Melbourne, Australia, September 2035
Ruhan Ahuja offers to refil my Thali plate in the back of his brother's restaurant as he continues describing the inner workings of the UN Department of Operational Support.
"It was never really about paying the soldiers, on paper their home countries took care of that. And we reimbursed contributing countries for each soldier they provide. To take care of the additional cost of equipment and hardship pay for sending troops abroad. It worked well enough when you had to send some Nepalese or Bangladeshi soldiers to the Congo. But 30 million men in mainland Europe? Forget about it. With the global economy in turmoil, central banks around the world were practically popping champagne just for managing to fund a buffet table for diplomatic and military talks. Nations that once poured hundreds of billions of dollars into decade-long investments in AI and microchips—racing to keep up with the United States and China—were now settling for three-year plans focused on agriculture and industrial output. People say a lot of things. Before the war, billionaires churned out countless ghostwritten books preaching perseverance and self-discipline to mid-level managers. But when those same billionaires vanished—hiding out in the Gulf or Antarctica—while world leaders scrambled to act like a mix of Deng Xiaoping and Franklin D. Roosevelt, we learned where the real power truly stood.
With Germany out of the picture and Europe reverting to an 1800s-style industrial state—focused solely on churning out wheat bushels and refurbishing Cold War tanks—China and the U.S. had fully transitioned into war economies. Famines swept across the globe. And there we were, my colleagues and I, running around trying to convince governments that paying 20-year-old Pereira from S?o Paulo for his service in the trenches near Frankfurt was a worthwhile investment. Safe to say, we had our work cut out for us.
From Los Angeles to New Delhi to Seoul, e-scooter factories had pivoted to manufacturing transmission parts for tanks. Clothing sweatshops no longer churned out fast fashion but instead mass-produced tourniquets and pressure bandages. Ammunition factories? Too many to count.
I was there when the first M60 rolled out of the Renault factory in Istanbul. They didn’t waste a second—conscripts were taught to drive the tanks while they waited for the train. And once onboard for the day-long ride to the front lines, the loaders learned how to reload shells between stops.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Oil, metals, rare earth—everything was in short supply. You couldn’t even find a microchip to run an electric toothbrush. It was no surprise that the largest UN deployment outside of Europe was in the Congo, sent to stabilize the region and get the cobalt mines running again. Nasty fighting. Even worse was trying to convince some conscript from the other side of the world—trained to fight crabs—that he now had to battle jungle militias instead.
It could have been much worse. Remember that one Pacific island that refused to open up its mine? No one was surprised when the French sent in their few remaining shock battalions—professional soldiers from before the war. No warnings, no diplomacy. Just two days of relentless airstrikes, followed by parachutes and naval landings. They didn’t even bother taking that damn president alive. He and his government never knew what hit them. That sent a good example.
What I’m saying is, in that chaotic first year, when everyone was terrified of meteor landings in their own backyard, things could have spiraled fast. Naval blockades, resource hoarding, wars over fuel and metal—they could have become routine. But the major powers strong-armed the world into solidarity. Not out of kindness. Not out of the idea of human survival or supremacy. Just because the alternative was worse. Either work with us or see your capital turn into radioactive cobalt.
I was there when the U.S. president gave his speech at the start of the war. Standing before the entire UN, you could tell he had rehearsed it for hours—maybe even days. He spoke of human unity, of facing an unprecedented adversary together. My God, it sounded like something straight out of Independence Day.
At first, the room was silent. Then, a chuckle. I don’t know who broke first—maybe the Lebanese or the Brazilian representative. Just a trickle, barely audible. Then the German representative laughed—loud and raw. Her eyes were still red from the earlier tears she had shed while explaining the nightmare her country was in. And that was it. Half the room erupted into laughter.
What sticks with me is that, in the end, when we stopped counting the number of tanks and artillery shells produced, and instead focused on counting the unexploded ordnance, the lost mass graves, and pensions for the children of dead soldiers—that’s when it clicked. That loud-mouthed, broad-shouldered cowboy from Texas had gotten his wish for human unity. Not through any idealistic notion, whether fundamentalist, liberal, or religious—no handshakes, no marches under one flag. We got it through force and violence.
Anyone who tells you violence never solved anything is a fool. Open any history book. The material reality of the world we live in and force has built more than any holy book ever could. The highest authority from which all other authorities stem from.
