George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 295

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To put it simply, Merkel was half right and half wrong. She was wrong about Germany’s foreign ministry and intelligence capabilities being exceptionally good, and right that she wouldn’t put a wrestling hold on Prime Minister Blair no matter what.

As each EU member state was taking heat in various ways, Bush watched and commented:

“France is in the biggest trouble of all.”

As befitting the nation of revolution, French citizens were protesting vigorously as always. The intensity grew with each passing day, eventually evolving into something that could be called a riot.

And the protest was none other than a demonstration against the current government’s lax refugee policies. Paris, known as the City of Lights but in reality a city struggling with waste management, was increasingly resembling a garbage dump.

This “garbage dump” nickname arose from a combination of declining civic responsibility and a massive influx of tourists. Nowadays, anyone who sees Paris might sum it up in one phrase:

“It’s a complete trash can.”

Paris had become a giant trash can. The protesters weren’t just ordinary citizens; some civil servants were also participating, including sanitation workers and sewer maintenance personnel.

Normally, this wouldn’t have been a major issue, but the protesting civil servants deliberately sabotaged the sewage treatment system, creating an even bigger mess.

The city itself was a museum, and every street was once praised as a work of art. But now, sewage flowed backward from the manholes, filth overflowed, swarms of rats were rampant, and garbage floated everywhere. Calling it a trash can was a euphemism; the streets of Paris had become a cesspool.

Paris may waver, but it does not sink—yet it was slowly sinking into the filth they had created.

“It’s always been like this,” said the Chief of Staff. “It’s just gotten a little worse lately. It’s like an annual event.”

Indeed, strikes and protests were a common occurrence in France, and governments collapsing due to citizen action was practically a tradition. However, it didn’t seem like the current protest would escalate that much. Maybe it would just end with a change of leadership.

However, even though the Chief of Staff said this, he wasn’t really in a position to talk so lightly about disorderly protests. After all, if you were to pick a representative ‘riot’ from history books, it would undoubtedly be the American riots. And riots don’t just happen easily, do they?

‘Basically, protests and riots arise when the government fails to meet the expectations of individual citizens.’

At least, typical protests are based on individual biases. For example, there were groups who would protest Bush’s resignation no matter what he did, and these people were affiliated with the Democratic Party. In short, not all protests are justified.

‘As a politician, it’s hard to say this, but protests are paradoxically something you can do because you have enough to live on.’

Would people who are truly struggling to make ends meet be protesting? No. There’s no way they could protest. Most of those who protest belong to the middle class, while the poor, who are always struggling, would starve if they stopped working even for a day, without even a cent, let alone a dollar, to their name.

It’s almost impossible for such people to take to the streets. Anyway, protests are something you do when you still have enough to live on, and riots are what you do when you really can’t live anymore. A riot is when suppressed citizen emotions explode all at once.

The reason why riots are problematic is that some people take advantage of the chaos to pursue their own selfish interests. It would be enough to just target government buildings appropriately, but they even vandalize the streets, which creates a negative perception.

‘So, the UK is asking us to share some of the refugees?’

To be exact, it was a request from the cabinet led by Prime Minister Tony Blair. It wasn’t something we couldn’t do. After all, the United States had effectively concluded the Western Iraq War with a bang. Frankly, we could accommodate about 500,000 more.

However, we had no intention of being taken advantage of so easily. Perhaps the UK was thinking the same thing, but they were in no position to bargain. They’re begging for help because they’re in trouble themselves, so how could they do anything for the US?

‘So, I’m telling you to be more restrained.’

Ultimately, the United States and the United Kingdom decided to ‘partially’ accept refugees on humanitarian grounds, so as not to undermine the perception that they were of one mind. If things continued like this, it seemed like Europe would collapse. Ideally, we wanted to send them back to Western Iraq, but Western Iraq was truly nothing but ruins.

It wasn’t an exaggeration; not only major cities but even small towns were completely devastated. This was partly because the cities and towns were still undergoing redevelopment, but the main reason was that the war had been an all-out conflict.

It was almost impossible to salvage any usable buildings, and most of those buildings had been reinforced with steel and concrete during the war, transforming them into fortresses rather than habitable structures.

Colonel Abbas, the mastermind behind this war, was said to have been smirking until the very end, and indeed, there was a good reason for that. With this one war, he crippled Europe’s influence and drove them all out of the Middle East. The saying that he lost in battle but won the war existed only for him.

‘Then does that mean we lost as well?’

Of course not. While it was true that the enemy’s leaders had completely achieved their operational goals, that didn’t mean that the United States had failed to achieve its own.

The US’s operational goals from the beginning were to moderately favor the EU, to demonstrate that the US’s hegemony was still strong, and to obtain practical data from drones.

To be honest, rather than currying favor, the top priority was to showcase the power of the world’s hegemonic power to the integrated forces [referring to the EU], which had recently grown in strength and were trying to compete with the US in an arms race. Next, the war demonstrated to the Federal Assembly the usefulness of drones, justifying a slight increase in the defense budget, which they had been so eager to cut.

In fact, the parliament was expressing reluctance and concern about the rapidly growing drone budget. However, Bush orchestrated a battlefield scenario without significant human presence, implemented it to a limited extent, and finally, the potential of drones was becoming clear.

Some progressives in the Department of Defense were even led to believe that the battlefield of the near future would be a war of robots. Of course, Bush knew best that this was impossible.

Not in the near future, but in the very distant future, the battlefield could not be completely replaced by robots. Only the Air Force could make such claims. Didn’t they declare back in 2019 that the F-35 would be the last manned aircraft of the US military?

Of course, that didn’t mean that they would scrap all the manned fighter planes that were flying well, so in the end, the Air Force would have to fill about half of its fleet with manned aircraft. However, it was certain that the role of humans on the battlefield of the near future would be diminished.

And Bush wanted to bring that near future forward somewhat. Even if we invest heavily now, the US will be one generation ahead. That’s why he was focusing on drones. One of the harms of war was the economy, but the biggest harm was the loss of life. If we can mitigate this, what can’t we do?

Back to the story of Europe.

‘Anyway, the important thing is that Europe’s momentum to expand again has been completely broken.’

Of course, this was Bush’s convenient overinterpretation, but in reality, it wasn’t that different. At least for half a century, they wouldn’t be able to rampage in the Middle East to expand their influence like the United States. It was a very fortunate thing for Bush, who wanted the Middle East to be a little quieter.

There was a slight problem with this, and that was the Kurds, who had been promised nation-building. Turkey, which had been negative from the beginning, kept its mouth shut, and as independence became nominal and Western Iraq was virtually out of influence, dissatisfaction gradually began to accumulate.

Of course, the EU was trying to prevent this in any way, and the US was eager to help in any way. Otherwise, the Western system itself would be greatly criticized.

‘Now the problem is the United States. No, is it me?’

The reason why Bush emphasized himself during the speech was a sense of vaguely wanting to be rewarded, and because he needed to raise his gradually declining approval rating appropriately again.

And as expected, his approval rating rose sharply. The problem was that it deviated ‘a lot’ from the expected figure. This far exceeded the figure that Bush had assumed. After the Great Southern Fire, the South was thirsting for safety more than imagined.

It was a fire that suddenly turned some people, who had been saying that the Earth would not hurt no matter what humans did, into environmentalists. The vicious thing about fire is that once it starts to spread, it is almost impossible to extinguish it until it has consumed enough victims and is satisfied, even if you spend a lot of money.

At the time, I felt that the response was quick, but that was all. In addition, it was later revealed that the fire started from the kudzu [an invasive vine species] removal site, which temporarily condemned the government.

Perhaps with this incident, there would be no competition in Florida, a traditional swing state. No matter how many times we do it, the Republican Party will definitely win.

‘But I can’t deliberately do stupid things. I’m going crazy.’

Frankly, how many times have I suppressed the Federal Assembly and quietly shut them up with the president’s authority and a distorted interpretation of the Constitution? I had to somehow abolish this crazy power before handing it over to the next president.

It’s not something Bush should say, but the people should never be manipulated by the government. Of course, Bush knows that doing this now is hypocritical, having already abused that power so much, but it would be dangerous if it happened again next time.

‘Still, is it a little better this time that it raised the popularity of individuals rather than the government?’

Still, it was difficult for his approval rating to drop now. There were a lot of projects to push forward. The time limit of this term made Bush impatient.

While Bush was lost in thought, the Chief of Staff received a new report. And this news was more than enough to break Bush’s train of thought.

“Mr. President, there are signs of what you were worried about earlier in China.”

Hearing that, Bush broke into a cold sweat.