Hey, everyone!  I’m still on the road, here, but just to keep everyone interested, here’s some more about the World of 6-Commando.  You know, because contemplating an international arms race is fun on New Year’s.

And the text, as always:

UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA
DIPLOMATIC APPELLATION: Federal Union of South Africa
CONVENTIONAL SHORT FORM: South Africa
CAPITAL: Pretoria
LARGEST CITY: Cape Town
AREA: 794,817 sq. mi. (not including Unincorporated Antarctic Territory)
POPULATION: 67.3 Million (1996 est.)
FORM OF GOVERNMENT: Federal Parliamentary Democratic Republic
HEAD OF STATE: President
HEAD OF GOVERNMENT: President (President is both Head of State and Head of Government)
INDEPENDENCE: 1852 (from the United Kingdom)
ESTABLISHMENT: 1902 (Treaty of Vereeniging)

South Africa did not develop its own atomic capability until very recently, detonating their first weapon at Point Vela in the South Indian Ocean 1994. Detonating the weapon, however, made South Africa the first major power from that continent to join the Atomic Club, and the nation took a place as a permanent member of the UNA Security Council later that year. South Africa has a small but productive Uranium mining industry, and several agreements with Nigeria to fill out their supply of fissionable material. As the first African seat on the Security Council, South Africa has been aggressive in its advocacy of a stronger UNA deterrent force. This is understandable, given the state of the African continent, with three Disrecognized Zones harboring a number of Non-State Actors known or suspected to be seeking to acquire atomic weapons of their own, especially UNITA, which has increased activity along the Caprivi Strip in northern Namibia. Moreover, Communist insurgents and FSR agents have long sought to destabilize the area, and the addition of atomic weapons would constitute a serious existential threat to South Africa and its interests throughout the continent.

EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS-IN-EXILE
FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY
ESTABLISHED: 1922 (Weimar Constitution)
DEFUNCT: 1980 (Scarlet Revolution)
UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND
ESTABLISHED: 1066 (Norman Conquest)
DEFUNCT: 1981 (Communist Coup d’État)
REPUBLIC OF FRANCE
ESTABLISHED: 1793 (Declaration of the Rights of Man)
DEFUNCT: 1977 (Fall of Paris)
ITALIAN REPUBLIC
ESTABLISHED: 1867 (Risorgimento)
DEFUNCT: 1978 (Fall of Rome)

Atomic weapons were pioneered in Europe, and prior to the Scarlet Revolution of the mid and late 1970’s, there were four major atomic-armed nations in Europe: Germany, Britain, France and Italy. Germany was the originator of the design of modern fission weaponry, and detonated the first atomic weapon in 1969 in New Caledonia, with assistance from the French government. From there, atomic weapons development accelerated rapidly. Britain developed atomic weapons in cooperation with Canada and the United States, detonating their first weapon in the Yukon Territory in 1970; Italy developed weapons independently, detonating its first weapon under the Mediterranean seabed in 1972. Before the Scarlet Revolution, the four European powers collectively held an arsenal exceeding 5000 warheads and 3000 delivery vehicles. When the Western European governments fell, major efforts to evacuate these weapons managed to keep them largely out of FSR hands, placing them under Canadian and US control, where they remain.

RUSSIAN P.F.S.R.
DIPLOMATIC APPELLATION: Rossiskaya Proletaritskaya Federativnaya Sotisailisticheskaya Respublika
CONVENTIONAL SHORT FORM: Russia
CAPITAL: Moscow
LARGEST CITY: Moscow
AREA: 6,592,800 sq. mi.
POPULATION: 174.3 Million (1996 est.)
FORM OF GOVERNMENT: Oligarchical-Collectivist Dictatorship
HEAD OF STATE: Premier
HEAD OF GOVERNMENT: Chairman of the All-Federation Communist Party
INDEPENDNECE: 1922 (Russian Empire Abolished)
ESTABLISHMENT: 1924 (current Constitution)

Russia is the sole possessor, in the FSR, of the atomic bomb. For a brief period in the mid-1970s, both Poland and Austria had atomic programs based largely upon designs provided from Italy and France via the extensive FSR espionage network. When the massive destructive potential of atomics became universally evident, Russia acted to divest its allies of atomic capability, cementing the policy in the Fifth Odessa Compact in 1988, which formally provided the Russian Proletarian Federative Socialist Republic with the sole legal atomic arsenal in the FSR alliance. Since the Russian P.F.S.R. also holds a near monopoly on Uranium production in the FSR, this gives Russia very tight control over the atomic arms industry, and practically no fissile material of any sort, even for research or industry, finds its way out to the satellite nations. A notable exception is the Chinese P.F.S.R., which has been experiencing a major industrial expansion since the early 1980s and has been pushing for its own segment of the atomic deterrent to be stationed under Chinese control. This may be due to the Japanese nuclear force, which the Chinese P.F.S.R. views as a major potential wartime threat.