The news that the Soviet Union was going to carry out large-scale disarmament soon triggered a new round of turmoil in the international community, especially among NATO countries led by the United States. The word "shocked" is definitely the most accurate way to describe the expressions of leaders of various countries at this time.
"Damn it, these Soviets fooled us, they fooled us hard." It was the first time that Brent saw Bush so furious. He threw the documents on the table to the ground. Unable to calm down his anger, he hammered the table with both hands, indignant. "If we had pressed the Soviets on the Baltic issue, they would have surrendered. Oh my God, why didn't so many intelligence analysts in the Pentagon realize that Yanayev was deceiving you!"
Brent muttered inwardly: "I insisted on continuing to coerce the Soviet Union, but you and your European allies chose to withdraw in the end, so why blame me? And haven't we been fooled by the Soviets enough? When we signed the Strategic Ballistic Weapons Limitation Agreement with Brezhnev, didn't the Americans think it was a victory of reason? Didn't the Soviet Union's unprecedented West-81 military exercise in 1981 make the West conclude that the Warsaw Pact's sea of tanks was capable of wiping out NATO's troops in Central Europe and reaching the gates of Paris within a week? Haven't our top leaders learned lessons from these events?"
Of course, Brent couldn't say these things openly, so he could only comfort Bush, "But President, at least we have learned one very important thing from the Soviet Union's disarmament, that is, they can no longer use their weak economy to maintain the huge military expenditures of the armored forces. So from now on, we should adjust our strategic goals and focus on completely destroying the Soviet economy. In this way, even if they have huge war weapons, they will go bankrupt directly because they have no money to maintain them."
"That's true, but how do we defeat the Soviet Union's economy? It's clear that the Soviet Union has begun to find ways to counter our ideological propaganda offensive, and Pentagon intelligence analysis indicates that since the Soviet Union adopted Rezhkov's economic policy, there is a 74% chance that the Soviet Union will be able to get out of its economic predicament."
"Isn't there still a 26 percent chance of failure? All we have to do is add fuel to the fire of the Soviet Union's already troubled economy. Even if the reforms are effective, they will not be able to withstand the collapse of reality," said Brent.
Bush nodded. He wanted to make the Soviet economy worse. Bush picked up a document and threw it to Brent, saying, "So don't we have another guy named Leo Vanta? According to the information in my hand, in the 1980s, this CIA agent named Vanta was directly ordered by President Reagan to engage in a secret financial war aimed at subverting the Soviet ruble. The code name of the secret operation he designed was also called the 'Great Ruble Scam', and this layout has been planned for several years. It's time to let this guy shine."
Brent was also one of the insiders of Vanta's plan. In the plan Vanta presented to Brent, it was stated that he would complete a highly profitable transaction of buying 140 billion rubles for 5 billion US dollars at a price twice that of the black market with the help of his accomplices inside the Soviet Union. Then, he shorted gold by up to 2,000 tons in the London gold market this year. In this way, the Soviet economy, which had already been weak, was able to survive only by relying on the gold export as a lifeline. The plunge in gold prices drove the last nail into the coffin of the Soviet Union, and it collapsed completely. Then Vanta implemented the follow-up plan to acquire a large number of assets from the Soviet Union, achieving the goal of hollowing out the red polar bear.
This action had been waiting for Bush's approval. Due to the inexplicable changes in the situation in the Soviet Union a year ago, Vanta's action was delayed by several months compared to history. The Americans, who thought they had it all figured out, certainly didn't know that the change in the situation involved the secret means of the time traveler. They simply regarded him as an act of force majeure and continued to prepare for the action according to the original plan.
"Is the president ready to use Wanta as a chess piece?" Brent asked. He was a little worried now. If it were half a year ago, Brent would have supported Leo Wanta without hesitation, but this time he always felt that things would not be so simple.
But President Bush had lost his mind in anger, and he urgently needed to win back a game in the political game to save face, otherwise the United States would not be able to hold its head up among its NATO allies. So no matter what form it took, he had to teach the Soviets a profound lesson.
"That's for sure. Ask Vanta to come to my office right now. I want to discuss with him in person the specific implementation steps of this plan." The president, who had calmed down, had been completely ignited with the seeds of hatred. He wanted to let Yanaev see America's counterattack and sanctions.
Where some people are sad, others are naturally happy. The military threat posed to our southern neighbor in the north has been lifted, and we can finally breathe a sigh of relief. We no longer have to worry all day long about the violent machine in the north that suddenly rushes over with a torrent of steel. You must know that the three provinces in the east are completely plains with no strategic depth. Once the enemy launches a large-scale offensive, they will be absolutely powerless to stop the advance of those tank tracks.
After the disarmament in the Far East, Yanayev immediately issued a statement, saying that he was willing to put aside the disputes with neighboring countries and jointly develop the disputed areas on the northern border. This was a signal of goodwill from the Soviet Union. Since being sanctioned by NATO military and economic sanctions, the economy of the southern neighbors has also been facing great troubles, and seeking new development opportunities is also on their agenda. The Soviet Union's goodwill gave them a glimmer of new hope.
Years of struggle in a complex international environment have also made the southern neighbor cautious. In response to the Soviet Union's overtures, it only said a few symbolic words without any further expression. But Yanayev was satisfied with its performance. The ice-breaking journey cannot be completed overnight, but this beginning seems to be not bad.
The Soviet Union's overtures frightened a group of small countries in Southeast Asia, especially those neighboring countries that had always had conflicts with the East Asian powers. They all relied on the Soviet Union's generosity to deal with their vast neighbors. For example, the General Secretary of Vietnam carefully stated that they were strategic partners of the Soviet Union and reaffirmed the friendly relations between the Soviet Union and Vietnam. But Yanayev just sneered, who is friendly with you Vietnamese monkeys? Vietnam was just a pawn to curb the rise of the big countries. Now that the two countries are ready to join forces in the Asia-Pacific, there is no place for you small countries.
The two socialist superpowers united in the Asia-Pacific region will exert a political influence that NATO and the United States could not have anticipated, and the alliance of the Asia-Pacific superpowers will also bring terrible political pressure to those small countries in East Asia and Southeast Asia. To borrow a line from a song, the picture is too beautiful to be seen.
Therefore, the foreign policy directors and senior officials of various small countries have been very busy these days. They gathered together to discuss the impact of the fusion of the situation in East Asia, but the results were all disappointing. If the two socialist superpowers move towards an alliance, then the small countries with conflicting interests in the surrounding areas must give up their interests to protect themselves. After experiencing Vietnam, Albania and other ungrateful countries, China has begun to become like a hegemonic country. It has also encountered a red polar bear who fantasizes about how to make profits by selling arms to other countries all day long and has no international spirit of communism. Therefore, the most likely approach for these countries is that the two superpowers will unite to divide up the interests of the surrounding small countries. The question of whether they stand on the right side is nothing more than choosing the distant American free world or the glorious communist world that is close at hand.
The choice of surrender or death may become a question that leaders of many small countries have been racking their brains to think about recently. However, there are also leaders who cannot see the situation clearly and will misjudge the current political situation from the Soviet Union's large-scale disarmament, thinking that the Soviet Union is just a simple economic problem and cannot maintain huge military expenditures.
There is no doubt that Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu is one of the national leaders who cannot see the situation clearly.