One Month Later and Europe is on its knees...

How time flies. It's been a busy past month, hence the lack of blog posts. Ironically, the workload is only going to get tougher as the weeks go on until the end of the Easter holidays. Yet here I am with a respite to write a new blog post.


What do I cover? Perhaps the most exciting thing that's happened is the crisis games the International Politics department at Aberystwyth University. Held twice a year, it is a simulated international crisis where teams of participating students are assigned countries or NGOs to represent during a scripted (usually in an ad hoc manner as time goes by) crisis.


This semester's game was my second. This one was based on a flu pandemic, an energy crisis and the coldest winter on record in Europe in January 2011. Three crises rolled into one. Not an appealing prospect, even before we got to know the details.


A new strain of flu was spreading throughout the Western world: Janus flu. It had spawned and spread simultaneously in Washington DC and Los Angeles, and subsequently developed hotspots in London and Berlin. The flu had a mortality rate of 25%. Rumours of a manufactured virus were not unrealistic. On top of this, there had been a diplomatic crisis in the Middle East during the summer, and there was an existing oil and energy shortage. Furthermore, Europe was seeing its highest energy demand due to the coldest winter on record.


I was on the British team. Unenviably, gas made up for 25% or so of the UK's electricity production, not to mention home heating. On the bus on the way to Gregynog mansion, where the crisis games are held, we were handed a Reuters news report mentioning a gas explosion at Russia's three gas terminals that supplies gas to Europe. All gas supplies were cut off.


Knowing that the UK had only 14 days' worth of reserve gas (6-7 game sessions), our team had to find an alternative to energy production, fast. Without an alternative, a lot of British people would not only cough to death but also freeze in the process. Immediately, I spoke to the Americans and arranged a heightened effort to discover the status of the Russian gas terminals. Russian authorities could not be trusted.


The military was already mobilised to ensure the maintenance of critical civilian infrastructure, i.e. power plants, food supplies and field hospitals where existing health infrastructure was already inundated. With weather and illness threatening the workforce, the breakdown in critical services was imminent, and the first time for it to happen since WWII. Soon enough, newspapers reported up to 500,000 cases of the flu in London and the South East. That would equate to roughly 125,000 deaths. In one region.


The World Health Organisation (WHO), made up of an initially quiet team, pushed for efforts at sharing the development of a vaccine. France, with its large nuclear energy infrastructure, and skills transfer from the US, managed to keep its nuclear plants running to an extent that surplus energy was available for trade. We, in the UK, was depserate enough to accept France's only condition - a donation of €5bn to the WHO for vaccination efforts. France matched this donation.


Poland, with its coal-based energy infrastructure, also managed to provide a surplus of electricity. Poland kindly traded this energy at normal prices with the UK. For the short term the UK could stave off complete depletion of its energy reserves. 


During this time, Russia was quiet. By the fourth session, Western intelligence sources had confirmed that the Russians were involved in masikrovka in relation to their gas distribution centres. The Russians fabricated the Chechen attack and fed it to the news. The Russians had willingly turned off the gas at Europe's most vulnerable time. 


Angered by this, I, the British Prime Minister, sent a signed secret communique to Moscow from all European states asking what were their demands to get the gas back on. We knew that the Russian gas infrastructure was intact. This communique was met with stark denial from Moscow.


The British team, amongst disagreements from within and a fracturing of the Cabinet, attempted to get gas from Norwegian deposits. The European Union team considered seizing its gas assets by force. The UK refused any military action against Norway. Before any concrete deal was made, espionage efforts by an unknown party had neutralised the Norwegian gas infrastructure. Also the flu had hit Norway particularly badly.


Bang went that plan too. The UK was running out of energy sources, and the French and the Poles couldn't keep energy production at such high levels indefinitely. The flu was taking its toll on the European populace. The Middle East had sealed itself off to Western trade to isolate it from the flu.


The USA had decided not to pool its resources in the WHO vaccination effort, and to devevlop its own, faster, vaccine. This backfired on the Americans as they did develop a vaccine faster, but the vaccine resulted in "undesired sideffects", namely, death.


Eventually the WHO, with China's aid, curiously, developed a working vaccine. Production centres in the UK began mass production immediately. For the time being the WHO recommended to isolate healthy people from the sick. This would mean moving the healthy around into isolated areas. All states undertook this advice, except the Ukraine and the UK. I, the Prime Minister, faced objections from within about ignoring the WHO's advice, but it turned out to be the best course of action. The states that did listen to the WHO faced mass riots against security forces as healthy people were separated from their families, and quarantine was never fully established. It only took one unhealthy person to slip the net to ruin the whole programme.


Buoyed by the success of my judgement, I managed to put down a rebellion within my own government. This brief relief was soon quashed by the arrival of Russian demands in Europe for the resumption of gas supplies. And the news that the Janus flu was indeed manufactured, but without any clues as to by whom. Curiously, there were zero cases of the flu in China and the Middle East. 


Russia wanted a new pricing agreement and structure, separate from actual market prices, the expulsion of NATO forces from previous Warsaw Pact states, and a 'neutral' Ukraine and European mediation on American policy. The Americans had lost two pilots over Russian soil, the spyplane incident embarrassed the White House. Refusing to apologise over spying on Russian assets, the Americans seriously considered military action against Russia.


Extremely worried and growing ever more pensive at the prospect of nuclear war, I decided that negotiations were imperative or we would all be facing nuclear armageddon. The Germans, intriguingly, approached me with an offer. In dialogue with the Russians, the Germans had a set of reasonable demands from Russia that European states could accommodate. The European Union was sidelined. I set at work to get France, Germany and Poland to agree to some terms of the Russian demands. However, Russia's insistence on NATO withdrawal from ex-Warsaw Pact states was flatly rejected. With a tacit threat from me of nuclear war if the gas wasn't switched back on due to rejection of our agreement, the Russians switched the gas back on. For the time being.


Getting the Americans to back down over the pilot issue wasn't easy. However, I did present a way out of the crisis without conflict (and likely nuclear war) to the Americans and they did listen. I managed to hold them off from their military strike against Russia to see if the Euro-Russian deal would work.


It did work. But then Russia decided to seize Alaska. Then the world went to hell.


Facing a large conventional counterattack from the Americans, the Russians pulled back before escalation occured. We Europeans provided no assistance to the Americans in this misadventure, we needed Russian gas. Reportedly, one Russian official was quoted as saying "I'd rather spend a fortnight in Borth" than Alaska.


The French reneged and refused to sign the European deal with Russia. Their loss. With the gas switched back on, and the vaccination programme beginning, the crisis seemed to have passed its zenith. With 80 million dead worldwide, mostly in Western states, a new world order was emerging with China as the world's strongest state.


Let's hope this crisis game remains a hypothetical. It's plausible and terrifyingly possible. If one thing is to be learned from this - Britain needed its nuclear weapons. During this crisis, I did not have to beg the Americans to protect us with their nuclear arms. Not once. Had we not had our nuclear weapons, our bargaining position with Russia would have been much weaker. So, support the British nuclear deterrent!