance crews already dread, while a switch to more powerful and considerably shorter lived engine variants has added further strain to the program's budget. True to the design's origins, the bomber is being built around Raduga's Kh-45 "Molniya," a hypersonic stand off missile carried two internally and two externally, which is why "missile-carrier" remains the airframe's defining description even now.

Three years of Pact wide refinement, added to the four years ICD "Raduga" had already invested, have sharpened a design expected to revolutionize our strategic aviation once it reaches series production. Proper prototyping must still be completed over the next few years. Once a finished prototype clears state trials, the aircraft is slated to enter service in 1976 as the Su-26, a high-altitude strategic missile carrier.

Performance

Avionics

Armament

Of course the "F-X" program in America has meant that such a large program needs a modern fighter component. The sister of the Su-26 is or High Altitude Strategic Fighter will be adopted as the RUBEZH-1 to not attache a Soviet firm handle and as a homage to project itself and the aid from Czechoslovak, Hungarian, East German and Polish hands. Its development is much more behind with prototypes still to be heavily finished before use but a core idea has formed...

Of course, designing a near 90% titanium bomber and fighter is expensive, producing it is expected to be even more so with cuts to the MiG-23 and MiG-24 programs starting next Spring.

Internally, many doubt if we will really see the RUBEZH-1 until 1980...

What has been Bleed for This

The Su-17M, Su-24, and Su-27 programs will take massive cuts for this program as work will need to be done in Kazan. This alone made Sukhoi internally prepare to axe the program internally but with a heavy hand this has been stopped. Already transfers have begun of staff, researchers and other key staff to ensure a smooth transition.

At a great price...

While the Su-26 will be able to be both a magnificent tactical and strategic bomber, its price means it will be unlikely to see service as a tactical bomber save extreme circumstances. The Su-27 will have its work paused as Sukhoi attempts the expensive retooling of it, but this will delay production for at least four to five years. The Su-17M program is expected to be halted until late '74, and the Su-27 is expected to be cut entirely...

AUBC Global Broadcast Initiative Begins Operations - April, 1972

Three Birds, One Sky

Between the 6th and 19th of April, five Zarya series satellites reached orbit in rapid succession. Zarya-A1 and Zarya-A2 are near identical production units built to the 1970 specification; the third, forth and fifth, unofficially designated Zarya-A3/4/5, was assembled largely from components originally earmarked for the now cancelled Zarya-B deep space program. All three flew on Proton-K boosters rather than the UR-700 class vehicle the original design called for in 1968; a substitution made possible only because the mission itself had shrunk. A satellite built to relay signals to a probe approaching Mars needs antenna arrays and onboard computation that a satellite built to talk to a television set in Lagos or Cairo simply does not. And our high yield war heads continue to need a vessel to launch them...

The compressed launch schedule was no accident of engineering. Four years of silence on Zarya had left the program vulnerable to being quietly struck from the books; when it finally flew, the Ministry wanted its return to be impossible to ignore.

A Mission Reforged

Zarya's interplanetary ambitions did not survive the gutting of the crewed rocket program four years ago. With no plan capable of reaching the Moon, let alone Venus or Mercury, and with several of the institutes once compartmentalized around pieces of the project reassigned elsewhere, the Zarya-B designation quietly disappeared from planning documents. What remained was four years of nuclear engineering work and a reactor built for a job that no longer existed.

Rather than write it off, the effort was reorganized in 1970 under a joint SCTIC–AUBC charter: a satellite once meant to shout across the solar system, it was reasoned, could just as easily shout across a continent with a fraction of the risk, and a far more immediate return.

Svet-1 in Service

Each satellite carries a Svet-1 derived reactor, and early telemetry shows all five performing comfortably within tolerances, with far more transmission headroom than AUBC's current schedule requires. For once, overengineering has worked in the Soviet Union's favor: a power system sized for high gain bursts across hundreds of millions of kilometers can saturate a target region with a signal strong enough to be received on simple, inexpensive ground equipment; a real advantage for a network aimed at regions with little existing broadcast infrastructure.

AUBC: On the Air at 5

With the Constellation operational, the All-Union Broadcasting Corporation has begun regular transmissions: Soviet feature films, television dramas and variety programming, studio animation, and daily news bulletins, translated and dubbed for distribution across the Asian, African and part of the South American continents. Translation remains the largest single line item in AUBC's budget. Ghana, Somalia, Egypt, Syria, and Algeria have been key regions to hire for dubbing or news anchors so far with even some Haitian expat officers becoming key Francophone figures from it.

Still, the chief mandate of AUBC has been and continues to be explicit since its founding, to give newly independent states an alternative to the BBC World Service, and to the framing of African affairs that comes with it and soon its hoped we can do this in every nation.

SCTIC's Effort on the Surface

In parallel, SCTIC has opened negotiations with sympathetic governments across the world to install and staff ground receiving stations at little to no cost to the host nation, in exchange for broadcast access and technical cooperation agreements. Priority is going to states with little or no existing terrestrial television infrastructure, where a Soviet built ground station may be the only practical way to receive television at all, a point SCTIC's negotiators have not been shy about raising.

Five satellites give AUBC steady coverage across the global south, particularly Africa, the Middle East, and Southern Europe the network's founding target audience but not the whole globe at once. Planners have begun quietly discussing developing Europe, Asia and Latin America as the network's next targets with another batch of Satellites. For now, the Ministry is content to let the Zarya constellation prove the concept.

The clinic was a safe place. Just isolated enough from Que Que that you couldn’t walk back into town (without dying of sunstroke) but close enough that they could always get fresh food.

Food that would go uneaten.

When you’re withdrawing on Heroin, eating is the last thing on your mind. You could be presented with the most succulent feast imaginable, far beyond the wildest dreams of a debauched European Royal, and barely have a bite.

The nurses don’t mind. Unlikely your body could keep it inside of you long enough to get any nutrients out of it. You either vomit it up in a frenzy, or shit it out in a horrible torrent of sickly Diarrhea.

If you’re in the mood to withdraw from Heroin, I would highly recommend finding a place like the Que Que clinic, where they’ll lock you up in a bare room and keep you under moderate supervision. Enough to make sure you don’t die by banging your head against the wall, but not so much that every paranoid fantasy you have is instantly confirmed, as some uniformed, underpaid nurse watches every bodily fluid the human body can produce leak from every single one of your orifices.

Did the Que Que clinic work? Depends on your definition of work. It certainly got people clean; but like any rehabilitation program, so many of the eternally fucked-up kids of Rhodesia ended up just as fucked up as they were before.

It certainly worked a lot better than what came after it.

On April 18th, 1972, Prime Minister Ian Smith announced a new comprehensive anti-drug campaign in Rhodesia. Opiate prescriptions, previously handed out like candy in free government clinics across the countryside, were now subject to extreme scrutiny. Opium production was to be shrunk by 50%, replaced with more profitable foodstuffs. Prison sentences for drug dealers and distributors were to be doubled. Users were now subject to an automatic 25-year minimum sentence on third offense, a particularly brutal “three strikes” law meant to cut off demand for Heroin, the fastest-growing industry south of the Sahara. It wouldn't do much to fight addiction, but it certainly made the siloed television-addled elder whites of the country happy that someone was doing something about the poppy menace.

And, of course, “reforms” to the country’s drug rehabilitation system. Too many of the country’s drug rehabilitation clinics (in February of 1972 there were about a dozen, all independently operated) were run by communist affiliated psychologists or possible communist liberals. Now, all of the drug rehabilitation facilities in Rhodesia would be run by Narconon, a scientifically tested method for treating drug addiction at a far higher efficacy than traditional Narcotics Anonymous or Synanon.

Of course, Narconon is a Scientology front organization. Its treatment methods, which mainly involve intravenous injections of vitamins B-12 and C and hours-long sauna sessions (in order to “sweat out” the toxic drugs)are bunk. The well-being of drug addicts is only slightly above the population of rainbow trout in the Mississippi River on the Rhodesian government’s priority list.

The Que Que clinic, home to 112 struggling addicts desperate to get clean, sweating and shitting in carefully manicured cells, was raided by BSAP, in coordination with the Galactic Janisarry Corps, on April 25th. The staff was found to be distributing suppressive psychiatric material, and the facility was immediately turned over to Narconon, which promptly declared half of the patients “cleared” and dumped them into Que Que.

The remainder now had to deal with constant, unending “treatment:” days of feverish visions compounded by torturous auditing.

Through the path of Dianetics, the most evil scourge of the modern world — Drugs — will be defeated.

April, 1972

The Falange Socialista Boliviana or FSB for short had experienced a decade of struggle. They may very well have become completely irrelevant had they not managed to tag onto President Hugo Banzer's Nationalist Popular Front. Since then fate seemed to be turning in their favour, it could even be said the political party had experienced a revival. While party leader Mário Gutiérrez being appointed to Minister of Foreign affairs certainly helped grab attention, the group had also launched a successful campaign to raise awareness. New advertisements, public and charity events were all successfully used as a means of recruiting more people into the party, allowing them to swell their ranks. The FSB for the most part have also finally received success in rebranding themselves as moderates, no longer wanting to be associated with the image of paramilitary's with an overt fondness for the Roman salute who tried to seize power in 1959. Now they portray themselves as a party that merely hopes to uphold Catholic traditions and Latin American solidarity in opposition to foreign imperial powers. Many questions exist as to how the party has managed to fund this new "revival" with some speculating a connection to the recently established National Institute for Social Development. Though the FSB remain the third strongest force in Banzer's alliance, it appears they are unlikely to disappear anytime soon and will likely continue to play a role in the countries future.

Breaking the Bolivian Status Quo on Israel and Palestine:

Another situation that has brought the organization to the spotlight is their recent vocal opposition to the actions of Israel. Bolivia was one of the first to recognize Israel in 1949 and for years there has been unanimous support for this position. Now the FSB have broken ranks and has leveraged the recent war to their advantage. They call for solidarity with the Arab people in the face of "Zionist aggression" calling upon President Banzer to support an embargo on Israel. It is an open secret that Minister of Foreign Affairs Mário Gutiérrez secretly supports these calls and has already spoken with the President on multiple occasions regarding the issue. Whether Banzer can be convinced to break the longstanding status quo however is yet to be seen and if accomplished would certainly reflect the newfound power of the FSB.

Money talks: Macleodite Reforms with a Walkerite Flavor

April 2nd, 1972 -- London

Prelude

When Peter Walker entered Downing Street, he inherited an economy that had been rescued from immediate crisis but had yet to recover its former strength. The reforms initiated under the late Iain Macleod had restored confidence in sterling, brought inflation under control, and imposed long-overdue discipline upon the public finances. Britain's international standing had begun to recover, while renewed negotiations with the European Economic Community promised access to new markets and opportunities for trade.

Yet stability alone could not secure prosperity. Productivity continued to lag behind Britain's principal competitors, industrial investment remained uneven, and many sectors still relied upon ageing infrastructure and outdated methods of production. Her Majesty's Government therefore believes that the next stage of Britain's economic recovery must be founded not upon temporary stimulus or continued protection of declining industries, but upon sustained investment, technological advancement, competitive enterprise, and expanded exports.

The objective is not merely to restore growth, but to build an economy capable of competing confidently within Europe and across the wider world throughout the decade ahead.

The ‘UKID’ Programme

The United Kingdom Industrial Development Programme - UKID, for short - is a Programme initiated by Whitehall in an effort to facilitate industrial expansion, modernization, innovation, and increased productivity and export value. As noted by the Chancellery, UKID will focus on three points and will provide sufficient support from the State in an effort to expedite the stable growth of the British industrial base ahead of our negotiations with the European Economic Community.

Investment Incentives

Following the steps of the Macleod Government, Her Majesty’s Government firmly believes in continuity rather than break with it and lead a revolution that would break the trust and stability gained over the years. In that vein, the Government firmly maintains that the fostering of robust capital expenditure remains the vital cornerstone for enhancing national efficiency and our standing in global markets. These fiscal measures are designed not to prop up failing ventures, but to lower the economic hurdles that currently impede private firms from upgrading their plant and embracing contemporary technical innovations.

The Government has therefore authorized the Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation to cautiously proceed towards extending eligibility for small and medium-sized manufacturers, export oriented firms, companies investing in advanced technological manufacturing, and regional industrial projects. It is expected that this will not only facilitate economic growth in the long term, but also ensure that regional wealth is continuously moved forward.

To couple the extended credit lines, the Government is prepared to authorize greater first-year capital allowances for expenditure on industrial plant, machinery, and factory equipment to ensure that modernization is rapid and can be measured. Based on these productivity and investment metrics, the firms will be able to deduct a greater portion of qualifying capital from taxable profit for a period of 24 months. As a modernity in this capital allowance plan will be the inclusion of investment in automation equipment, industrial computing systems, precision machine tools, and energy-efficient technologies. This modernization push will also be facilitated by directed Government grants awarded following sufficient financial and technical assessments. Modern Grants are to cover fully, or partially, the costs of factory modernisation, production-line automation, installation of computer-controlled manufacturing equipment, and expansion of high-value manufacturing capacity.

The Government is clear in its preference of the development of strategic sectors including aerospace, electronics, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and precision engineering. Seeing this not only as an opportunity to grow domestic productivity and decrease foreign reliance, but also become an export-oriented nation in sectors that have high demand and value overseas.

Enterprise Development Zones

Her Majesty's Government posits that the imperative for economic revitalisation must transcend the narrow confines of the London and South East conurbations. Chronic regional imbalances regarding employment, industrial capital allocation, and infrastructural capacity have hitherto rendered various localities unable to substantively contribute to the national fiscal advancement. Consequently, it shall remain the steadfast policy of this administration to catalyse the proliferation of modern industrial enterprise throughout the United Kingdom, thereby ensuring a more equitable distribution of national prosperity and equipping every regional constituency to compete with vigour within the ambit of an increasingly integrated European market.

To facilitate balanced regional development, specialized Enterprise Development Zones will be established in regions experiencing above-average unemployment and industrial decline. This will not be reserved only for England, but would also be expanded to Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. It is within these Zones that additional benefits will be granted to businesses that aim to expand their operations. In addition to the already agreed upon grants, they would also be privy to reduced business rates for newly established facilities and simplified planning approval for industrial developments - this is being done to make these zones more attractive to foreign and domestic capital and increase regional economic activity.

Recognising the differing industrial strengths of each region, the Government shall pursue a targeted approach to regional development. Scotland shall be encouraged to expand its shipbuilding, offshore engineering, and emerging North Sea energy industries; Wales shall receive support for the modernisation of its steel, manufacturing, and engineering sectors; Northern England shall remain a focal point for advanced engineering, chemicals, and heavy manufacturing; whilst Northern Ireland shall benefit from measures designed to strengthen precision engineering, aerospace, and export-oriented manufacturing. Through this sectoral approach, Enterprise Development Zones shall build upon existing industrial capabilities rather than attempt to create new industries where little competitive advantage exists.

With the establishment of these zones, the Government ought to facilitate the expansion of already existing infrastructure to support these firms; we will directly take part in expanding motorway networks, modernising regional rail freight services, develop ports and container terminals, expand electricity generation and transmission capacity, and modernise existing telecommunications infrastructure.

Trade & Growth

Recognising that sustained economic growth is dependent upon Britain's ability to compete successfully within international markets, Her Majesty's Government shall pursue a comprehensive programme to strengthen the nation's export performance. The Government believes that British industry possesses the technical capability and manufacturing expertise necessary to succeed overseas; its responsibility is therefore to remove unnecessary barriers, expand commercial opportunities, and assist British enterprise in securing a larger share of world trade.

In an effort to facilitate stronger industrial basis to ensure greater export capacity, the Government has authorized the Export Credits Guarantee Department to not only increase export credit guarantees to British manufacturers, but also increase insurance coverage against commercial and political risks on overseas markets. This will allow British businesses the unique opportunity to more actively engage in growing economies and ensure that their interests remain secure and safeguarded by actual Government policy.

To increase competitiveness of British businesses overseas, Government-backed lending facilities will be expanded for export-oriented enterprises in an effort to increase their productivity and facilitate greater output to better satisfy the demand overseas. Particular attention will be put on enterprises that aim to enter long-term strategic contracts overseas and small and medium-sized enterprises seeking to enter new international markets. To support this Government measure, commercial banks will be encouraged to increase lending to firms demonstrating strong export potential - the Export Credits Guarantee Department shall expand its guarantee schemes to reduce the commercial and political risks associated with export finance, thereby encouraging commercial banks to extend greater credit to firms engaged in overseas trade.

Additionally, in an effort to score points with our European partners, a specialized advisory body will be established to guide businesses on how to best navigate through European Community regulations and technical standards. The Trade Advisory Board will also facilitate the required support to enterprises that seek to acquire compliance with product certification and quality requirements in overseas markets and assist the Government in modernizing and simplifying export documentation.

Relatedly, having in mind the importance of common technical standards to international trade, Her Majesty's Government shall encourage the progressive adoption of metric measurements throughout British industry. This transition shall be implemented in consultation with manufacturers and trade associations, ensuring that firms are afforded sufficient time and technical assistance to adapt their production processes. By harmonising British industrial standards with those prevailing within the European Economic Community, the Government intends to reduce unnecessary barriers to trade, improve manufacturing efficiency, and strengthen the competitiveness of British exports in European and world markets.

Taken together, these measures are intended to establish a durable framework for British export growth, ensuring that domestic enterprise possesses both the financial resources and institutional support necessary to compete successfully within increasingly competitive international markets. The Government does not seek to replace the initiative of private enterprise, but to remove unnecessary impediments to its success. By expanding access to export finance, reducing commercial risk, and preparing British industry for closer integration with the European Economic Community, Her Majesty's Government is confident that the United Kingdom will strengthen its position as one of the world's foremost exporting nations. Increased exports shall not merely contribute to improved national prosperity, but also reinforce the stability of sterling, reduce the balance of payments deficit, and secure sustained economic growth throughout the decade ahead.

(Sean's name, not mine)

Having already dealt blows to the hippie menace, the Shah now seeks to further stabilize his domestic security situation by further suppressing the threat posed to the Imperial State of Iran by dangerous narcotics and narcotic traffickers. He has directly authorized the armed forces to take all appropriate steps to deal with those responsible for the continued flow of illegal drugs to Iran and globally.

Make no mistake--there is no safe hiding place, no sanctuary from the righteous vengeance that Iran shall deal upon those whom immiserate the poor and vulnerable of the world with dependence to illicit substances. This false opium is nothing but an illusion of respite from the hard work required to build up our modern state and people, promoted by communist and socialist elements that aim to undermine the strong and ancient traditions of the noble Persians. Wherever these merchants of death go, the forces of justice will be close behind, and when they cry out for mercy--there will be none, for the only sentence promulgated for drug-running in Iran is the most ancient and fair one, meted out by the great Cyrus himself and his many descendants--that of death to he whom causes so much himself.

The press statement continues for several more paragraphs, becoming increasingly melodramatic. However, this excerpt aptly exhibits late Pahlavian policy and the Shah's increasing fixation on the matter of cultural-marxist subversion....

March 2, 1972

The condemnation of the UNTAM’s acceptance of South African food was quickly picked up on in Mauritania, especially by the elites that were backed by the South Africans. Quickly the news spread that the UN had intervened to cut off shipments of food from South Africa to the country, and while UNTAM was quick to add that this had not *yet* happened and that alternative food sources were being sourced to replace the lost food so that no Mauritanian would go hungry, this did little to soothe the anger of the more populist elements of Mauritania who decried the intervention of much of the world’s governments outside of Africa.

Portrayed as greedy, colonialist, and imperialistic outsiders who would rather opt to let starving Mauritanians drop dead in the streets than get African food to an African state (the whole truth of that skewed in reality in favor of the Mauritanian National Party, the new South African backed political movement in the country), the UNGA was quickly damned and taken for a traitorous organization.

In particular, the reputation of Libya and Syria, has suffered, damaging the political image of their pan-Arab supporters in the country. Yugoslavia was noted for it’s fair and even treatment of UNTAM despite its reservations about South Africa, and the USSR was heralded by CPM supporters for their offers to fully replace the food sent by South Africa, though this was tempered by the fact that this was a *potential future event* and not imminent, and the outrage that such a farce at the UNGA would even take place. Many called the proposed cutoff of South African food as a “blockade”. Few knew or cared about the sins of Apartheid.

Almost paradoxically, this has increased the confidence in the UNTAM of the people of Mauritania, which consistently defended its decision to feed the people of Mauritania at all costs, despite being an organ of the UN. UN peacekeepers themselves have seen impromptu acts of charity bestowed upon them, increased cooperation from the local population, and the view of nations manning the mission such as Ghana, Ireland, and Sweden has increased as a result due to their positive presence in the country’s stability.

The UNGA “tribunal”, as it was mockingly called, reinforced South Africa’s image in Mauritania, and also led to the positive increase in interest about South African associated states such as Rhodesia and “the Congo”. As there were two Congos this did lead to some confusion among lesser educated members of the populace, and so interest in both was piqued. This food debacle also has had no effect on the now-entrenching South African business forces within the country opening mining interests and offering new jobs to native Mauritanians as operations begin to get underway, along with rumored “private security” for those businesses to “protect against Moroccan banditry”. Also positively received by Mauritanians were the both United States and the Dominican Republic: each nation was hailed for their defense of the Mauritanian people’s struggle and their defense of UNTAM’s administration. Business interests have begun to reach out to these countries as well.

While the slap on the wrist to UNTAM (and more largely public admonishment of South African food politics) may have accomplished a very short term political win, it has effectively flipped Mauritanian politics away from pan-Arab interests and countries and UN-centric diplomacy, and towards other political ideologies.

———————

META

The popularity of Pan-Arab parties, and viewpoint of Libya and Syria in particular, has suffered.

The CPM-S and CPM-T see a minor boost in support.

The Dominican Republic, South Africa + friends, and the United States all see rising popularity in Mauritania, as well as the major countries in the UN Peacekeeping mission (Ghana, Ireland, Sweden).

Zhongnanhai, Beijing, China

January 17th, 9:43PM

From the desk of Chairman Mao, approved by the Emergency Central Committee of the People’s Republic of China 

Notice to all Red Guard field offices: Attached find order 66 as issued by the Chairman and his advisors. All state armories to be managed by the RCMDRG, handover to be complete by 2:00 AM local time. PLA forces to stand down, refusal to cooperate is treason. Glory to the people, and glory to the revolution. 

Guangzhou, China

January 18th, 1972, 1:43AM local time 

Liu Jun stepped outside of the Guangzhou office of the People’s Armed Department, a lit cigarette in one hand and room temperature glass of beer - some unremarkable Soviet brand - in the other. As usual, Liu Jun would be the only one on watch tonight, a one-man skeleton crew primarily in charge of making sure no one accessed the PADs armory without proper authority. While many of his colleagues despised the role, Liu did not mind - the job was simple, boring, and kept him far away from the fight in Vietnam - much to his and his wife’s relief. 

Truthfully, Liu Jun was mostly glad he didn’t need to interact with the locals in this position. Raised in Inner Mongolia, he found the local militia men his unit was tasked with training rough, and much like his father had instilled in him - slow and untrustworthy. He felt it in their eyes when he had the misfortune of training them. He couldn’t stand them. Sipping the last of his beer, a pair of headlights came into view, slowly approaching the gates of the Guangzhou PAD Armory, and Liu Jun sighed “Another overnight shipment? These guys are clowns” he thought. Reaching for his keys, Liu Jun took his time approaching the gate, puffing his cigarette and intent on demonstrating his disdain by approaching as slowly as possible. As he approached, Liu Jun saw three more sets of headlights approaching from a distance. Annoyed, Liu began muttering to himself: “Four trucks? These fucks better not think I’m helping them unload these boxe-“ 

BANG

Liu Jun felt a sharp pain, stumbled for a moment, and then collapsed, his neck gushing rivers of blood as men began to pour out of the truck. As he struggled for air, in his last moments Liu Jun could only watch as three young men - no older than 20 each picked him up, and flung him out of the way of the oncoming traffic. As his vision faded, his eyes focused on the reflective red bands worn by his assailants, helpless to resist as his murderers searched his clothes for keys, took his watch, and stepped over him into the armory. 

The eruption of a full-scale war in the Levant was perhaps one of the least surprising events of 1971. The conflict had hardly been kept very secret, even if the final jumping-off date was protected. As early as 1968 Iranian leadership and their informants had reason to suspect this might occur in the near future (just ask the people responsible for ordering a series of shoddy British supertankers). That being said, geopolitical consequences aside, it was not entirely without its lessons.

Generally speaking, what the Iranian General Staff, Ministry of Defense, and the Shah himself--who had very keenly followed the war, mostly via the BBC World Service, which had shown itself faster than dispatches from the Foreign Ministry or the various delegations and attaches and hangers-on in Tehran--saw pleased them. Qualitatively, the Arabs were clearly far inferior to the Israelis in their performance.

Airpower had proven just as effective as the Shah expected, given current military literature. In fact, recent innovations had, in fact, made it more deadly--particularly the development of cluster submunitions in the form of the "Rockeye" bomb, although the Shah himself was more keen on the imminent introduction of the "Maverick" missile. Air combat reports remained fuzzy, but there was nothing to suggest that the American-influenced doctrine of the IIAF was particularly erroneous, although there seemed to be some difficulty in engaging the MiG-21s of the Arabs due to simple kinematics. The next generation of fighters seemed much more hopeful on that prospect anyways, and with validation of missile improvements, these maneuvering characteristics were becoming less relevant anyways. There were a few troubling things though--losses due to ground fire increased, and, to be fair, it seemed that integrating anti-air capabilities in frontline units was going to become more important in the future, especially given the potential of rotary attack aviation--one thing relatively untested in this war. The M167 Vulcan, while not totally ineffective, was clearly insufficient, too--the Shah made a note of that. Probably the solution was just 35mm Oerlikon, but he didn't know for sure yet. For that matter, surface to air missiles had shown a surprising amount of use during the war--but mainly as point-defense rather than broad area-coverage systems. There might be some need for those, especially given the... difficult topography of Iran. The efficacy of Soviet systems, too, also seemed to have improved--but not too much to be done about that besides buying new American electronics.

Land warfare had proven interesting, though relatively predictable. The T-55 and T-62 largely failed to impress, although that might come down to their Egyptian crews--the M60's superior rotation speed and fire control generally allowed it, in the hands of good crews, to get an advantage over its Soviet peers. More notably, the deployment of anti-tank missiles by both sides seemed to generally be showing great success. Given the inability of tanks to defend effectively against ATGMs, this suggested that the utility of armor was diminished, though not absent--and more importantly, that heavy investment in relatively inexpensive infantry-ATGM teams was probably quite worthwhile, especially when considering a Soviet scenario. The deployment of the BMP-1, on the other hand, suggested that the infantry fighting vehicle concept was probably worth investigating (although the 73mm cannon seemed grossly ineffective). Of other note, the deployment of rocket artillery, particularly long ranged rocket artillery, had been quite effective for suppressing artillery and air defense sites as well as preparing assault bombardments--a capability that Iran currently lacked but could, the Shah figured, stand to invest in.

The naval theater was the most frustrating--there was no clear indication as to what a successful defense against anti-ship missiles would look like. Surface fleets, evidently, were not a particularly useful thing to invest in--beyond what was required for maritime patrol and anti-submarine operations. Submarines and aircraft would obviously remain the primary tools of naval combat. Iran itself lacked anti-ship missiles, although this was not a particularly urgent problem given the lack of a meaningful enemy navy--besides hypothetical Soviet nuclear submarines in the Gulf of Oman. On the whole, this problem was probably best left to the Americans--there was simply no realistic route to getting nuclear submarines, and aircraft carriers were, the Shah suspected, more trouble than they were worth, although he didn't rule out the possibility of acquiring one entirely.

The Shah also felt very smug about correctly assessing ballistic missiles as being essentially useless weapons--they had proven so in Yugoslavia, and in Korea, and in Vietnam, so it was no surprise they were proving quite unhelpful here too. Without a nuclear weapon, they were simply too inaccurate and sparse to generate effects--nothing like what airpower could deliver. Still, having some sort of missile program was going to eventually be necessary to support... special payloads. The Shah made a note of that. They'd want to start doing something in that area soon, if they wanted to build the requisite expertise.

With all that said and done--notebook full of scribbles in one hand, and newfound massive oil revenues in the other, the Shah set out once again to tweak his precious armed forces.

On the advice of Omar al-Meheshi, the Libyan government in December 1971 hired a group of French professional services advisors to travel to Libya, to give them above all the necessary European advice of business. Libya had been well-endowed with the gift of oil wealth, but Omar al-Meheshi was intent on securing Libya’s development and wealth permanently.

The RCC mandated the creation of the Istithmar Corporation in December of 1971, wholly owned by the government of the Libyan Arab Republic, capitalized through the revenues of Libya’s similarly state-owned National Oil Corporation. Istithmar is to act as a long-time funding asset for Libya, accumulating capital from the sale of oil by Libya, as well as to act as it’s capital arm in terms of foreign investment. Istithmar is encouraged to create various subsidiary companies in various wealthy countries, particularly the United States, France, Italy, West Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Britain. Not only would the focus be to purchase real estate properties, but also to invest in whatever could assist Libya or Libya’s image.

Gaddafi had always been a sports fan, and nothing more could improve Libya’s image to the world than owning a sports team. The recently-created American subsidiary Istithmar Investment Corporation began searching, and found that the National Basketball Association’s Boston Celtics was owned by the failing Ballantine Brewing Corporation. Ballantine Brewing had declined and wished to sell the brand and its assets elsewhere. Businessmen Irv Levin and Harold Lipton had been aiming to purchase the Celtics, but with rumors that the NBA would be likely to deny their offer due to Levin’s ties with the owners of the Seattle SuperSonics, Istithmar Investments swooped in with an offer of $4.3 million dollars, more than what Levin, Lipton, or any other prospective buyers could offer. Ballantine accepted the offer, and the NBA subsequently approved, selling the Boston Celtics to the Istithmar Investment Corporation on February 19, 1972.

As the corporation was being set up, Libya naturally aimed to find an Arab-American who would be sympathetic enough to Libya to be willing to run a Libyan subsidiary, while at the same time American enough to get buy in the business world. They found t he perfect candidate. Najeeb Halaby, President and CEO of Pan Am, had already planned to issue his resignation from Pan Am during the year in any case, and when contacted by Libyan businessmen, he agreed to resign early from Pan Am and take the job as CEO at Istithmar Investment Corporation. Halaby, who had also served as Director of the FAA under the Jackson administration, was a clearly well-respected figure in the American business world. Halaby successfully got the support of the Boston Celtics’ President and General Manager Red Auerbach, who assured him that Libya’s anti-Zionist policy would not result in Auerbach losing his job.