Chronicles of Toria: Setting the Stage (Vol. 0)

(Act 1) Chapter 9 - Changing times

After the fall of the Soviet Union, it wouldn't take long for a new conflict to arise. This time, the attention of the world would be focused on the constantly war-ravaged Middle East, where the Ba'athist United Arab Republic (UAR), a political union between the former nations of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, would conduct an invasion of Kuwait.

Thanks to its enormous oil deposits, the nation was an economic juggernaut capable of exerting significant influence on the world's oil supply almost by itself. With that economic power, the nation would build an equally massive army composed of what was, at the time, state-of-the-art Soviet equipment.

Yet, the UAR was always treading a fine line. Composed of multiple ethnic and religious groups, the nation was an artificial one born out of the rampant Pan-Arabism of the 1970s as the old colonial empires of Europe collapsed. That meant that if this carefully created balance of pan-nationalism, economic power, and military prowess were to be tipped ever so slightly, the union would fragment into a thousand pieces as all sides would try to assert their claims over the remains.

And the fall of the Soviet Union meant exactly that. With the collapse of its biggest partner, the UAR had lost its main arms and economic supplier. The nation was under a Western-imposed embargo. Additionally, with the rapid privatization of Russian oil and gas companies and the opening of markets in many other previously Soviet-aligned nations, oil prices were rapidly plummeting. The balance was being slowly tipped off course.

The UAR was in a race against time. If nothing was done, the union would enter into an economic recession and dissolve, which neither of its main political elite wanted. When attempts to decrease the production of oil to increase or halt the price freefall failed, the nation saw no other option than to raise their pan-nationalism.

Under the justification of ending the last vestiges of colonial rule in Arabia and righting the wrongs of the past, the UAR leadership declared that the nation of Kuwait, due to its membership in the failed Arab Federation and its history as part of Ottoman Iraq, was a territory that rightfully belonged to the union. They also made accusations that Kuwait was producing more oil than allowed by the OPEC quota and demanded that Kuwait surrender itself and join the union as an Iraqi province in February 1992.

And the result was obvious: the Kuwaiti government refused and was quickly defeated by the UAR. However, the aftermath went completely against the expected results. Instead of the West relenting and ignoring their annexation, the West denounced it and began preparations to force the UAR to leave Kuwait, whether by peace or by force.

The first to raise the issue was the USA, quickly followed by Japan, Britain, France, and China, as well as their respective minor allies. The world was uniting against the UAR, and when the UAR refused to comply with the demands of withdrawing from Kuwait, and its newfound position threatened the Saudi oil fields, military action became the only way to force the UAR to comply with the international demands.

A coalition of 56 nations would be formed to fight against the UAR, and on 17 January 1992, operations against the UAR would begin with a massive air campaign aimed at disrupting and destroying UAR's strategic infrastructure. Yet, even though the coalition held a massive numerical and, to an extent, a technological advantage over the UAR in terms of air power, the Air Campaign was met with stiff resistance from the UAR's equally impressive air force and Anti-Air systems.

For the nations of the Trident Alliance, the air campaign would be a risky but successful affair, thanks in most part to the Japanese and British relatively fresh and personal experiences in dealing with enemy AA systems and aircraft in the late stages of the Korean War and the entire Falklands War. For the OFN members, the US and China, on the other hand, their air campaigns would be equally successful but with much higher losses.