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The first half of 1958 marked a significant lull in military activity in the Great Asian War. Even the meat grinder which was the Southeast Asian Front consistently saw days with less than a thousand casualties. While this calm weirded out the people of the time, on a grand strategy level, the reason for its existence was obvious - all sides in the war needed to pull back and recuperate after the intense year which 1957 was. China technically won the Battle of Guangxi, but it was a Pyrrhic victory - three entire armies had to be rebuilt from scratch, hundreds of thousands had to be buried and replaced with fresh conscripts. For now, the Chinese morale held - the peoples of the Shun dynasty were well informed on just how nightmarish the Indians will be if they reach Nanjing or Beijing, many of them had lost families or relatives to their nuclear bombardment. However, how long this patriotic high could last before the people of China come to reality was a big question. India, on the other hand, had to consolidate their gains and divert some of their forces to a newly opened front in the south. Meanwhile, the West was still getting into war shape, their economies being slowly, but steadily mobilized for military production, and beginning preparations for a landing on the Indian mainland. Debates were taking place on the feasibility of such a campaign, and, if so, when should it be executed, where should the landing spots be and what should be the objectives of the campaign. Chinese delegates in the United States ardently campaigned for a landing on the Hindustani peninsula as soon as possible - for obvious reasons - but the other members of the coalition were obviously not as enthusiastic. Initial calculations of the manpower, resources and equipment needed for such a mission placed the necessary numbers in the range of millions, a number which would take the combined forces of the West years to achieve. A study of Indian and Western equipment, military preparedness and other factors, made in January of 1958 by Italian military scientists, estimated that an opening of a second front in Orissa (an early proposal for a landing position) and fighting until the occupation of Lucknow would cost the US two and a half million casualties, a similar number of casualties for the Indians, and one year of fighting.

Obviously, no democratic government would ever wish to tell their people that they have thrown away two million citizens on an another continent, so debates on opening a second front continued. Regardless, preparations were already being made - French, Italian, Vespucian and British shipyards were rapidly constructing hundreds of landing craft, the navies of all seven of the constituent nations were being expanded and wartime conscription was starting to take place. Ceylon was designated as the "bridge to India" and administered accordingly. The first half of 1958 also saw new participants joining the war - activating the Common Defense Clause of the European Defense Commission, Germania brought much of Central and Southern Europe to the war as allied states. Most of them were not adequately prepared for what's about to come, however - they had small, underfunded militaries, and their governments weren't exactly enthusiastic about sending their boys to India.

Although there may have been a lull in the war, fierce fighting took place in three separate fronts - the seas, the air and the covert front.

The arrival of the United States shifted the balance in the war in the air. Before, the Indians outnumbered their Chinese rivals 2 to 1 - but now, they had to deal with not just the EASA, but also the air forces of the Western states, many of whom boasted superior fighter and bomber designs. Western air raids and bombing mostly took place from Ceylon, targeting Indian industries in the Deccan and Bengal, but many other air wings of theirs were assigned to China and Lusang to help their allies in the Southeast Asian Front. More often than not, there they would ditch their national insignia and put on the bright red striped markings of the Western Dragons, the Western volunteer forces in China. The Great Asian War would also leave its mark in history as the first combat appearance of jet fighters, in the form of Germania's "Bayern P-51 Supersonic". Research into turbojet technology first started in the years before the War of the Danube, starting out with theoretical designs of an engine based around jet propulsion floating around in European and Asian engineer circles, but it was only in 1946 that the fighter company Bayern first took interest in applying jet technology for aircraft propulsion, resulting in the P-51, which, at the time of its introduction, was the fastest aircraft design in history. Soon enough, other countries began copying the design for their own gain, as should be expected, but during its reign, few things could stop the P-51. Bayern and other German designers experimented with putting the turbojet on other flying objects - for example, on rockets. However, these experiments were not yet applicable in practice during the Great Asian War.

The brain behind the practical turbojet engine, Justin Petzold, was well aware of these ideas, and his worries resulted in a fairly interesting prediction: "Someday, not too distant from now, there will be a time when a some kind of gadget can come streaking out of another continent – we won't be able to hear it, it will come so fast – with an explosive so powerful that one projectile will be able to wipe out this city of Munchen. That will be a time when war will cease to be war."

Throughout 1958, the war in the air shifted from Indian domination to Western domination. Divided between two fronts and overpowered by higher numbers both in quantity and in quality, the Indian Air Force faltered, and its numbers began to dwindle. Ceylon being an unsinkable aircraft carrier for the US turned into even more of a headache. Almost the entire war cabinet in Lucknow demanded a counter-invasion of the island, but despite extensive preparations during the summer and spring of 1958, the invasion had to be cancelled due to massive enemy concentrations and unfavorable weather. In this desperation, one of the biggest blunders of the entire war took place. Hoping to at least put a dent in US defenses on the island, the Indians resorted to the nuclear option, hoping to strike the city of Anuradhapura and destroy the extensive airports and military facilities constructed there. However, the Indian fighter and bomber mission was met with a strong Allied response, resulting in a dogfight, during which much of the attacking aircraft, including the bomber with the nuclear payload, were shot down. In what was almost a fit of luck, the nuclear bomb inside only suffered limited damage from the firefight and the crash landing, and was retrieved by Vespucian forces.

The United States now had a nuclear bomb in their hands, and the five ton weapon was swiftly sent back to Europe to be carefully disassembled and studied. Back in India, General Abhi Dheer and five other air force commanders were fired and arrested for the botched mission, but it didn't change a thing - the US still had a nuclear weapon in their hands. And now, India could only fear the worst.

The United States entered the war in the sea when both of the original combatants were already exhausted. The Battle for the South China Sea required the complete dedication of both the Indian and the Chinese navies, resulting in dozens of thousands getting a deep sea grave, so when the navies of Vespucia, Italy, France and Germany all arrived to the fray to the Indian Ocean, one of the two ended up very, very thin. And it wasn't China. To try to maintain naval domination over the Indian Ocean, the Unitarians sent their last two remaining super-magentas - Unity and Lucknow - from the east to the Arabian Sea, where they were joined by submarine packs and the Indian Ocean fleet to combat the rapidly mobilizing Western fleets. At the same time, the Indians ramped up their naval production - or, at least, ramped it up as much as they reasonably could, as the overwhelming majority of their industry still had to dedicated to arming and feeding their massive army. This focus on the army is what became the Indian fleet's downfall - throughout massive naval battles along the Maldives archipelago, Ceylon and the Indian coast, much of the Indian Ocean Fleet ended up sunk. The weaknesses of the super-magentas also started to show in full - without adequate aerial support, they were weak to aerial bombardment, their hulking size and slow speed made them an easy target for torpedo bombers and fighters. Both Unity and Lucknow ended up sent to the bottom of the ocean by concentrated air raids.

With their naval effort in the open sea collapsing, the Indians eventually opted for a defensive strategy. If it's impossible to overwhelm the United States in the sea and retake Ceylon, then the best strategy then is to hole up, defend the coasts and turn this front into a stalemate while they take care of China. Coastal fortifications were being erected along the Western and Eastern Ghats, while the inhabitants of Indian and Burmese coastal cities were being pressed into training to serve as first-line militia defenses against potential enemy landings. 50 additional divisions were raised in a matter of months, almost a million personnel were staffed with guarding the long coast of the Indian Ocean. That might sound like a lot, sure, but don't forget that the Indian coast also extended for thousands of miles...

The lull in the war was also marked by both sides attempting to gain an advantage over the other in espionage. Scientists and engineers in both sides were pressed into working on advanced computers and cryptographers to save their side's information and crack the codes of the enemy. Inserting spies and forming spy circles in opponent states were also a main priority of the combatants. In this field, however, the Indians had an edge - the Aankhein surpassed their Western and Chinese rivals in experience and funding, especially excelling in political espionage, which, as even their enemies had to admit, was their best horse. Meanwhile, US intelligence operations were conducted by eight or more organizations, many of whom used to be opponents, and, in some cases, still were - the US espionage effort lacked cohesion and multi-state discipline, thus many of their spies in the Commonwealth would end up captured and executed. For the duration of the war, the US was in the dark on Indian nuclear construction and military research, only able to guess the former from nuclear bombing frequency and the latter only when the new weaponry was first used in battle. The Aankhein, meanwhile, successfully stole parts of the blueprints for the P-51 in July 1958, and maintained a small, but effective ring of spies in the US civilian high command, employing blackmail and honeypot tactics to squeeze out information from politicians and generals alike. Of course, over time, the US started to adapt to enemy espionage tactics, but Indian edge in covert warfare remained throughout the war.

Political shifts and negotiations took place throughout this time, too. In their search for a possible base for their invasion of mainland India, German and French spies began secretly contacting underground resistance movements within India - even though the UIS claimed to be a single, monolithic Unitarian state where such antiquated concepts as nations and religions have faded away, in reality, the situation was much different. Downtrodden, oppressed nations such as the Persians, the Tamils, the Sikhs, the Marathi, the Baluchi and others proved to be amiable to the possibility of cooperating with a hypothetical US occupation of India, in exchange for self-determination. The US was wary of simply handing out promises of independence, however - that's German influence right there. They were burned fairly well by miscalculating their chances and promising freedom to anyone on sight back in the War of the Danube... In addition, the US was still not sure on what their plans on postwar India were. Sure, the countries India occupied during the war would have to be restored, independence would probably have to also be restored to Persia, Baluchistan and Afghanistan, three states which were annexed by India during the War of the Danube, but besides that... the US didn't really have a good, obvious plan. Were the people of India more supportive of being in one state, or were they actually composed of many different nationalities which could make separate nation-states? Should India be dismantled for the sake of preventing a repeat of the Great Asian War, or would that be too harsh of a move? Headaches, headaches, headaches.

The Indians made plans and negotiations of their own, too. Although reaching out to the Zhuang minority of Guangxi with a proposal to create an "independent" Zhuang state in Guangxi resulted in failure, as the Zhuang representatives saw no desire to be puppets to the Indians, negotiations with the Unitarian elements in occupied Borneo found more success. As a counter to the Nusantara Federation, Amrit Ahuya proposed the so-called "Union of Nusantaran Peoples" between Aceh and a Unitarian state in Borneo, and the proposal was applauded both by the power-hungry Islamo-Unitarian government of Aceh as well as the Unitarians in Brunei. The Union of Nusantaran Peoples claimed all of the territory of the archipelago, including Lusang, but in reality, it only expressed control over territory occupied by Indian and Acehi forces.

The first half of the year is over, and the war is still growing.