Chapter 1326: The Divided Coalition Force

July 12th, 2020, was definitely the most humiliating day since NATO was founded.

With the fall of the Bucaramanga military base, the Colombian government force and the NATO Coalition Force stationed in this area had to strategically retreat. However, with their communication completely collapsed, it was nearly impossible to obtain first-hand information anywhere on the battlefield.

After a force saw a friendly army withdraw from the frontline, they had the following dialogue.

“Hey, which country are you from? Where are you going? Why can’t we find the signal for the command post?”

“Italian XX Brigade. We are heading to the Port of Barranquilla. Don’t ask, we don’t know why…”

“Then shall we continue to station here or retreat?”

“You ask me, who do I ask?”

The order to retreat was indeed issued. Through the carrier-based helicopters on the Ford aircraft carrier battle group, the most primitive methods were used, which was to notify each combat unit. However, due to the collapse of the command system, they could only notify down to the battalion level, not to everyone.

This also led to another situation.

It was possible for Company A to receive an order to remain stationed in an area, while Company B, which was responsible for backup support in the same area, received an order to withdraw. When the person with a retreat order to Company A arrived, he discovered that the rebel guerrillas were already here and in the midst of the battle. Company A must be wondering where did Company B go…

Based on the map, NATO’s defense line shrunk to the coast near the Gulf of Mexico in just one day as they re-established their positions around the Port of Barranquilla.

The NATO Coalition Force re-established the command system. While they issued equipment, all the equipment was protected by a metal sleeve, and they strictly required every soldier to store all equipment in the metal sleeve during non-combat periods.

It was the most primitive and effective method to counter EMP strikes. The principle was probably the same as the steel ball sent to the guerrillas. A Faraday cage could shield the entire electromagnetic field.

There were 100,000 troops when they first arrived, but fewer than 60,000 evacuated to Barranquilla. In addition to the captured and those who died in crossfire, some soldiers may had be retreating while others may have retreated with the Colombian government force to Bogota.

A disastrous defeat was no longer enough to describe the losses suffered by the NATO Coalition Force.

While the repair team was busy repairing the equipment that was withdrawn from the front line, FARC and Moro soldiers did not just sit around.

NATO left a large amount of equipment and supplies at the military base in Bucaramanga. After they graciously accepted these equipment and supplies, the Moro and FARC troops split into two. Moro soldiers marched northward through the mountains to surround the NATO Coalition Force along the Gulf of Mexico.

FARC followed Jiang Chen’s order and moved south through the Andes. They aimed straight to the Colombian capital with the goal to push Timochenko onto the throne of the president as soon as possible. They strived to end the war as soon as possible.

With the FARC heading south, panic started to spread across every developed city in western Colombia.

Everyone knew that the rebels were coming, but they didn’t know how far away they were. They could see what happened on the front line through Twitter before, but now they couldn’t even open their phones.

In a modern society extremely dependent on the Internet, when even the most basic electricity was lost, not only the channels for obtaining information were affected, but as well as people’s daily life. The supermarket was tightly packed by the panicking crowds, prices soared, and supplies that shouldn’t be scarce started to experience shortages. The United Nations had to start taking care of the mess left by NATO as the discussion on humanitarian reliefs began.

Of course, NATO countries panicked the most.

The more modern the army, the weaker its resistance to EMP attacks. Although countries were researching EMP and anti-EMP weapons, and the “anti-pulse” capability of existing equipment, the EMP weapons only made its appearance three years ago, and it took time to finish the research.

The Advanced Projects Agency of the Department of Defense was ahead in the research, but in a wide-area EMP attack scenario, their efforts still seemed inadequate. Unless the entire army was thrown into an airtight iron box, it was impossible to completely avoid the impact of EMP.

After all, even Celestial Trade would not be able to fully mitigate the impact of EMP weapons…

“ESA has conducted a forensic investigation on whether the solar wind has passed through the border on July 11th, and it has yet to find conclusive evidence to confirm…We have submitted the latest investigation progress to the European Union Commission, hoping to help the authorities.”

The European Space Agency’s hesitant statement reflected the conflicted position of the European Union.

They thought they were just going to South America with their ally to pick a guaranteed fight, but they didn’t expect to be dragged into such a big mess.

There were more than nine thousand prisoners of war.

Excluding Turks that made up half of the number, there were more than a hundred of them spread among each country.

And the families of the fallen soldiers…

The thought alone was devastating.

Differences were appearing in the European Union as to whether or not they should continue to be involved in this war.

The strong stance of Celestial Trade on the South American issue had already far exceeded their expectations…

As for the UA, they still chose to remain tough.

The Capitol Spokesperson made a statement immediately and took aim at Celestial Trade with NASA’s report.

“NASA has not observed an active solar wind and is investigating the matter further. At the same time, we are shocked and angry at what happened in Colombia. I warn certain rogue organizations not to take chances and try to use natural phenomena to confuse the audience, if the disaster that happened last night turns out to be a self-directed farce, they will pay the price for their careless behavior!”

Investigation?

It was impossible to investigate.

The solar wind is a continuous phenomenon. Only when the two magnetic fields are in a state of “magnetically reconnection” will it cause the Earth’s magnetic field protection barrier to create a “gap”, thus causing the solar wind to affect the surface. This gap opens and closes at all times, and the size and position of the opening are not fixed, and it is also related to the magnitude of the solar eruption.

With the dependency of many variables, the impact may be serious or minimal. For example, in 1991, the gust of solar wind almost blew up the nuclear power plant in Maine, but in 2010 it only produced quite a spectacular aurora over the United Kingdom.

But the Capitol’s statement made Jiang Chen a little relieved. The strength and advantage of Celestial Trade finally made the ruler of the old world a little hesitant in its actions.

If this happened ten years ago, the UA’s aircraft carrier battle groups would have long entered Xin’s water to investigate “weapons of mass destruction”. Why would they still debate whether it was a solar wind or EMP that caused the incident?

As for whether the infuriated NATO would launch a full-scale war on Celestial Trade, Jiang Chen was not worried at all.

The EMP launched in Colombia was also a deterrence to NATO.

Many different opinions existed on the area coverage of the wide-area EMP strike. The opinions included how destructive the electromagnetic pulse warhead carried by the Peacemaker was and what was its deterrence capability? How does it compare with nuclear missiles?

And now, Celestial Trade directly used its fist to tell NATO the power of this weapon.

It was very, very, very powerful…

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