History
The Arab Spring of 2009 still continues to make its mark even in 2023. Many countries, including the US, Israel, Russia, and Iran were all eager to exploit the destabilized region and their actions only increased the relative amount of chaos. The US efforts, despite new presidents and new legislative bodies, were inconsistent and only further tarnished the country's image of being meddlesome and haphazard in foreign relations. Israel continued its aggressive posturing but never felt it had enough support to make an actual move. Russia, on the other hand, with its increasingly draconian civil laws became a darling of the radical Islamist world and the animosity between Mother Russia and the West only helped cement this unofficial alliance. Shi'a Iran took advantage of the the situation and made wide political and military gains - doing this virtually unopposed.
In Europe, the EU dissolved in 2018 and all countries therein suffered economically though some (notably Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Italy) fared much worse than the others. Eastern Europe and former Soviet satellite states have renewed ties with Russia sensing that the Western Europe is something of a clusterfuck and unable or unwilling to be effective allies.
China finally hit a growth ceiling in 2020 partially due to a depressed global market and partially due to internal corruption and unregulated growth. China still remains powerful and has all but seized control throughout the Pacific (with the exception of Japan who is not beholden to the Chinese). Japan, though, continues to suffer from nuclear malfunctions and has seen her fortunes withdraw.
In the US, plutocrats have continued their warmongering and in 2023 the US has since invaded and has permanent ground troops stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Spain, and Syria. In all these countries, indigenous people are not happy but, on the bright side, Raytheon's stock has never been higher. The 2019 move into Pakistan was, ostensibly, to curb the activities of Al-Qaeda and this was done with the blessing of the Pakistani government. The US complains of the Pakistani government not helping the US crackdown on terrorists and US casualties have been higher here than even during the worst years of Iraqi Freedom. Spain was invaded in the midst of civil war in 2021 under the pretense of stopping the death of civilians due to WMD. Totally coincidentally, an earthquake in 2020 released a huge reservoir of oil which had nothing at all to do with the sudden humanitarian interest in the Spanish people. The Syrian Civil War continued to slog and the mishmash rebellion forces became a magnet for various political and religious radicals who now had access to a great deal of armaments supplied by anti-Assad sympathizers throughout the conflict. The region around Homs became a rebel stronghold ever since NATO began striking at Syria and enforcing a no-fly zone which damaged Syria's military advantages enough for the primarily ground-based rebel forces to create numerous strongholds. When rebel forces began using poison gas to neutralize undesirable ethnic groups, the US invaded in 2017 with the plan being a temporary occupation to destroy WMD via "surgical" strikes. In 2023, the US is still there.
So, what does this has to do with aliens? Quite a bit. The nuclear plant sabotage in Japan is almost entirely due to alien influence in an attempt to bring Japan down to its knees. Aliens are also playing the big movers and shakers in the US off of each other to keep up a smokescreen of confusion. XCOM required too much money to be be started with adequate secrecy, hence the gradual breaking down of security.
