George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 234

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“Three years? Are you out of your minds!”

Bush was beyond furious. He immediately realized that this wasn’t just a diplomatic power play, but a genuine stance.

– Please, calm down, Mr. President.

“No, what the hell is this nonsense about taking three years when we’re even offering to help with what the EU should be doing in the first place?”

Bush raged, calling them names that would make anyone’s blood boil. Considering how rarely Bush lost his temper, this was truly an extraordinary occurrence.

But he had every right to be angry. The people in the EU were the ones who best understood what would happen if this turned into a large-scale armed conflict. Especially Britain would be the most troubled. Even now, public sentiment was uneasy due to the continuous drain on military and economic power from peacekeeping operations.

Among them, Ireland was the loudest, with talks of independence already frequently surfacing. He had heard talk of granting independence on a national level in the Middle East, so what about Europe? There were plenty of ethnic groups in Europe eager to become independent.

However, they remained still because staying as they were was more beneficial for their daily lives and economy than separating. Independence wasn’t such a big deal if the ruler’s will could be broken somehow. Of course, it was rare to see the ruler’s will broken in the first place.

In any case, ordinary people don’t express much dissatisfaction if they are ‘well-fed, well-clothed, and entertained.’ In fact, if these three are satisfied, there’s not much room for complaint. At best, they might show interest in politics, and trivial matters like independence would disappear beyond the horizon of their memory.

Of course, there were occasional exceptions. Some people maintain their desire for independence even when all conditions for comfort are met. These people are usually called patriots or martyrs. Anyway, back to the Middle East, if those people started an armed uprising, the cities where terrorists had been barely suppressed and only quiet stillness remained, or the cities that were finally shedding that stillness and preparing to go to work in new clothes, would all turn into battlefields. This would be even more so because ethnic minorities were spread out thinly and widely.

‘And nationalism will emerge in Europe. Especially starting with Ireland splitting off or whatever. I’m going crazy. I’m really going crazy.’

The reason why people in European countries today don’t want to become independent or separate was simple. The borders hadn’t changed much since World War II, which could be considered the last major war in Europe, national identities had been successfully implanted in each country for nearly 50 years, and, most importantly, they were living well now. However, if they were willing to endure even that and consistently wanted to separate like Ireland, it was a different story.

And 2019, when Kim Gap-hwan last lived, was the beginning of a new nationalism. Whether it should be called nationalism was debatable, but anyway, it was similar, and there was no other word to replace it, so it didn’t matter if it was called nationalism. If altruistic politics were in vogue from the 1980s to the 2000s, selfish politics that prioritized one’s own country first were globally popular in 2019.

The country leading the charge was the United States. At the time, policies and social trends could be perfectly expressed with just two phrases: ‘Make America Great Again!’ and ‘America First!’ Unless something ‘big enough to shake the world upside down’ happened, the policies wouldn’t have changed much in 2020 either.

Kim Gap-hwan, who returned to 2001 without seeing 2020, had no way of knowing this now. Anyway, if things had stayed that way, the United States wouldn’t have yielded and would have become increasingly powerful. Whether it was in terms of military power, economic power, or social aspects, it would have developed in some way.

“Okay, let’s hear the excuse. What exactly is the problem? Is it the negotiations? Has a country emerged that can block the iron fist of the European/American allied forces? Or is it an internal EU problem? If not, is there another way to appease the Kurds and ethnic minorities?”

Bush was so dumbfounded that he couldn’t help but ask questions, unable to suppress the curiosity boiling within him even as he raged. He also had faith that they wouldn’t have irresponsibly suggested a three-year timeline without a reason.

– There were no specific details.

And once again, he could only reflect on the lesson that politicians are not to be trusted. And that doubled Bush’s anger.

“Th, this!”

He barely stopped himself from uttering a curse mixed with his second mother tongue, but Bush’s insides were completely overturned. He was definitely not in a state to have a normal conversation.

“Turn the plane around.”

– Excuse me?

“I’m going to England. I want you to put in some more effort there.”

There were two main reasons for going to England. First, it was one of the countries that would suffer the most if a large-scale armed uprising began in the Middle East, and second, Britain was America’s eternal ally and partner in destiny.

– There are too many documents that I can’t judge on my own. I’m reaching my limit.

“Then I want you to gather and classify even those documents. It would be even better if you could summarize them individually.”

In other words, he was telling him to memorize everything so well that he could understand it all and explain it to Bush. Anyone else might have deliberately omitted a few words or so, but the Chief of Staff wouldn’t do that. More than anything, he had personally checked it a few times just in case, but it only proved that the Chief of Staff was completely Bush’s man.

However, Bush’s trust and confidence seemed to bring a considerable sense of crisis to the Chief of Staff. ‘He’s going to England from now on.’ In other words, that meant…

– Mr. President? You can’t just dump all the documents on m-!

‘Click!’ The phone hung up with a sound. Of course, it goes without saying that Bush hung up in a hurry. Being angry was one thing, but having to face the mountain of documents he had created was another matter. And at the same time, wasn’t it human nature to want to avoid it if possible?

‘I’m worried about going back to the White House.’

Bush stared intently at the documents piled up as high as his head right in front of him. He had eyes with the power to erase a country if he wanted to, but even so, the documents in front of him wouldn’t disappear unless he moved his hands.

The first page, coincidentally, was a document about Korea, where he had been staying until just now. It was a report on the reactions and circumstances of neighboring countries regarding the unification of Korea.

There were countries that unintentionally got a raw deal because of Korean unification. Those were China and Russia. Korea had invested a considerable amount in North Korea, but it was never as much as China and Russia. In fact, if China and Russia weren’t in such dire straits, they would have protested fiercely, even if it meant mobilizing their armies.

Even if the opponent was the United States. The reason was as follows. China and Russia’s stakes were higher than those of Korea or the United States. This was also closely related to the origin of North Korea. In its early days, North Korea was little more than a puppet state of the Soviet Union. Even the national flag, the symbol of the country, was made in the Soviet Union.

In other words, North Korea had received a significant amount of capital from the Soviet Union, even in its flag. The Soviet Union was the predecessor of Russia, and even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia had invested a considerable amount of capital in North Korea.

Without going further, the weapons held by North Korean soldiers were from the former communist bloc, and even the technology used for nuclear development, which was barely stopped by the coercive light-water reactor construction, was entirely from China and Russia. To be precise, Russia and China secretly handed over the core technology and condoned the development, but wasn’t that basically the same thing?

China had largely shrunk back as its heart was almost broken, but Russia was not. Of course, Russia was also driven to the brink to the point where it had to consider arms reduction, but its will was not broken like China’s.

Of course, it was impossible for the Chinese government itself to have its heart broken; rather, it was the current top leader of the country, Li Keqiang, whose heart was broken. Li Keqiang believed that he could not resist the United States, at least in his generation. And that was the reality.

The military power of the United States, even when considering only conventional forces, was such that the combined military power of the entire world could barely compete with it. Such the United States was determined to get on top of China, mount it, and gleefully beat it down. It was nearly impossible for China to stand up to the United States, though it might be possible for China in the future. However, there was one consolation.

The relationship with Russia was becoming increasingly close as the days went by. Both Russia and China, though faltering now, were countries with unlimited growth potential. Isn’t it obvious what would happen if those countries with unlimited growth potential joined hands?

Bush was aware of this, but it was his eternal regret that he couldn’t thwart it. This was something Bush couldn’t do anything about. It’s not like he could openly drive a wedge between China and Russia, could he?

It might be possible with some CIA operations. Last time, it was ridiculously breached based on astronomically huge funds, but Russia’s FSB [Federal Security Service] was also a formidable opponent.

Anyway, back to the story of North Korea, which has now collapsed and been annexed by South Korea, the current North Korea was like a 50-year-old defective product in the corner of South Korea’s warehouse. It was a defective product that would not only cause a severe stomachache if eaten but would also send you to the emergency room.

They had to be mindful of China and Russia, who had lost their minds as 50 years of investment had flown away overnight, and they also had to share a border. Think about it, 50 years. 50 years. How would you feel if a company you had been steadily investing in went bankrupt overnight? China and Russia would probably have tried to push South Korea away and take North Korea by mobilizing their armies.

If it weren’t for the United States. The United States had already invested a lot of money in North Korean land and deployed troops led by carrier strike groups. In other words, in order to take North Korea, they had to push away the United States first, not South Korea. If South Korea was the patient, the United States was the doctor. A doctor who would prescribe medicine to digest the defective product.

“Damn it. Let’s say Korea is over. Those damn EU bastards.”

As soon as Bush confirmed that the report was not much different from what he had expected, he roughly pushed the documents aside. Who said that peace is more difficult than war? It was true.

Bush, who was very agitated, turned his eyes to another document.

“Huh? England?”

Only the escort pilots who were going to escort Air Force One were taken aback by the unexpected remark in the middle of the night.