George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 228

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The Chief of Staff stared at Bush with a stiff expression, then did some mental calculations before giving a definite answer.

“You can emphasize the necessity and persuade them, but I don’t see the need. Why are you doing this? I think the relief supplies for Korea are sufficient.”

Indeed, it was planned to be more than enough. This caused a lot of talk in Congress, but Bush used all sorts of rhetoric, like moral obligation and ethics towards the alliance, to package it nicely and suppress the opposition.

“To be precise, I want to stockpile more relief supplies.”

“Then it would be better to make another excuse. We’ve used Korea too much. We are working to protect the President’s achievements regarding Korea, but…”

In short, the effect has worn off. Another excuse was needed.

‘Nothing is going as planned.’

Helping India wasn’t all bad. There is such a thing as debt in the world. Of course, depending on the national situation, you can just take and ignore it later, but that only applies when the country you need to get it back from doesn’t have the power to return it. Anyway, right now, it was important to solidify the alliance that had just begun with a handshake.

‘I could do it then, but stockpiling is the most certain way.’

And this was for India, but also for the United States. In the face of future national disasters, administrative flexibility and emergency response are important, but stockpiling relief supplies is even more important.

It was a million times better to prepare in advance than to figure out how to reorganize the budget or cut from somewhere when the time came. But the reason other countries don’t do that is that it takes more budget and time than expected.

It was more difficult to deal urgently with the reality that was right in front of you than to prepare for a disaster that might never come. In other words, it is common sense to buy a house for a stable life, but to do that, you have to drastically reduce living expenses. This is similar even when it goes beyond the individual level to the national level.

There is no politician who doesn’t know that they should invest generously in various areas for the future, and even students with a basic understanding of investment can understand it right away. However, the problem is that there is no money left after deducting the amount for maintenance, the amount for welfare, and the budget for national defense for the future.

Of course, the United States, as the only superpower in the world, does not fall into this category. That’s why even if Bush just says, ‘Let’s support other countries according to humanitarian aid!’ the related budget that has already been allocated pops up from here and there. Other countries would have no remaining budget to support other countries and would have no choice but to seek a supplementary budget.

“Then it would be better to just say it’s for domestic stockpiles.”

He couldn’t possibly say that an earthquake that couldn’t be prevented no matter how much they prepared would hit India. This earthquake occurred near the west coast of Indonesia and was the largest earthquake in modern history, except for the 1960 Chile earthquake. Moreover, this earthquake happened again in 2005. With a very small gap of only 3 months. It wasn’t small in scale either. In 2004, it was M9.3, and in 2005, it was M8.7 [Moment magnitude scale, a logarithmic scale used for measuring the size of earthquakes].

No special words were needed to explain how powerful the 2004 earthquake was. Sumatra Island, which was not far from the epicenter, moved ’20cm’ to the southwest. Thanks to the media that kept talking about sensational articles, some say it was 36m, but this is the danger of fake news.

Tsunamis approaching 30m swept everything away, and the aftermath of this earthquake affected all countries in Southeast Asia, and even Oman and South Africa, creating tens of thousands of refugees. In the case of Somalia in particular, 19 people died and 5,000 residents were missing. It was said that they were missing, but in fact, they should be considered dead.

‘Now that I think about it again, projecting influence in Africa like this will cost a considerable budget, won’t it?’

Frankly, the country that would be most affected by this earthquake was Indonesia, but frankly, he didn’t want to do that much for a country that wasn’t even an ally. Bush was saying things like ethics, but he was only moving within the limits of what he could do.

However, Africa was a bit different. It was also a place where they were actively projecting influence, and if they could just do something about the civil war, they would undoubtedly create enormous wealth that could not even be compared to what it is now.

“Let’s just say it’s for earthquake and wildfire prevention measures. I need to secure more somehow.”

The Chief of Staff looked at Bush as if he couldn’t understand him, but he didn’t bother to say it out loud. Had this happened only once or twice?

“I will take those measures. What about the speech?”

At first, Bush thought about writing it himself, but he was beginning to realize that his rhetoric and word choices were becoming repetitive. It was a kind of problem that arose from repeatedly going around the same topic. To avoid that, he had to write a speech, but he was too busy to just write speeches.

He had to sort out the garbage-like documents from the good ones, and he had to distinguish between false information and correct information. There were times when he had to make phone calls directly instead of just signing documents, and there were times when he had to go in person.

If necessary, he had to show off his showmanship like last time. That lead-poisoned water thing in Flint, Michigan. President Obama took a shot of it, but there’s no way Obama himself didn’t know about it. It was probably a budget issue. He must have judged that it would be more helpful to the national interest to take some flak himself than to support the budget to fix it. In short, he acted that way because the common people were easier to deal with than the privileged.

Of course, Bush, who didn’t care about national interest or anything, wouldn’t allow it.

“You take care of the speech.”

“Then I will take care of the speech.”

It was lunchtime at this time. But even if it was lunchtime, nothing really changed. The only difference was that something simple to eat was added to his left hand, and the documents to be signed were signed a little later.

But then a new document came up.

“This is…”

It was a document about the Second Korean War. Because of the situation, the United States was not taking any proper action other than thoroughly ensuring the security and defense of the US troops stationed in South Korea and the troops stationed in Nampo Port, North Korea.

Still, they had set up a system to report the situation promptly and immediately, and the fact that this was coming up was no ordinary matter.

“South Korea crossed the border and is marching towards Pyongyang. Well, I expected this. Hmm…”

The content was roughly like this. Thanks to the ‘rice unit’ they sent at the beginning, there were generally no problems with the civilians. There were even villages and cities that were completely captured in almost an hour with the cooperation of the civilians. Considering that the most difficult thing in war is occupation, this was a great advantage. What good is it to occupy diligently if there is no cooperation from the civilians like in the Vietnam War, and you suffer thoroughly from the guerrillas’ tactics?

Anyway, the North Korean troops guarding the border really didn’t have a single engagement, thanks to the Communist Party telling them directly. As planned, they finally reached Pyongyang, and there was news that a strange standoff was taking place there.

“Should we see it as a war?”

“Well, isn’t it a war if you mobilize troops?”

“If mobilizing troops is war, is civilian support also war?”

Well, if you think about what they do when they go out for civilian support, it was completely war. War in the sense of being extreme and chaotic. Still, it was nothing compared to a real war.

“Either way, isn’t it a clear fact that the world’s eyes are defining the series of events taking place in Korea as a war?”

The Chief of Staff wanted to avoid the topic of Korea as much as possible, saying that Bush’s reaction changed strangely whenever Korea came up. But how could things in the world change as he pleased?

“Well, that’s good. So what exactly does this ‘standoff’ mean? They open the border but don’t open Pyongyang. What kind of contradiction is this?”

In this situation, what the Chief of Staff had to say was very simple.

“I’ll find out.”

Pyongyang, which was devastated by bombing by fighters and bombers. There, the Pyongyang defense forces and the South Korean army were facing off. Unlike the South Korean army’s relentless advance, this time they faced something that could really be called resistance.

The South Korean army wanted to enter Pyongyang and announce to the world that North Korea had been completely integrated into South Korea and that unification had been achieved. They had no choice but to move the troops due to the sudden civil war caused by Kim Jong-il’s will, but they wanted to proclaim to the world that it was a victory achieved almost without bloodshed.

On the other hand, the North Korean government, that is, the Communist Party, was at a loss as to how to end it like this. The army coming up was a relatively assumed event. In other words, it was a kind of ‘worst-case scenario’ that had been assumed. Since it had been assumed, they had opened the border and let all the troops pass through, saying, ‘Welcome!’

Of course, they could resist. They only had a handful of troops left, but this Pyongyang was a huge artificial fortress, so they could hold out for a good two days. Conversely, those two days were all that was given to the Communist Party. After that, they would be treated as prisoners. And the accumulated wealth would be used as funds to rebuild North Korea.

And in fact, this standoff was quite difficult not only for the Communist Party but also for the South Korean government. In fact, everyone was seeing it as a war, but it would be more accurate to say that it was on the verge of becoming a war. Now, if someone fires a shot in Pyongyang, that’s when the real war starts.

President Jang-in of the Korean government repeatedly tapped the documents with a pen with a troubled expression.

“We can’t continue like this. But we can’t advance either. It’s really difficult. Are you getting in touch with them?”

“I don’t think the communication lines are cut off, but there is no response at all.”

In somewhat vulgar terms, they were ignoring all the calls. Even at this point, when it could be said to be over, the Communist Party had not come to a conclusion internally.

“That’s why I told you to just run away to South Korea!”