George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 257

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If you had to pick a country undergoing rapid transformation, it would be Georgia, not Korea. The northern part of the Korean Peninsula was changing dramatically with each passing day.

This wasn’t so much due to Korea’s technological prowess or American capital, but more because the North started with virtually nothing. Therefore, any improvement there was immediately noticeable.

However, Korea wasn’t the only country undergoing post-war reconstruction, though its situation couldn’t compare to Georgia. The largest reconstruction effort was in Indonesia, and other Southeast Asian countries also suffered from the earthquake.

Yet, if we focus solely on post-war reconstruction, the most extensive undertaking was in Georgia, which had recently fought a war with Russia.

“Damn it! There’s no end to cleaning up this debris!”

Georgia, which had endured longer than in the original timeline, suffered a complete systemic collapse. The fact that the only remaining infrastructure was the national highway spoke volumes about the devastation.

The reason for this was that Russia’s operation wasn’t a typical occupation war, but a scorched-earth operation premised on a short, decisive battle. Russia’s large-scale forces, spearheaded by armored regiments, relentlessly unleashed the Tsar’s fury and desperately tried to mask the decline in combat power resulting from previous arms reductions.

Also, Georgia’s unexpectedly strong resistance played a significant role. With covert support from Europe, Georgia actively employed guerrilla tactics in its familiar homeland. The key elements of guerrilla warfare are agility, unpredictability, and a reliable ‘supply’ system, which Europe provided, leaving Russia with no effective countermeasure.

In the end, Russia resorted to the scorched-earth tactics mentioned earlier. They truly devastated everything. Had it not been for the United States’ timely intervention, they could have fought for at least another year.

The resulting negotiation essentially maintained the status quo, with South Ossetia gaining some autonomy and becoming a de facto satellite or dependency of Russia. It was highly likely to be absorbed and integrated into Russia within about 10 years.

“Corpses! Debris! Corpses! Debris! Corpses! Debris!”

A man was ranting and raving at the reconstruction site in Georgia. He was a Georgian soldier, a corporal with four stripes. However, even as a corporal, he was quite different from a Korean corporal, starting with the four stripes. Still, he had enough experience to be considered seasoned.

In other words, he was in a position where he could be nitpicky or grumpy. But whether this was a misfortune or a stroke of luck, what this corporal was doing was by no means mere grumbling. Rather, it was fair to say it was justified annoyance.

“Damn it! My house is in this state!”

The Russian army’s bombing didn’t spare civilian areas. To be precise, the target was usually something like a substation in a civilian area, but there was no guarantee anywhere in the world that a shell would land exactly where it was aimed. It wasn’t that such precision shells didn’t exist, but at least for now, only the United States was actively using them. As a result, the surrounding civilian areas where key national facilities were located became a complete mess.

“I built that house with my own hands!”

Frankly, the corpses of neighbors he wasn’t even close to didn’t faze him. The state of the corpses was a bit of a problem, but he had seen too many corpses to be shocked or nauseated by this. Had he only seen corpses? Sometimes he had to create them to defend his country, and he had to touch them to clean them up.

“Ah, just do some shoveling, will you?”

“What do you know! It was a masterpiece I dedicated my life to! And this, this rocking chair! Why is it shaking like this! Huh? It’s an expensive piece of furniture imported from abroad.”

He shouted in a crazed voice, shaking the half-charred rocking chair with his hands as if rocking a baby’s cradle, saying, ‘It should rock smoothly like this! Like this! Huh?’ His subordinates, who were watching him, told him to shovel some more, but he didn’t even pretend to listen.

In fact, it wasn’t strange for a soldier who had lost his place to return to, especially since his own house was burned down, to act like that, but there were too many people in this state for his subordinates to tolerate it.

“Ugh, damn it. Is he the only one who lost his house? At least he has some half-burnt furniture left. I don’t even have a house site left.”

The shelling itself didn’t cause much direct damage to civilians. However, the secondary damage from the shelling, like fires, was severe.

The subordinate, who was diligently continuing the leveling work with an entrenching tool, was in an even worse situation than this corporal. He was hit by shelling and also suffered a fire. As a result, not even the house site remained, and after the war, he wandered around his former home for a long time before recognizing it by the road sign.

As such, it was no exaggeration to say that not only houses but all infrastructure was destroyed. Not only the water supply and water resource facilities for drinking water, one of the most basic human needs, but also power plants and substations, as well as buildings and factories that were somewhat tall or large, were all destroyed.

The fields and pastures that fed the Georgian people were all reduced to ashes and scattered in the wind, and the mines had to be dug all the way down from scratch.

In addition, there were major problems with administration. There were hardly any decent buildings, so all state affairs had to be conducted in wartime bunkers. What about the salaries for civil servants and soldiers? And even if they were paid, they had to be able to buy something with it, but that wasn’t the case either. The moment the Georgian currency, Lari [Georgian currency], became worthless.

What was truly fortunate was that Europe continued to support them even after the war ended.

To rebuild Georgia, talent and materials poured in on a large scale, and materials and aid funds to rebuild infrastructure steadily flowed in. In a world where capitalism had arrived, there was nothing that couldn’t be done with money, and Georgia, which had almost returned to the Stone Age, was gradually improving.

“Damn it. It’s bad enough that my salary is meager, but now I’m a homeless person with no home.”

However, regardless of the money coming into the country, soldiers were still poorly paid. The government had no leeway [financial flexibility] and emphasized patriotism to the soldiers. Of course, that patriotism didn’t resonate with those who had fought as guerrillas on the battlefield, but they still understood the country’s situation to some extent, so even if they expressed dissatisfaction verbally, they didn’t directly express their complaints to the higher-ups.

“Then why don’t you just retire?”

Of course, there were individual differences in that understanding, so there were those who expressed it, but they all got the opportunity to retire honorably. It was fortunate that it wasn’t dishonorable. Those who retired in this way, though few, got the chance to receive a pension.

“I will.”

The corporal, who had been ranting for a while, suddenly answered in a serious tone, and the expression of the subordinate who had answered casually hardened.

“Are you serious?”

“Would you want to do this high-intensity labor while receiving meager pay? I heard you get at least three times as much doing the same thing in the civilian world.”

“They don’t guarantee proper workers’ compensation there.”

Of course, in a situation where the administration wasn’t working properly, there was no way that companies would be working properly either.

“Do we provide it properly?”

He had no answer to that. In fact, if it was an organization or company within Georgia, the situation was all the same. However, if there was one thing that the military was better than the civilian world, it was that they had never gone hungry while serving, except when they were fighting guerrilla warfare. There were times when there was a shortage of bullets in the platoon hideout, but there was never a shortage of canned goods.

It was similar even after the war ended. At least the food was similar to before the war. The origin of the ingredients had changed a bit because the entire Georgian territory was devastated, but the menu was all the same.

The truly amazing fact was that even after suffering so much in the tunnels, eating canned goods, the military food they ate after the war was, as expected, still military food.

There’s a saying that hunger is the best sauce, but it was questionable how it could be so tasteless. There were comrades who said it was better to starve. Anyway, that’s what they said, but there was no way they wouldn’t eat it. It was tasteless, but it was nutritious, and once you stuffed it in, you could fill your stomach.

“Still, won’t this job be much better in the future?”

There are unlimited jobs being created in Georgia right now, but in the end, this is only temporary.

Excluding the absurd case of Russia going crazy and invading again, even if we assume the worst in all other scenarios, it was certain that it would be restored within about 20 years at the latest.

From the perspective of a young man whose future plans have been disrupted, not as a mere soldier or a Georgian citizen. Assuming that the same war as now will not happen again, if you pursue stability in the future, this military, which even provides a pension, is far better.

“In my opinion, there will be at least one more war soon.”

“Oh, come on.”

As a Georgian citizen, he was angry, but no matter how he looked at it, the most likely scenario was that South Ossetia would be annexed by Russia in about 10 years after a tense standoff, and that would be the end of it.

“It would have been if there was no EU.”

The EU has officially become Georgia’s backer. Although all they did in this war was provide support from behind, the next war would not be the same. The EU would not directly participate, but it would certainly stop Russia in some way. At least they had to if they wanted to protect the Middle East.

And the EU didn’t just provide aid and materials to rebuild infrastructure. Along with the military advisory group that trained the Georgian army to modernize it, a large amount of weapons to be used for national defense were also provided free of charge. The weapons were not simply limited to individual firearms, but also included fighter jets such as the Eurofighter [European multirole fighter] and tanks such as the Leopard 2 [German main battle tank].

The EU was planning to turn Georgia into a joker to pressure Russia. In that vein, there would be no problem even if they were actually included in the EU soon. If this conflict is resolved, that is. Perhaps when the day comes when Georgia enters the EU, it will be after South Ossetia has been absorbed into Russia or after it has returned to Georgia’s embrace.

“Especially the tanks, they gave us brand new ones that just came out of the factory.”

Of course, they were for overseas export. However, the fact that they were provided ‘free of charge’ more than made up for that fact.

“I’m never going to war again.”

The corporal left those words and honorably retired. Later, he accidentally went to the United States and became a fairly successful businessman, but that was it.

“Chief of Staff, why do these documents keep coming up? I said Georgia doesn’t need aid.”

That’s how the story came back to the United States.