Federation War

"After turning ODIN against us, the Federation stood on the doorstep of America, poised for the kill, They thought we were weak, crippled, prey waiting to be taken. We fought hard and fought well. We fought them to a bloody stalemate."

- Hesh recounting the Federation War.

The Federation War is an ongoing military conflict that occurs during the events of Call of Duty: Ghosts. It is fought between the United States of America and the newly established Federation of the Americas.

Background
Years before the war, the Middle East was wracked by multiple conflicts, culminating in the Tel Aviv War, which devastated the entire region and the oil refineries, triggering a global energy crisis that sent First World countries around the globe spiraling into chaos. While the United States, their NATO allies, Russia, China, and India spread themselves thin trying to maintain order and Asia floundered, the oil-rich South American nations of Venezuela, Brazil, and Chile united to form the Federation of the Americas. With their combined strength, they were able to monopolize their resources and ruthlessly consolidate power over their neighbors. The Federation soon developed into an aggressively expansionist superpower and became the primary rival of the United States.

Operation: Return to Sender
In 2015, Federation leader General Diego Almagro, a staunch anti-American, ordered all U.S. citizens present in Federation territory be imprisoned or executed, a move immediately condemned by the United States. After the killing of 20 United Nations Peacekeepers by Federation troops, the U.S. government authorized Operation: Return to Sender, an invasion of the Federation with the goal of dismantling it and assassinating Almagro in Caracas, Venezuela.

The operation marked the beginning of open conflict with the Federation. Although Almagro was successfully killed during the assault on Caracas by Ghosts, the operation failed to stop the Federation itself and ended sometime later with both sides agreeing to a truce. Over the next two years, while the truce was in effect, the Federation recovered and continued to flourish economically. Its military moved northward unchecked, invading and conquering the countries of Central America and the Caribbean.

Assault on ODIN
By 2017, the United States had developed the Orbital Defense Initiative, or ODIN, as a safeguard against foreign attacks. During its final tests, ODIN's command station was hijacked in a surprise attack by Federation astronauts, effectively breaking the truce with the U.S.

The Federation soldiers proceeded to target and strike the American mainland with its own kinetic weapons, decimating the American south and southwest and causing an estimated 27 million civilian casualties. ODIN's crew attempted to defend the command station during the attack, but it was destroyed in the battle, preventing the crew from regaining control of ODIN's payload-firing satellites and halting the strikes. Before ODIN could hit other targeted cities, including Washington, D.C., ODIN's remaining crew sacrificed themselves to scuttle one of the satellites and causing a chain reaction that knocked the others out of orbit. Believing the U.S. crippled by the strikes, the Federation launched a full-scale invasion and overran several cities along the U.S.-Mexican border.

Rorke and "LOKI"
A decade later in 2027, the war between the Federation and the U.S. had been fought to a stalemate with the Americans holding their ground. The front lines stabilized among the ruins of American cities, with a massive concrete wall (the "Liberty Wall") and mined no-man's land dividing American and Federation territory.

American defensive lines seemed to be impenetrable. However, the Federation conducted renewed offensives along the frontline. They began capturing and interrogating civilians living among the urban ruins for intel about routes through or around American defenses; the stronghold of Dallas fell overnight due to the successful application of this strategy. Having been reduced to fighting a defensive war, there was little U.S. forces could do to turn the tide. As months went by, more and more Federation invasion forces attempted to breach through their line of defense, but the Americans managed to hold their ground, despite losing Houston.

Suspicious of the Federation's increased activity, Elias Walker dispatched his sons Logan Walker and David Walker behind enemy lines to investigate Federation movements. They discovered a dig site where one of ODIN's crashed satellites was being excavated and studied, and learned that a man named Gabriel Rorke, a former Ghost who had been captured during Operation: Return to Sender and converted to the Federation's cause, was involved. Soon after, Fort Santa Monica was assaulted by a Federation fleet, but U.S. forces, including the Walkers, defended the base. Elias Walker then informed his sons that he is the leader of the Ghosts and they had proven themselves worthy of joining.

Federation Day
The Walker sons' first mission as Ghosts was to capture Federation scientist Victor Ramos in Caracas and interrogate him for Gabriel Rorke's location.

Operation: Deadbolt
Although the operation proved to be a trap, the necessary intel was retrieved and Rorke was captured at an industrial complex off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula in Federation-occupied Mexico.

Again, however, Rorke outmaneuvered the Ghosts and escaped, leaving the Ghosts stranded in a dense Yucatan jungle. While en route to extraction, the Ghosts observed what appeared to be a Federation missile test; unbeknownst to them, the missiles were rockets delivering components of the Federation kinetic weapon system to Earth's orbit.

The missile launch alarmed U.S. leadership and the Ghosts were ordered to uncover what the Federation was planning. An infiltration of a Federation research and development, or R&D, facility in the Andes mountains resulted in the acquisition of casualty estimates for an unspecified attack on the U.S. mainland. After linking the missiles to a top-secret Federation factory, "the Shop," near Rio de Janeiro, the U.S. initiated a two-pronged attack.

Operation: Black Ice
First, a vital Federation oil platform off the coast of Antarctica was destroyed by a Ghost assault. When the Federation moved the fleet defending Rio de Janeiro to the area in response, Rio was left vulnerable.

Operation: Gravedigger
Ghosts sank the sole LCS left behind to deter American aerial assaults and successfully enter "the Shop," finally exposing the Federation's secret: a kinetic weapon system, codenamed "LOKI".

LOKI has been developed from ODIN's crashed debris and were able to be reverse-engineered with technical details provided by Gabriel Rorke and had been designed for danger close situations, as well as large-scale bombardment of targets. With a powerful kinetic weapon at the Federation's disposal, the United States faces an imminent threat of potentially catastrophic proportions.

Operation: Blindside
The U.S. committed its last remaining aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Liberator, and a mothballed space shuttle in an all-out assault to disable and capture "LOKI" before it could be activated. While the Liberator and its accompanying ships moved to Chile's coast and deployed ground forces to take LOKI's communication facility in the Atacama Desert, an American strike team used the shuttle to board the satellite array's command station (codenamed "FEDSAT") and disable it. Although the Liberator carrier battle group was almost wiped out by a responding Federation fleet, the mission succeeded and LOKI's fire was redirected at the Federation's fleet and local ground forces.

What would have been a resounding victory for the Federation instead became a significant defeat, albeit one that only evened the playing field for the U.S., rather than ending the war outright.

In the battle's aftermath, Gabriel Rorke captured Logan Walker, intending to turn him against the Ghosts and the United States as Rorke himself had been turned.

Trivia

 * Throughout the war, the Secretary of Defense is referred to as "SecDef", which is a shorter name given by federal agents and military personnel (i.e. as the Secretary of the Navy is referred to as "SecNav").