Operation PERSUASIVE FORCE

Involving more than fifty divisions, Operation PERSUASIVE FORCE was a Star League Defense Force military exercise intended to judge the Terran Hegemony's readiness to repel an enemy invasion. Unofficially Commanding General Aleksandr Kerensky intended PERSUASIVE FORCE to show the SLDF was prepared and ready to deal with any future conflict against either the Periphery and the Great Houses, and as an opportunity for him to try and regain the trust of future First Lord Richard Cameron.

Overview

The ongoing tensions in the Periphery during the Regency of Richard Cameron forced the Star League Defense Force to send increasing volumes of troops to maintain the peace and limiting the time available for Kerensky to involve himself in the life of young Richard or the affairs of the High Council of the Star League back in the Hegemony. Thus in 2757 General Kerensky announced Operation PERSUASIVE FORCE, a massive series of war games intended to test the Terran Hegemony's defenses, with the Hegemony-based First Army serving as the defender as three other SLDF armies launched an external multi-prong invasion.

Despite the efforts of the local SLDF garrison commanders to try to allay their fears, many in the Periphery saw PERSUASIVE FORCE as a prelude to an imminent invasion, but with Stefan Amaris' alliance with his fellow Periphery neighbours to create the Secret Army in its earliest stages, the most aggressive response that occurred was the egging of the SLDF commander on the Taurian Concordat capital of Taurus during a press conference. The Council Lords also angrily protested PERSUASIVE FORCE as an unwarranted attempt to bully them, General Kerensky seemingly having timed the exercise to coincide with the Spring Star League High Council Session and ensuring each was well aware of the might of the SLDF as they travelled to Terra.

In truth both parties were correct, with the Regular Army High Command using the information gathered during Operation PERSUASIVE FORCE to modernize existing plans and operational tactics for fighting in either the Member or Territorial States, General Kerensky intending the exercises as proverbially knuckle cracking, showing the SLDF was ready and willing to act if necessary. PERSUASIVE FORCE also showed the seemingly folly in considering a external military attack against the Hegemony even with much of the SLDF maintaining the peace in the Periphery. Through the First Army ultimately fell, it took three months and required the combined strength of three SLDF Armies, a force larger and more powerful than any other single Inner Sphere or Periphery military could conceivably devote to an attack.

But General Kerensky considered all these concerns secondary to his attempt to spend time with Richard Cameron outside of the influence of Stefan Amaris. Brought up on a healthy diet of romanticised warfare, the then-13 year old future First Lord eagerly accepted the General's invitation to observe Operation PERSUASIVE FORCE beside him aboard the SLS McKenna's Pride. The chance to see the full scale of the SLDF in action first hand was temptation enough that Richard readily agreed to General Kerensky's request that Amaris not accompany him. Realizing that he had spent less than a month with the boy, rumors of the teenager's temper and hedonistic ways dismayed Kerensky and he correctly saw Amaris as a malign influence to be overcome.

For the next three months the First Lord and his Regent would watch every step of the exercise from the initial simulated clashes on the border of the Hegemony until its conclusion around Terra, observing naval battles, orbital bombardments and ground battles from the cockpit of a specially built, two-seat BattleMaster. Outside of this grandeur and spectacle, to show the First Lord the darker side of war the General took Richard to field hospitals to see the many accidental injuries that occurred as part of this simulated conflict to show what the aftermath of a real battle might be.

Ultimately though the effort was too little, too late. While the General was hoping to impress upon him the responsibility of his high office and the need for strong moral character, Richard instead only saw a preview of the massive power that he believed was his by divine right as influenced by Amaris. Likewise, any attempt Kerensky made to even indirectly hint that Amaris' motives or interest in Richard was not pure or altruistic would prompt an enraged response from the First Lord, the isolated boy's psyche show stark similarities with that of his mentally-disturbed grandfather Jonathan Cameron.

Also unbeknownst to General Kerensky, Amaris' influence with the First Lord and among the Hegemony government ensured official observers from the Rim Worlds Republic aboard every SLDF vessel had unprecedented access to PERSUASIVE FORCE, watching and recording every tactical, strategic and logistic detail of the SLDF and the Hegemony defenses. This information, combined with that gleamed from SLDF bases and fortresses in Rim Worlds the General had been forced to turn over to Republic in the wake of Richard's "Birthday Proclamations", would be shared with Amaris' erstwhile allies to aid them during the Periphery Uprisings, but would be used to much more deadly effect in Amaris' own Operation APOTHEOSIS.

Bibliography

• Field Manual: SLDF
• Handbook: Major Periphery States
• Historical: Liberation of Terra Volume 1
• The Star League