When the initial attack came on January 1, 2013, the Russians, who were still trying to initiate a market economy and were suffering from runaway inflation, had been ill prepared for it. Before they even realized they were at war, the bulk of their air force was destroyed, the bulk of their border security was dead or captured, and Asian spearheads were more than two hundred kilometers inside their border in four distinct thrusts. The infamous Russian winter, which had defeated Napoleon and Hitler in previous conflicts, impeded the enemy not the slightest in this one. Moscow fell within two weeks. Russia was out of the war completely inside of a month, all of its mineral and petroleum rich land, all of its military equipment, and all of its nuclear warheads in Asian Power hands.
The Indian army had attacked to the west in Russia with more than two million men. The Chinese had attacked to the east into Siberia with another two million. The European Union had of course immediately mobilized their armies, navies, and air forces and had moved to counter the onrushing Indians. It was quite clear that the Middle East was their objective. The Americans, thinking themselves in no danger of invasion in their own country but greatly concerned about the threat to their oil supply, began to mobilize their army and navy and air force in preparation to assist in Europe.
The United States Navy had had three active aircraft carrier groups in the Pacific Ocean when the fighting started. One was just off the coast of Japan, one was on shore leave in Pearl Harbor, and one was in dry dock in San Diego. As the Asian Powers had predicted, the Americans immediately moved the group cruising near Japan towards the Yellow Sea in order to "show force". The Americans loved to show force during a crisis, loved to project power with their mighty carrier groups. Unfortunately they were foolishly overconfident in just how much force one of their carrier groups actually represented. So long had they used them to intimidate other nations that it never occurred to any of their high command that a nation would fail to be impressed by the movement of such a group to their shore. They had also been under the impression at the time that the Chinese would not dare deliberately draw the great United States into the conflict, would never risk war with America. How naïve of a view that would seem in retrospect. How neatly the trap set by the Asian Powers would spring shut upon the United States Navy.
Before the aircraft carrier group was even on station, American-designed F-111 bombers operating out of Shanghai attacked it. More than four hundred of the twin engine, supersonic medium-range bombers (a hundred more than the CIA had even believed the Chinese possessed) each carrying two Russian made Kingfish anti-ship missiles, swarmed upon the group in the early morning hours of January 3. The attack group was supported by more than two hundred MiG-29 and F-18 fighters carrying air-to-air missiles. The fighters plowed through the pitifully outnumbered combat air patrol that the carrier had placed aloft and the F-111s, though taking nearly thirty percent losses by the protective ring of frigates and high-tech Aegis cruisers, launched their missiles from near point-blank range. More than six hundred of the four thousand pound missiles streaked towards the fifteen ships of the carrier group at better than twelve hundred miles per hour. Ships began to explode and sink a few minutes later while the surviving attack aircraft withdrew. When the smoke cleared, the mighty, thought to be invulnerable United States aircraft carrier was on the bottom of the sea along with eight of its escorts. Of the remaining six ships still afloat, only one, a fleet oiler, was undamaged. A follow-up attack six hours later took care of these battered survivors. Less than two hundred of the twelve thousand sailors assigned to that carrier group were eventually fished from the water by the Japanese Navy.
The second American carrier group, which had immediately began speeding towards China from Hawaii once the war broke out, reached the coast of Japan a week later. At this point things were still quite confusing as far as which players were involved in the conflict and the United States was still under the impression that Japan was its ally. This illusion was shattered when the second carrier group was sank in three successive attacks by Chinese Backfire bombers and escorts operating out of Yokohama on the main Japanese island of Honshu. In less than two weeks a good portion of the Unites States Pacific Fleet had been destroyed and many of its highly trained crews were dead.
The Indian Army, meanwhile, had pushed westward through Russia where they dug in along a 1300-mile long front that stretched from St. Petersburg to the Black Sea. The European Union Forces—soon to be known as the Eastern Hemisphere Forces as the Australian, South African, and Egyptian armies joined in the struggle—would strike again and again at this line over the next seven years. Though they would occasionally manage, at horridly high cost, to push it temporarily back a few kilometers, they would not break through it.
Having secured their first objective: Russia, the Asian Powers then turned their attention to their next. For the Indians, it was the Middle East and all of its rich oil supplies. In a two-pronged attack their forces invaded the country of Iran from both sides of the Caspian Sea, driving south and west towards Iraq. Within two months the entire Arabian peninsula was under occupation and the Suez Canal was in their hands. Though the oil rich countries of Egypt, Sudan, and Libya would remain free of Indian forces, their oil supplies were kept from reaching the Eastern or the Western Hemisphere forces by Indian air superiority over the Mediterranean Sea and Persian Gulf. Any tanker attempting to leave a port was immediately attacked and sank by American-made, Indian-piloted P-3s staging out of Haifa, Israel.
While the Indians were digging in against the Europeans and securing the richest oil region on earth, the Chinese were concentrating their energies upon another very oil-rich region of the planet: Alaska.
Once again, underestimation of Chinese intentions and capabilities were the biggest contributor to what followed. To the Americans it was inconceivable that the Chinese could possibly invade American soil. Though they were massing troops on the Kamchatka peninsula in plain sight of the peering satellites, the Americans simply did not believe their enemy had the capabilities to launch a seaborne invasion. It was only when a huge armada of Chinese and Japanese naval ships escorting freighters, tankers, and more than sixty car-carrying ships belonging to Nissan, Toyota, and Mitsubishi was detected heading across the Bering Sea that the American forces began to realize what was about to happen. By then, it was far too late to counter it in any meaningful way. The American Air Force attempted to attack the armada with B-1 bombers armed with anti-ship missiles. A flight of more than sixty of the bombers took off from Seattle and streaked northward towards the formation. More than a hundred fighters from Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska met up with the force to provide air cover. The attack turned into one of the biggest disasters in USAF history. The attacking Americans were met by wave after wave of MiG-29s, F-14s, and F-15s while they were still more than three hundred miles out from their targets. The American aircraft that survived this onslaught were then hit by the Chinese and Japanese protective ships that were cruising sixty miles south of the main formation. When it was over, only two of the B1s remained aloft to limp their way to Alaska. Not a single B1 had managed to fire its missiles. Though a great many of the Chinese planes had been shot down during the battle, the fleet itself sailed on without damage.
Two days later the Chinese forces landed, almost without opposition, at Valdez, Alaska. For the first time since the War of 1812, large numbers of American citizens found themselves under occupation by a foreign power. Within a week the entire Alaskan peninsula was in enemy hands along with the United States' primary domestic oil supply. In addition, the Chinese now had an unbreakable supply line between Kamchatka and the North American mainland. It was a supply line that was unapproachable by aircraft or by surface craft and that was nearly suicidal to approach by submarine. The Chinese put this supply line to immediate use and began to amass troops, equipment, and aircraft on the Alaskan-Canadian border.