[DIPLOMACY] Boston - Chicago

##Office of the Secretary of Defence of New England:

to: Department of Defense of the Midwestern Republic

As you have said before, the New Englander Armed Forces are in need of a major overhaul and re-organization, to build it into a capable fighting force, one which can adequately defend New England, and protect us from outside attack.

Therefore, we have turned to the Midwestern Republic, our friend and ally, who was instrumental in encouraging Washington D.C. to see sense and allow our independence, to come to our aid once again, with your large industrial and developmental base, to assist us in re-establishing New England as a force in North American policy making.

We have laid out our plan as follows:

####the Army:

The Army is the cornerstone of any nation's defence; without a credible land component, a nation's air and naval forces are useless. Therefore we feel it is necessary to put most of our efforts in this area, to establish our ground forces as soon as possible, ensuring they are up-to-date with any modern tactics and technologies.

We feel that organising our Army as in the United States, at the brigade level, given our limited size and the necessity to be interoperable with our American neighbours, due to our North American Accord commitments, would be most beneficial, and provide the ability for our forces to be relatively small, but well armed.

Whilst we will take any Midwestern proposals seriously, we suggest the following make-up for the Army:

Active:

• 9x Armored BCT
• 7x Mechanized BCT
• 14x Infantry BCT
• 3x Air Defence Artillery Brigade
• 2x Medium Artillery Brigade
• 2x Rocket Artillery Brigade

Reserve:

• 4x Armored BCT
• 3x Mechanized BCT
• 6x Infantry BCT
• 2x Air Defence Artillery Brigade
• 1x Medium Artillery Brigade
• 1x Rocket Artillery Brigade

Aviation:

• 24x Combat Air Wing

####the Air Force:

Leveraging New England's small geographic size, the Air Force being capable of spreading out rapidly, to protect New England's airspace from external threats is a major capability gap currently, therefore we believe that a strong, agile force would be best for New England, over a more conventional, concentrated air force designed to protect industrial and population centres from attack, such as the United States Air Force.

Given our location between the United States and Canada, any attack by air that comes would only be possible by carrier-based aircraft, therefore the need for a massive air force is thankfully largely mitigated, and therefore we feel that the Air Force should focus on developing its combat capability over and build-up of its size.

We await Midwestern proposals regarding aircraft as well as ideas towards a specific squadron make-up, however, we would be seriously interested in discussing this issue with the Midwestern Republic further.

####Other Proposals:

Given the unfortunate status of the Midwestern Republic as a landlocked nation, and its lack of a Navy or Coast Guard, it is probably unnecessary to discuss naval proposals with Chicago, outside of asking for Midwestern assistance in outfitting new vessels, however, this is probably best left to be discussed at another date.

We would be interested however in discussing the necessity of the establishment of a Marine Corps, given that all other coastal U.S. states have one, whilst we are certainly interested in the establishment of amphibious forces, does Chicago believe it necessary for New England to create a separate branch for such operations, and if so, does it have any proposals for Boston in such a regard.