Title: Unthinkable
Characters: America, England.
Rating: PG.
Summary: 1945 - With victory in Europe secured, and the war in its final throes, England approaches America with a plan to invade Russia.
TCE is co-written by
wizzard890 and
pyrrhiccomedy.
---
Washington DC. May 22, 1945.
England stared at him. "What do you mean, you don't want to invade Russia?"
It sounded to America like the same tone of voice he would use to say "What do you mean, you don't want to come to my birthday party?"
"This is a stupid idea, England." He snapped a manila file shut. "Why the hell would I?"
England stood on the other side of America's desk with his arms crossed. "You can't deny his imperial ambitions."
"Not since I met him," America agreed.
"Don't be flippant."
"Who's being flippant? --And who are you to talk about imperial ambitions, by the way?" He bent over his paperwork and went back to initialing defense contracts: USA, USA, USA.
"That--I agreed to the principle of self-determination at the outset of the war, so at the very least, you must acknowledge that I intend to mend my ways--"
"But Russia didn't agree to the self-determination thing," America pointed out. He pushed England's file back towards the other nation across his desk. It was titled, aptly, 'Operation Unthinkable.' "So I don't know what you're surprised about."
"I never said I was surprised. But you agree that Russia is expanding his effective borders, and--"
"Why are you acting like this is so totally unprecedented--"
"--Stalin is unreliable," England finished. America tapped his pen on his desk, and England prompted him, "I'm sure you agree."
"…Stalin's a son of a bitch."
"That was broadly my point, yes." England turned around, leaned back, braced both hands on the edge of America's desk. America watched the back of his neck. "I believe Russia poses a threat to Western Europe."
"You're crazy if you think he wants to pick another fight right now," America informed him. He picked up his coffee mug, set it down again when he remembered that it was empty. Ceramic struck wood with a hollow ring. "After what we've all been through?"
"Stalin?"
"--What?"
"You don't think Stalin wants another fight?" England still wasn't looking at him. He orated to the air.
"--No, Russia." America shrugged his eyebrows, unseen, and muttered, "Who knows what Uncle Joe wants."
"...I wish you would stop calling him that."
"Oh, but we're just so close."
England brought them back around to the subject. "Russia has never precisely shied away from conflict." He flicked an invisible speck of dust from his sleeve.
America's face twisted up sourly, and he dropped his pen. It clattered on the desk. "He just finished fighting Germany. I think even Russia might be a little tuckered out," he sneered. "He's a mess, England. Right now he just wants to focus on controlling his new 'friends,' and maybe get some of his people to lay off starving so much. He doesn't want another fight. He's even dragging his heels about turning up to the party in Japan."
"I think that has more to do with an unwillingness to commit his resources and his people's lives to our aid, than any particular aversion to war."
"He's a mess," America repeated.
England shoved off the desk, paced a few turns on the carpet with his hands shoved in his pockets. He blew out a breath, stopped, and said, "He looked well enough to me at Yalta. Positively expansive, even."
"Sure, that's how he's gonna act when we're around, at conferences, but--"
"Upright, energetic, not even any damned bruises that I could tell--I wouldn't want to fight him--"
"--Except you do--"
"He appears to have recovered in swift and rather terrifying fashion," England ground out.
"Yeah, well, that's just kind of how Russia rolls, terrifyingly. But he's still been worked over, and he's feeling it same as anybody would." America kicked back in his chair.
England brought one hand down hard on America's desk. "How can you be sure?"
"Because I've seen him with his clothes off," America snapped.
A buzzing red silence of five or six seconds passed. A muscle next to England's eye twitched, and his fingertips curled a little on the desk. He managed a soft, "Oh, I see."
"Don't start," America warned him.
England crossed the room, to just beside the door, and America thought he was going to walk out. But no; he leaned one arm against the far wall, his head bent, his face invisible from where America was sitting. He said nothing for about a minute.
America shifted in his seat. He looked down at his paperwork. He thought about picking up his pen and going back to initialing things. His fingers twitched in his lap. He didn't.
"So," England sighed. America jumped. "I take it this is the real reason you don't want to oppose him. Even with the security of Western Europe at stake."
America longed to observe that he didn't see England getting too teary-eyed over the fate of Eastern Europe, these days, nevermind the look on that poor blond kid's face when England broke him the news from Yalta, but--that wasn't important right now, America shouldered past it. "No, England, my personal relationship with Russia is not why I don't want to invade him. I don’t want to invade him because it's a stupid idea. A stupid, unnecessary idea." He worked his jaw. "I can keep my private life and my political life separate, you know."
"Can you?" England murmured.
"I need my Navy in Japan, to win the war I'm already fighting. Leaving them in the Mediterranean and the North Sea, to maybe defend you, if Russia possibly attacks, just in case, is--is--" He blew out a breath. "I'm not your nanny. I came into this war to protect you--"
He stalled as soon as the words came out of his mouth.
Uh, fuck.
He scrambled, "--And France, and everybody else, because, you know, it was, uh, the right thing to do, and it'd suck for me if all the free market economies got replaced by--by--fascists and whatever--"
England kept staring. America cleared his throat irritably and forged on. "You know. Whatever. Anyway. --And I'm going to finish it. But then I'm done, okay?"
England opened his mouth, closed it, and then looked down into his cupped hand. "M-Much as you might wish to be, Russia's ambitions, ah, he may not allow--"
"He's a mess!"
"So you keep saying, but do you think Stalin cares about the state of his country's health?" England looked up sharply, eyes narrowed. "If Stalin wants war, then so long as Russia is physically capable of fighting, Stalin will make him fight."
America looked down and away, teeth clenched. His fingers clutched suddenly together. A cold flicker kindled in his throat. "Stalin sees the benefits of peace," he managed. "He--he agreed to let Russia participate in the UN--"
England swept him aside. "Yes, and as you rightly pointed out, he exempted himself from the UN principle of self-determination." Those cool green eyes watched him. "You think that says nothing about his intentions?"
"He says he wants peace." America couldn't meet England's even gaze. ""I've got to at least give him the benefit of the doubt."
"That is wishful thinking on your part. I had hoped you would have outgrown that kind of naïveté."
America grimaced. "You've been calling me naïve for two hundred years. I'm still doing okay."
"Because your isolation and your, frankly, your lack of importance--"
"Excuse me, my what--"
"--Insulated you from the consequences of your blind idealism--" England glared at him and began cleaning and picking at his fingernails with one hand, one of his agitated little habits.
"You remember how the last big war ended?" America demanded. He sat forward. "You and me were allies, things were winding down, and then you used our alliance and better relations to convince me to join in one some pointless invasion of Russia? And it was stupid, and we didn't accomplish anything? And then I thought you were a dick for the next twenty years?"
"And just think," England shot back, "If you had truly committed yourself, and followed my counsel, Stalin would never have come to power, and Russia might be sitting with us now, as a fellow free democracy."
America's fingers tightened on the edge of his desk. "Don't, don't play that game with me. Nobody could have predicted--"
"I told you then that Russia's system would be wholly incompatible with cooperation with the West, and I am telling you now that unless we do something, his current leadership and his rise to prominence will inevitably lead to conflict with--with you--"
"Russia doesn't want to fight me!" America cried. "His people are just--they're tired--"
"What makes you think he has any say in the matter?" England swept his hand through the air like a backhanded slap.
"I don't want to talk about this anymore." America snatched up his pen, jerked his paperwork in towards the edge of the desk. "I'm not going to war with Russia, and you're crazy to suggest it. He and I might--we might--finally be able to be friends again."
"You're fooling yourself," England warned him.
"I won't do it."
"Fine." England scraped up his file and tucked it under his arm. He stood too straight, head held too high, and vibrated like a plucked guitar string. "It was only a suggestion." He stopped in the doorway. "But remember what I said. In ten years--see if it doesn't have a very different sound to you then."
"Goodbye, England."
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--
Operation Unthinkable was a British plan to "impose upon Russia the will of the United States and the British Empire," drawn up on order by Winston Churchill towards the end of WW2. American support was deemed to be essential; without it, the odds of success were "fanciful."
-- Great Britain's reasons for desiring an invasion of Russia, and America's reasons for dismissing the plan out of hand, were pretty much exactly how they're presented in the fic (minus the stuff about nudity). England was concerned about a belligerent, expansionist Russia led by an "unreliable" dictator, who, not having yet committed to war with Japan, might instead ally with Japan and marshal against Western Europe. The Americans were astounded by the whole idea, and felt it had no military or political benefit. Their hope was for a quiescent, cooperative Russia as a founding member of the UN.
-- "...nevermind the look on that poor blond kid's face when England broke him the news from Yalta..." - The
Yalta Conference was when Churchill and Roosevelt agreed to concede to Stalin Russia's territorial gains resulting from the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and to allow Russia to determine Poland's political future. In Poland and elsewhere in Eastern and Central Europe, this was part of what is known as the
western betrayal. Whether or not the Western Allies had a realistic alternative is still a very sensitive subject today. Ironically, the wrong done to Poland and other nations of Eastern Europe by the West would have been redressed by the successful implementation of Operation Unthinkable, but there is no sign that this figured significantly in Great Britain's reasons for an invasion.
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This is a chapter from The Chosen End, a Russia/America collaboration spanning from 1780 to the present day. You can read all of the fics in this story at the
Index.