Zarbia, The Forgotten War[Zarbia, a territory of beautiful wonders and gorgeous sights, is proving difficult to handle.]Esperanza Calderón makes the same two-way trip between her hometown of Anteñeras and what she refers to the 'big city.' The town of Los Cármenes de Golón, home to about thirty thousand people, is hardly big by most standards, but it serves as a central hub for the eleven small towns that sit along the three highways that run through Los Cármenes de Golón and extend out in all directions. The farthest satellite town, Anteñeras, sits fifty-six kilometers away south of the city, a distance that Esperanza must run twice at least once a week to buy fabric and clothes to sell in her tienda.
Like many Zarbians taking advantage of the new rules under the Golden Throne's oversight, Esperanza has started her own business by using her home as collateral against a bank loan. She sells the fabric to the people of Antañeras, many of whom cannot afford the vehicle to make the trip to Los Cármenes de Golón — those who can prefer the convenience of shopping local anyways. By true big city standards, Esperanza is by no means wealthy, but her shop affords her a comfortable lifestyle in her small town, as it does to many others. From convenience stores to barbers, the townsfolk of Anteñeras have found their own niches to supplement the often meager income they make as small farm owners. The rise of small businesses, throughout Zarbia and Nuevo León, is certainly a major success story of the occupation. But, the win has been oversold.
"It's very dangerous," she says, Esperanza's hands on the wheel of her second-hand van that she bought with her loan while she looks out at the road. "For some time the trip was safe, but lately the rebels have been attacking the local farms for food and their roadblocks are bad for business."
Wars in Gholgoth, Kashubia, and Holy Panooly have drained the Fuermak to such an extent that it has had trouble maintaining the peace in the Zarbian territories. There was a time when it was thought that the occupation in Zarbia had come to an end. Indeed, the insurgency had all but disappeared, and those who continued the fight did so from bases so remote that they were hardly a concern at all. However, the shortage of troops has allowed for the rise of a stronger insurgency that is emboldened by the apparent lack of enthusiasm by part of the Imperial Bureaucracy do prioritize its low-intensity occupations.
The rebels fund their operations through extortion schemes, taking money from commuters like Esperanza by establishing ad hoc 'roadblocks' that are broken up as soon as Macabean forces arrive to break them up. Entire towns are governed by them in some of the more secluded prefectures of the territories, where jungles are lush and uncomfortably hot. And when friendly troops arrive to displace them, they leave only temporarily and come back as soon as the occupation forces withdraw.
Part of the problem lies with the chronic lack of manpower. Over a million soldiers were involved with the original invasion of Zarbia, but when the dust settled the majority of those moved on to other wars — Monzarc, Indras, North Panooly, and New Empire. About two hundred thousand were left to secure a broken country that since the end of the War of Golden Succession had been suffering from an intense and bloody civil war. Zarbia was split in two, the west more readily integrated into the rest of the empire. It has been in the east, through Nuevo León, where trouble has brewed the most. With the war in Gholgoth demanding more and more manpower, occupation forces in the territories have dwindled. In Nuevo León there are about seventy thousand soldiers who are mostly assigned to community support missions. Only a small fraction, mostly special and elite forces, involve themselves in the day-to-day combat against rebel units roaming the deep, dark southeastern Zarbian rainforests.
Copying a strategy used with some success in Indras, the Fuermak had adopted the use of airship-based special forces that can be quickly deployed to any hotspot throughout the two territories. These are usually supported by small wheeled ground detachments that can act as blocking or flanking forces. While effective at displacing and eliminating enemy forces which allow themselves to be caught, their mobile, dispersed nature also makes them completely ineffective at holding the areas they clear. While their operations have certainly been disrupted, and considerably so at that, their strength has nevertheless grown over recent months.
But troops, or the lack thereof, are not the only factor to blame. While most Macabean soldiers, Theohuanacu auxiliaries mostly, are not involved in the fighting, they are regularly deployed in nation-building missions. These include simple maintenance tasks, such as repairing broken or damaged wells, as well as larger infrastructural projects. These have not been enough.
Farms along the southern frontier with the Territory of Guffingford, within which lies the small town of Anteñeras, have suffered from widespread banditry and theft. Rich crops are stolen by hungry rebel armies and whatever income farmers do make they all too often lose to extortion. By the time friendly forces arrive the farms are already burning. It has been a terrible war of attrition that has cost both sides, but one that has cost the people of southern Zarbia the most. And if it's not the theft, the frequent clashes all along the area cause widespread destruction and devastation. It has left the region impoverished.
The outskirts of Anteñeras, taken from the sky. Programs to extend the distribution of plumbing, sewage, and clean water have done much to raise standards of living, as has the growth of the financial system and entrepreneurship along with it. But agriculture remains the region's primary industry and the extensive destruction of the countryside presents a tremendous challenge to administrators who seek to prevent local loyalties from switching to the insurgents.
Already hundreds of young recruits flock to rebel training camps located far into the most impenetrable jungles, where occupation forces have the hardest time digging them out. In these environments, the smaller force sizes used for the fast-tempo counter-insurgency operations elsewhere prove inadequate in breaking down fortified enemy positions. Rebel forces often simply melt away, holding units capable of putting up enough of a fight to let the main forces get away largely unscathed. This has made arresting their inertia very difficult, and where perhaps a year ago insurgent numbers were estimated at no more than three thousand, today military officials suspect of perhaps fifteen thousand fighters total — a five-fold increase.
Of course, the problem is exacerbated by the fact that the Imperial Bureaucracy has refused to invest into a public civilian security force. With no police on the streets, the locals have had to improvise. For the most parts, these consist of town watches which hardly put up much of a fight when confronting insurgent forces. When militias from various localities coordinate and join forces corruption often follows, leading to extortion on levels or surpass that rival those of the rebels.
Even as undoubtedly a success story as she is, even Esperanza Calderón tells us that if the situation doesn't change, "we might have to surrender to the rebels. It's easier that way."
It's not just in the rural southeast that the insurgency has made its presence, though. By slowly consolidating their hold over the prefecture, the rebels have used it as a base of operations to launch attacks farther west. Some strikes have pierced into the Territory of Zarbia, the western-most marches of the original country, which have come as a shock not only to the Imperial Bureaucracy but to the provinces as well. Four provinces border the territories and some have begun to fear that the attacks could penetrate as far as the border cities, something which could bring widespread panic. The Imperial Bureaucracy has leveraged this fear in their negotiations with the Senatorial Government over recruitment rates, and the effects have manifested most visibly in the reinstitution of the pre-2019 conscription laws. Some of these forces, by agreement, will bolster defenses along the long intra-imperial frontier.
But few of these forces are likely to venture into the Zarbian territories. Many will undoubtedly be rotated in and out of combat elsewhere, and the Fuermak will hardly want to throw tired men into yet another combat zone. This means it will have to be the occupation forces that defend the larger Zarbian cities from attacks.
Vondheim has already suffered from an alarming number of rocket attacks on its suburbs, and the rebels have not been shy in resorting to terrorism by organizing bombings and shootings. Thirty-two people were reported killed last week in an explosion that rocked a bazaar near the center of the city, and this was only the most recent addition to a death toll that has climbed to just over five hundred people over the past six months. But it's in the cities that the defending military forces are strongest, and so it's not so much the growing frequency of insurgent raids that worries the administration. The true disaster runs along a deeper current.
Over the past year and a half, the rate of urbanization has accelerated beyond sustainability. Outside the cities proper lay kilometers upon kilometers of project buildings that house hundreds of thousands of the territories' poorest people, the majority of which seek work in the vast oceans of factories that have cropped up outside of almost all major Zarbian cities. With little money and property, these communities represent the most destitute, disgruntled, and volatile sectors of the territories. They are prime candidates for recruitment amongst the insurgent groups, and indeed many of these have already infiltrated these sectors of the cities and have established recruitment cells that draw young radicals into their ranks. The fear is that if the rebels gain a solid foothold in the suburbs they will incite labor unions, riots, and outright armed clashes with occupation forces.
Decrepit apartment blocks characterize these industrial suburbs. It is a common belief that they were built by the factories to house new workers, but these actually demand very little human labor. Manufacturers are attracted to the Zarbian territories because the land is cheap and taxes are lower, not because of low wages. Most factory work is, in fact, automated and factory work has become more and more reliant on technical skills, roles usually filled by the more educated class of Macabean colonists who come looking for higher wages. No, the largest employer of labor by far remains the mining sector, which is controlled by a handful of behemoth corporations.
Crumbling and gloomy, apartment buildings like these characterize the surbuban landscape of Zarbian cities. "There just isn't enough work. There's not enough hours given out. I don't make enough money, and I need to find a solution fast because my family has to eat," Carlos Fontanero tells me as we walk through the narrow streets of Minares, one of the larger towns sitting on the outskirts of Vondheim.
People around us look at me suspiciously. I look like an outsider, like a young middle-class colonist who doesn't belong. The settlers arriving from the provinces live near the center, in the wealthier condominium blocks that have already replaced extensive areas of the former urban landscape. It has been a revolution in living standards, but it represents only a small cultural bubble that has insulated itself from the hordes of impoverished locals to live all around them. It's a bubble that us Macabeans rarely leave, and we're expected not to. In some suburbs we aren't welcomed at all. Even an afternoon stroll like this was dangerous.
If I can walk freely around these parts it's because I walk with Carlos. "I've always been a giver," he says. "Me and Minares go way back."
"As a young man," he recounts, "I remember helping out in the soup kitchens. I've always been a troublemaker, but I've also always been a community man — a family man. I've helped where I can." And even where he can't, Carlos always manages to leave a footprint. It was in his early teens when he joined a gang, the Minares FO-12, in which he participated in the pre-occupation drug and prostitution trade. Even then, Carlos tells us how FO-12 funded community projects, such as smuggling in bootleg Macabean, Stevidian, and Guffingfordi movies to display on big screens set up against the backs of the concrete apartment blocks. These activities have endeared the people of Minares to him, and although the FO-12 is largely long-gone its legacy remains in the loyalty that men like Carlos command in these neighborhoods.
Nine months ago, he lost his job at the Garag-Tenebeal zinc-lead mine just east of the city, where for almost fifteen years he served as a mechanical fitter. Uneducated, Carlos was deemed insufficiently skilled for a management position and too old, and slow, for the physical work he was doing. He lost his job.
"I was lost." He stares off into the sky, his face pained from the memories.
But he didn't lose everything. A man of action, Carlos quickly found a new life path by using his community connections to organize one of the territory's first homegrown private defense agency. While the people of Minares hardly make money sufficient to pay for private security forces, Carlos had negotiated with the city of Minares contracts that allow him to pay himself and his men. In exchange, he and his men — about three hundred total now — patrol the suburb's streets in an effort to keep the peace. But, the job is becoming harder and harder.
He isn't the only person to have lost his job, or to be without one, amongst the inhabitants of Minares. Like most cities, tens of thousands of new workers have flocked from the countryside to the city. Some flee the rebels, but most come in search for new economic opportunities. But despite the historically high rates of foreign investment in the territories, their still too slow to keep up with migration rates.
The lack of work, and oftentimes housing, has greatly contributed to rising social instability. This coupled with the predominately poor labor conditions makes for an explosive cinder box that the insurgency is sure to exploit, and indeed has already begun to infiltrate. And although Carlos and his men have put great focus on Minares' youth and programs to keep them away from the gangs, he needs more personnel and there simply isn't enough funding to pay for them. Unlike the rebels, Carlos can't rob or extort the capital he needs, and without the financial backing of the Imperial Bureaucracy he fears that his project is doomed to fail if the political situation continues to spiral out of control.
Of course, the Imperial Government is unlikely to provide the funding. The success of the privatized model used in the provinces for the provision of security has led the government to uphold the same philosophy throughout the territories. Either the territorial governments must provide the necessary money or security remains privatized, which often means non-existent.
In the dark world of the projects, not all have the fortune of sleeping in a warm bed. It was predicted that the annexations of Zarbia, Monzarc, and Indras would go more-or-less peacefully, as did those of Guffingford and Safehaven. The Fuermak had apparently failed to learn its lesson from the decade-long Theohuanacu experience, where a series of wars have yet to tame the southern and western fringes of the island. War still rages along the pirate-controlled southeastern coastlines, as it still does in Zarbia and will continue to do so for a long time.
Not all have ignored the warning signs, though.
"In Theohuanacu, it was the debt of the The War that tied our hands behind our back," recounts Lasagos Didíek Martosé, hands ironically behind his back as he paces from side to side in his office at the Ejermacht territorial. "Here it's overextension. We have a large army, but too many wars, too many enemies to fight. What good are a billion troops to safeguard the empire if they're all in Gholgoth? We need those soldiers back home, where they can help keep security in the territories. A half a million more men would help, a million more would be ideal. A million out of over a billion is not a big number, but we won't get what we need. They make big promises, but something always comes up and they postpone."
Indeed, the Imperial Bureaucracy has meant to bolster its garrison in Zarbia since the annexation, but there has always been something else to serve as a distraction. The invasion of Zarbia, and then the smaller, wealthier northeastern enclave of Monzarc, were merely preludes to much grander ambitions. Then came the "reunification of Guffingford," albeit under imperial rule, of course.
There was a time that not many remember anymore because it was so fleeting and sudden, a time when it seemed that a renewed war between the Golden Throne and the Holy Empire was a very real possibility. The Macabean military was mobilizing along the frontier and its sights were placed on the long strip of coastal Guffingfordi territory that the Stevidians had taken at the end of the War of Golden Succession — what Martosé refers to as 'The War.' Even then, Martose petitioned for additional resources in Zarbia and he was granted one hundred and fifty thousand men. No more, however, for Guffingford was the utmost priority. But, then came the war in Indras. Then the peacekeeping mission in New Empire, which has turned into more of an informal occupation of a puppet regime. These, of course, continue, and to them we must add the unraveling conflicts in southern Theohuanacu, Holy Panooly, and, the most consuming of all, Gholgoth.
The Fuermak is still growing and 'Army Group Zarbia,' which in truth is little more than three divisions and a swarm of special forces brigades, is included in those growth plans. At full strength, Martosé is supposed to have just over eight hundred thousand soldiers. But, the armed forces can only grow so fast, and most of these new recruits are destined for Gholgoth, and before that either Holy Panooly or Theohuanacu.
That means Zarbia is one of the last items on the priorities list and Martosé won't get the troops he needs for a long while, if ever.
During the campaigning season up to twenty to thirty thousand men can be deployed on raids, search and cordons, and other maneuvers against enemy rebel forces. That leaves around forty thousand to garrison major cities and hundreds of smaller outputs throughout the two territories. The scarcity of manpower explains why the predominate integration strategy is an indirect and long-term one.
Gangs and privately-funded programs aren't the only options for Zarbia's youth. Tens of millions also join the auxiliaries which have been recruiting at unrelenting rates in an effort to meet the Fuermak's demand for bodies. They are deployed to Indras, Theohuanacu, New Empire, and Gholgoth, far away from their homeland and the politics of their people. As long as the Golden Throne is at war, the auxiliaries will remain a popular outlet for territorials of age looking for a reasonable income and adventure. But as the war in Gholgoth becomes more real and the terrifying stories of the Theohuanacan meat churners circulate fewer and fewer Zarbians seek to join the service. With conscription already reinstated in the provinces some wonder whether it is a matter of time before the law is extended to the territories.
An Imperial Governor may sign a conscription order at any time. It can be vetoed by His Imperial Majesty or by the three-fourths vote of a representative body of a territory's government. Even in this case, however, the Imperial Bureacracy typically and eventually negotiates the outcome it seeks, even if it comes with some concessions for the territories in questions.
If the law passes, between seventy-five and one hundred million Zarbians may be drafted into the military. This would soak up most of the Zarbia's and Nuevo León's unemployed populations, which would draw away from the rebel's most fertile recruitment grounds and do away with much of the social anxiety that is starting to unsettle the densest, poorest urban populations. But it would take away from civilian security forces organized and led by men like Carlos Fontanero as well, handicapping what are already very limited defense efforts by part of the local communities.
The Imperial Government has rested its hope on an economic solution to the ongoing insurgency. In theory, as more Zarbians are pulled into the middle class they will begin to place their bets with the territorial administration.
Large scale industrialization, such as the multiplication of factories and mines, have been one facet of this approach, but one whose riches won't be seen by the locals for decades to come. The growth of the financial system has been a boon, but so far their impact remains limited. Zarbians are, on average, quite poor, and the loans they do qualify for tend to be small. This has handicapped entrepreneurship. In an attempt to help remedy these constraints, the Imperial Bureaucracy has introduced redistributive property programs that give rights tenants who live on land under ambiguous and often undocumented ownership. It has also strengthened property rights for home- and landowners in small towns, like Esperanza Calderón. These lands were once 'dead capital,' or assets of value that could not be exploited to their fullest because of the lack of strong property rights. By making the rights explicit, these assets can be used as collateral to borrow from banks eager to lend in what is predicted to be an explosively strengthening economy.
All of these policies set their sights on the future, but the problems Zarbia and Nuevo León face are very much in the present. If the empire's territorial policies are to work, the territorial administrations need the manpower to secure their communities and defeat insurgent forces. Bearing the alarming situation in Zarbia as it stands, it is absolutely amazing that to many Macabeans it stills seems as if these two dry, ready-to-burn lands were long ago integrated and assimilated into a peaceful empire. Nothing could be further from the truth.
We are still at war in Zarbia, and unless imperial priorities change soon it will be a very long war indeed.