George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 300

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‘I’ve roughly sketched out my future plans.’

Some say the U.S. President’s greatest power is the nuclear briefcase he never leaves behind, but Bush believed the greatest power of the President was the ability to freely influence and leverage other countries.

Isn’t it said that respect and order come from power?

‘China will now move according to my plans as much as possible. Not much direct interference is needed. With just a little guidance, they’ll stay behind America as much as possible.’

What remained unsettling was the nuclear issue, but he thought it couldn’t be helped. Completely disarming them would cause immense backlash, and then nuclear weapons might actually fly from China to America, so he decided to just try to stabilize things somehow.

‘And if America is too dominant, that’s a problem in its own way.’

Then, in all likelihood, it would become complacent and slowly decline. It could be said that this was a destiny earned thanks to Bush’s internal consolidation but disastrous foreign policy. Frankly speaking, there were hardly any countries with extremely good relations with the United States.

At best, there was England, and Afghanistan, which had become unable to survive without the U.S. And then there was South Korea, which Bush fervently courted and now firmly believed was a friendly nation.

To be precise, as long as Russia and China existed, South Korea couldn’t be separated from East Asian defense unless it betrayed the U.S. first, which was a more significant reason.

In any case, America needed a suitable competitor. In the past, the Soviet Union played that role, and in the 21st century, China took over, but now China was faltering. Russia was too weak to take on this role. It was absurd to think of the EU taking its place.

However, he had no intention of ruining a perfectly good America or helping enemies. As proof, the next-generation aircraft carrier was almost complete.

‘The next-generation aircraft carrier I ordered is almost finished. It will probably be commissioned next year.’

Instead of mindlessly increasing the number of carrier-based aircraft, the internal elevators and structure were revamped to reduce the rearming, refueling, and maintenance time by more than twofold. Electromagnetic catapults [a system that uses electromagnetic force to launch aircraft] were installed to prevent cold cat [a catapult malfunction] situations and slightly increase the launch speed from the runway. Most blocks with potential for explosion boasted so-called thick armor.

In short, stability was increased, effectively increasing the number of carrier-based aircraft by about 1.5 to 2 times. This wasn’t because Bush was particularly brilliant, but simply because he poured money into research and development like it was water in a swimming pool. In fact, the expression ‘swimming pool’ felt a bit inadequate.

To raise the level of technology, he forcibly twisted a rope with money and threw it into the future. But that wasn’t enough, so he twisted and twisted it even more, and when he came to his senses, he had swallowed enough money to build another aircraft carrier fleet.

And Congress couldn’t have been happy about this, and Bush had to engage in heated debates with them. Although it varied by faction, the U.S. Navy was ecstatic about the insane amount of incoming budget.

‘It would be nice to have railguns or laser weapons, but these were still development projects even in 2019 when I was there.’

Laser weapons were optimized for air defense. Railguns could serve as secondary guns in a pinch, but progress on laser weapons was slow no matter how much money was poured in.

To be precise, there were usable ones even before Bush took an interest, but they weren’t suitable for military use. However, that didn’t mean these technologies had no future. Rather, it was too early.

Hadn’t the unmanned aerial vehicle technology that seemed so distant become a reality? More than half of the next-generation aircraft carrier would be filled with drones. Now was the transition period between drones and manned aircraft. Perhaps after this aircraft carrier, the number of operating personnel would be greatly reduced, and more weapons and drones would be stacked in their place.

‘Everything will be fine now. Yes, it will.’

While returning to the United States, reassured, Bush had to listen to an unexpected report.

“There’s a problem with the flood recovery?”

“Yes, it’s not a big problem, but I was told to report even the smallest details……”

The Chief of Staff trailed off. He was truly troubled about whether to report this or not. When considering the importance of the report, he should naturally discard the minor and only report the major, but this was neither minor nor major.

“No, what is it?”

“Um… there’s a protest.”

“A protest?”

A protest. He had thought there was no way there wouldn’t be one. When a disaster occurs, protests arise in some form, whether small or large. It was a very natural thing. It was just surprising because of the timing.

If a protest were to occur, it would have been more appropriate when he was giving a speech at the disaster recovery site. So this protest felt very late.

“Well, there might be. So what kind of protest is it?”

He could roughly guess even without hearing it, but he still had to hear it directly, right?

“It’s an environmental protest. The scale is a bit too large to ignore. Estimated at about 80,000……”

He thought it was just the usual protest, but 80,000 people. The scale was considerably larger than Bush had expected.

‘An environmental protest, and it’s large. It’s impossible for 80,000 people to gather spontaneously. So, of course, they’re moving as an organized unit.’

There was no need to think further. There was only one environmental organization in the United States capable of organizing a protest of this size.

“Is it Greenpeace?”

“They claim to be. Apparently, they’re taking issue with the Southern Fire and the withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol [an international treaty aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions], but some extreme environmentalists are even mocking the victims, so the situation is changing dramatically every moment.”

Peaceful protests are fine even if tens or hundreds of thousands of people gather, but he had rarely seen a case where more than ten thousand people gathered and it ended peacefully. Especially if the protest was organized by Greenpeace, a mecca for environmental extremists.

“Mocking the victims. They won’t get much support because they’re extreme.”

“In addition, there are movements to march into the middle of the reconstruction site, so the governor has deployed police to somehow prevent them from entering the reconstruction site, but the site is so large that it seems insufficient.”

“And they probably don’t have a budget either. They scraped together all the available budget and invested it in reconstruction.”

Frankly, they were in a situation where they had to borrow additional budget from the government. Of course, that government didn’t have that much money to spare either.

“They should be protesting at a logging site. I don’t know why they’re doing this at a disaster recovery site.”

“It seems to be because of the symbolism of the hurricane. Some even think it’s divine punishment.”

“I thought things had calmed down a bit since I took office. To be extreme again, gee whiz.”

This wasn’t because Bush had taken any particular measures, but in reality, Greenpeace had gradually reduced its radical activities since the 21st century. That’s not to say they didn’t do any radical things at all, but they realized that radical activities were no longer very helpful.

They had been steadily putting pressure on the United States since the Cold War. The environmentalism advocated by them and other environmentalists took root within American society, and schools also taught about the environment.

At first glance, they gathered under the banner of ‘protecting the Earth from humans,’ which was justice itself, and repeatedly carried out destructive acts against all kinds of companies.

This is called eco-terrorism, and to define their ideology in a word, it’s ‘I am right, you are wrong’ or ‘drawing water to my own field’ [acting in self-interest]. Or it could be called ‘do as I say, not as I do.’ The things that those who claim to protect nature do are all things that harm nature.

Of course, he couldn’t insult them all indiscriminately, but at least if they thought about the environment, he wished they wouldn’t drive cars, which are leading causes of environmental pollution.

Of course, that didn’t mean environmental pollution was right, but Bush thought it was faster to expand businesses and use that money to carry out environmental improvement projects and contribute to technological development to restore the environment with better technology.

The biggest reason was that he thought protection and preservation would inevitably have limits. Developed countries talk a lot about declining populations, but globally, the world population is increasing day by day. There is enough food to feed all 7 billion people, and in just 10 more years, it will increase to 8 billion. Then in 10 years, it will increase again, and in the 10 years after that, it will continue to increase without limit.

In fact, even this was an estimate, so there could be more. In any case, the important thing is that as the number of people increases, more consumer goods are needed. To meet the demand for consumer goods, more factories will naturally operate, and the Earth will be polluted that much more.

However, he couldn’t commit massacres, saying that true environmentalism is when humans die, and he couldn’t tell people not to have children as a population increase measure, so shouldn’t science and technology develop?

“We can’t suppress them. But we can’t mobilize the military either.”

“Won’t you mobilize the military? It would be effective.”

“Putting in the police is one thing, but the military has crossed the line. It will only give them more justification. I don’t even know if what they have now is justification. Anyway, unless they’re marching through the city with assault rifles and looting, we have no choice but to have the local police suppress them quietly.”

In fact, even if they did that much, he wouldn’t mobilize the military as long as they didn’t fire. However, it was unlikely that humans with that much power would gather in the tens of thousands and not cause an accident.

“Well, are they really marching with rifles or something?”

“No. It doesn’t seem to be that bad. They say they occasionally see weapons like baseball bats.”

“That’s nothing. It’s become annoying, but that’s it.”

“Are you sure it’s okay? It’s Greenpeace, after all.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay. They’ve been quiet since I took office, haven’t they?”

It was the余裕 [composure] that only those who knew that many extremists had defected or changed their ideologies after 2000 could have.

However, there was one thing he overlooked.

“That is……”

If that was all, there was no reason for the Chief of Staff to stammer with a groan.

“They’re marching while smashing all kinds of heavy equipment. And although they claimed to be Greenpeace, Greenpeace is denying any contact with them.”