Thanks for asking! Here's a sitrep on Foreign Enemies. I'm about 1/4 of the way through the first draft, and I'm not moving as fast as I'd like. In this book, Ranya gets a breather, and Phil Carson from EFAD gets to carry the ball. The action is set about 2 years after DETR, and takes place mostly in the Southeast. The nation's economy has really tanked, leading to an Article Five constitutional convention. The 2nd amendment has been repealed, replaced by the Freedom from Gun Violence amendment. The "Economic Justice Amendment" is also passed, leading to institutionalized socialism, which only wrecks what is left of the economy.
However, try as it might the federal government simply can't enforce the New Constitution beyond its stronghold, running from Minnesota to Maine to Virginia. The Northwest denies the validity of the New Constitution, and goes its own way. After a series of major hurricanes across the Gulf states, the Deep South is under virtual martial law. The National Guard takes over during the emergency, and never relinquishes control since the problems are practically insurmountable.
As if this wasn't enough, the New Madrid fault cracks open, tumbling buildings and bridges between St. Louis, Memphis and Nashville. Western Tennessee is particularly FUBAR, the wrecked transportation infrastructure means this region is almost impossible to reach with repair equipment. Cut off from food, fuel, power etc, this area goes completely SHTF.
The federal govt needs to get this region back under control if it is to have any hope of bringing the Deep South or later the Northwest back under its control. It puts what assets in can into forcibly subduing TN and KY, including foreign "volunteer peacekeeping" battalions and units of the new "North American Legion." These foreign mercenary troops are fighting for the one thing the federal govt has left to promise them: citizenship, and land.
That's a nutshell synopsis of the situation depicted in Foreign Enemies. I'd say it'll be at least a year or more before I finish it.
Matt/Travis