[ WP ] A war begins as a bar fight , becomes a regional war , expands to become a world war , and is concluded in the same bar it started in .

Glass crunched under a myriad of pairs of boots as the door to the `` lugubrious lecherous lout'' swung open for the first time in 24 years. The official name of this 3-floor den was simply LLL. That's what appeared on the tax documents the bar sent to both Russia and Turkey. The island of Donetski sits ten miles from the coast of the city of Sevastepol, in the freshly-taken powder keg that is the Russian Ukraine. The tiny, 6 mile long island has had more flags flown over it than an illicit trade vessel. The hammer and sickle, blue and bright yellow, then the crescent, for a brief spell a vibrant green and gold Nordic cross from a short lived independence movement. For most of its modern history however, one side had a town flying the Turkish crescent, the other flew the Russian tricolor. At the very center, in an ancient husk of a bicycle factory sat the LLL. It sprawled like a fat old woman across the `` international border'' an enjoyed the perks of selling vodka to Turks and whores to Russians. 
 
 Sunlight dappled the ruins of chairs, tables, barstools and couches. French premiere Etienne Bernaque eyed the wreckage around him and the gaping hole above him with trepidation. The Chinese and Korean diplomats had found a heavy desk and dragged it under the hole. Other diplomats searched out usable chairs, creating a motley of furniture surrounding the wide, weathered oak table. Wide, boisterous American Secretary of State Adam Chrysler ( no relation, as he was fond of saying ) had stepped out from behind the ruined bar holding four dusty liquor bottles. He placed them in the center of the table and settled himself neatly between the Japanese envoy and the Canadian Defense chairman on a dusty, lopsided sofa. 
 
 14 people, one empty chaise lounge. Everyone looked at one another a moment. The Russian defense minister locked eyes with Bernaque, then Chrysler, then back to Bernaque. The German chancellor stared meaningfully at the British prime minister. The Saudi prince glared at the liquor bottles on the table, where the Australian Interior minister gave them his best bedroom eyes. The members of the African Union generally stated at the floor, with the exception of the Sour Somalian statesman who would n't take his eyes off of the Egyptian director general. The quiet was thick enough to spread, dense with hostility and tension. Chrysler cleared his throat and adjusted himself in his seat. 
 
 `` Bring them in.'' 
 
 24 years ago it was an average Sunday happy hour at the LLL and as per normal, tensions were agitated. The bar ran between the two `` countries'', with green and gold Donetski cross painted on a cloth partition. 12 Turkish seamen and 22 Russian naval officers were hurling insults back and forth through the partition, voices thick with drink and hate. Slurs about mothers and fathers and soldiers and promiscuous women where the standard and the language was as blue as blue gets, even for sailors. It was natural pent-up aggression from a week of sailing their battleships as close to the opposing port as they dared. What was n't natural was the first bottle. It was expertly lobbed through the 2-foot gap between the sagging curtain rod on which the patroon hung and the ceiling, a shot so perfect the thrower probably did n't intend to hit russian vice admiral Urmanski Urtazi full in the face. 
 
 The silence was brief. It was enough for one of the career seaman's withered gasps to be heard, and for every Russian sailor to see his face leaking blood onto the barroom floor. Over the bar they went, with a roar loud, long and viscous. Such a melee had never before or since graces the halls of the lugubrious lecherous lout. Fists, bottles, chairs, service knives and brass knuckles, stool legs and bits of trim, swift kicks and brutal roars came together with cracks, crunches and meaty thumps. Then, above it all, a shrill whistle began a steady dive in pitch. 
 
 After many years of historical archeology it was determined what exactly happened. A bloody Russian lieutenant had scrambled from the brawl and found himself on the Turkish side of the border. He sprinted to the nearest radio, on a table near the recently abandoned checkpoint. Confused about where he was, he called for reinforcements to their position, and hollered the coordinates just before two of the Turks grabbed him and began to beat him. This message, a Russian calling for reinforcements to a known border crossing, was picked up by Turkish air command and relayed to 2 F-16A fighter aircraft. It was also picked up by Russian defense forces who sent a squad of jeeps, with the goal of breaking up the fight. The pilots, however, had just turned over the island and saw the column of support. They had all the clearance they needed and opened up. All 4 jeeps were destroyed, and two missiles struck the bar. 44 Russian men and 21 Turkish were killed in the bombardment. It was the anvil that broke the camels back. 
 
 The Russian `` counter offensive'' was much more... extravagant. A full battlegroup of ships and advanced Su-35 planes circled on the Turkish port and annihilated it. Every ship was sunk, every building leveled and 400 casualties reported. The starting whistle had been blown, and all hell summarily broke loose. A combined NATO assault was organized to teach the Russian fleet a lesson, but this was a country that had been waiting for a good war for too long. Turkey had little hope without its allies, but before the European nations had begun the first `` umm'' of a legendary round of `` umming and erring'' major airports had been hit with bombs, costal emplacements shelled to rubble. The Kurds declared allegiance to Russia after a promise of independence, and every fundamentalist fringe group began to bellow. 
 
 The NATO counter attack was a shambles. Half the force withdrew almost immediately after the assault began, electing that the Americans would `` take care of the issue''. No such luck, and the American fleets 42 F-58 combined arms stealth strike fighters where downed by hidden Russian-Kurdish border guns. It was a disaster that only emboldened the newly invigorated superpower. In the utter chaos and fear of a cold conflict heating up, North Korea began a planned bombardment of Seoul. following a proportional response, Pyongyang attempted to launch its brand new fleet of ICBMs at Australia, Japan, and the west coast. They, unfortunately for some and fortunately for millions, exploded on the launch pad creating the largest man-made explosion in world history. 
 
 War is hell, and more to the point war is extremely confusing. It took 21 years of combat between 72 nations on 6 of the 7 continents, followed by three years of a bubbling stew of conflicts that threatened to boil back over before the surviving national structures agreed to pick representatives and sit down to earn at least some peace for the scared and battered earth. And so, back in the LLL, four men were led into the dusty abandoned bar and seated on the slim couch at the end of the table, under the hole that some say started the war. All were handcuffed, and none looked pleased to be jammed onto a filthy couch surrounded by diplomats. 
 
 `` So...'' Began a rail-thin shiny bald man on the far left 
 
 `` Let's deal.''
