AN: Edited by Gremin Jack, perfect_shade and Nla Eid. Teutonictoltec also provided some advice.
1947, May 11th, somewhere in the air flying to South Bharat:
The jet bomber converted into a makeshift passenger plane hit another pocket of turbulence as I was reading the BND's foreign events reports after reviewing my notes for the upcoming meeting with South Bharat's and Akitsushima Dominion's prime ministers. Normally I would have let the local ambassador or Foreign Minister Dertinge handle such diplomatic affairs, but the Akitsushima Dominion seemed serious with setting up a military treaty with Germania and South Bharat. All of this is increasingly making it harder to consider dropping out of this election's race to retire, and that was before Visha turned up her charm drastically.
As for the jet bomber conversion, what better way of getting a civilian airline industry started by having the air force experiment with jet powered passenger and cargo planes first?
Shortly after my political speech and with the news of South Bharat seeking partnerships with other countries, North Bharat's propaganda machine kicked into overdrive. The CSR announced that they would be establishing the "International Security Treaty Organization", coincidentally with their allies and puppets of the Russy Confederation, Afghanistan, North Bharat, Burma and Joseon. There were also rumblings in Germania's politics, but I tuned those out since I won't be in office by next year anyways.
Our contacts in Asia reported the conflict in the Allied Kingdom's Malaya colony had intensified with possible indications of the CSR's Sibyrian Army training the communist rebels. I have no interest in saving the Allied Kingdom's failing colony after what they've done after I saved South Bharat from the communists, but their Malaya colony also sits on the most direct sea lanes between Germania and the Akitsushima Dominion. If Malaya falls to the communists, I might be forced to rely on the sea lane going through the Panama Canal.
And speaking of the western hemisphere, in the Unified States, Robert A. Taft, a staunch isolationist, had been rapidly gaining popularity. He had criticized Truman's "misguided adventures in Bharat" and "nearly escalated a local conflict into a global war", and also criticized the formations of OZEV and ISTO on the basis of "forming a chain of alliances will not prevent a world war, but only serves to drag uninvolved countries into a regional dispute to turn it into a world war". If the Unified States won't get involved with containing communism, it's going to be a mess with OZEV and the Allied Kingdom handling that responsibility when the Allied Kingdom seems to be going back to their "keep everyone divided and weak" strategy.
On a minor positive note, Foreign Minister Dertinge reported good progress with securing a trade agreement and alliance with South Bharat, and all that was left was the official signing ceremony.
I looked at the next document. It was Anna's personal report on Akitsushima Dominion's electronic, automotive and camera industries. I vaguely recalled Elya commenting on a few Akitsushiman industry magazines that were on my desk, but I didn't expect Anna to take on that economics analysis.
I smiled to myself as an idea formed in my head. Akitsushima Dominion could never compete against the CSR in manpower, and eventually the CSR's raw industrial output will outmatch them like what happened in my previous world. But, as long as the Akinese stay ahead technologically, the CSR would be forced to have its attention divided between multiple fronts. Not to mention there are great growth opportunities for some of the Akinese industries and export opportunities. The only potentially stumbling block is how they might react to a gaijin wanting to directly invest into their companies.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the Germanian countryside:
"She, and her lover, are not going to be running for any office." Johan Dressler said. "They're going to be gone at the end of this year, possibly leaving Germania for a long vacation."
"I don't think any of us was expecting that, were we?" Klaus Vogel asked.
"Nobody was. It's funny. They did exactly what we would have liked, and instead that made a mess for us." Andreas Becker groaned. "Our coalition is falling apart at this very minute when that information leaked from people closest to the Chancellor. The only thing that was uniting us was our opposition to the two women. It's a mad dash for the office now. Every political party thinks they have a shot at getting someone in the Chancellor and President offices, and taking down the GWP a peg. Then you have the various government officials who are all scrambling as some had previously been counting on the two women to stay in office."
"There's also brewing chaos within the GWP." Dressler put a head on his forehead. "Factions are popping up and my party is potentially going to splinter."
"So, what now?" Andreas asked.
"I have no idea." Klaus said.
"What about the foreign agents?" Dressler asked.
"Well one of them said they're awaiting orders from their superior on what to do, because they initially didn't believe our report of the two women opting to not run for office again." Becker said. "The other one pledged to continue helping us."
"Should we still seek their support?" Klaus asked.
"No. Start destroying any evidence of us having interaction with those agents and tell them that the BND started investigating us if they insist on continuing to bother us." Dressler interjected. "We were previously facing the two evils. Letting the Chancellor become Kaiserin or having foreign powers dictate how we govern. Now with her being gone, we have no need to continue working with the other evil."
1947, May 16th, in Bombay, South Bharat:
Four years ago I was here to delay the communists' advance towards this city. While there was still reconstruction going on, everything seemed normal. The coalition had built a massive temporary harbor to support their logistics in order to complete the encirclement of North Bharat's southern army. Towards the end of the war, South Bharat had begun reinforcing the temporary structures to ensure that they wouldn't get damaged from a bad storm and continued the harbor operations. If there's one thing that I remembered from my previous life of working in the corporate world, the Americans described it as "Nothing more permanent than a temporary solution".
We had finished the formal meeting that established the groundwork for a trilateral trade agreement and military alliance, and now we could have a private lunch to ourselves without having to worry about our entourages bothering us.
As I took a bite of the curry, the South Bharatian prime minister spoke up, "I'm assuming one or both of you have watched what has been occurring in Southeast Asia?"
Full of colonies on the verge of rebellion or in open rebellion against their masters, which was greatly accelerated from the Francois Republic being knocked out of the Europan War in records time, the Albish fumbling hard for about a decade now and some pro-communist sympathies in the colonies as a counterweight against their existing economic systems. If only those countries would wake up and realize that the longer they delay the inevitable decolonization, the more likely the CSR would start to get directly involved. Of course I couldn't directly tell the Albish, as they're apparently upset over South Bharat choosing to align with Germania over them, and the Francois Republic would eye us with suspicion.
Although I wonder if South Bharat had something in mind. Maybe even seize the opportunity to form their own regional power bloc like Legadonia Entente's Nordic Council. Could I really blame them if the other European powers are going to hand them the colonies on a silver platter by delaying the inevitable decolonization as long as possible? It would be entertaining if South Bharat picked up the Albish's perfidious habit and used it against them, and everyone else. The threat of communism would be an easy justification to undermine the colonial masters.
The Akinese prime minister spoke up before I finished chewing my food. "We've been monitoring the situations in Francois Indochina, Malaya, the Lothiern East Indies and the Philippines. The Albish insisted that their 'Malayan Emergency' will come to an end. Perhaps if they had more success with war or diplomacy in the past, we might have trusted them. The Frankish were arrogant about their war and were angry that we asked them privately about what is going on in their colony. They told us to give our Formosa Island independence and maybe they might consider doing the same. As for the Philippines, it's only a matter of time before the small protests escalate and the locals try for independence against the Unified States."
I was well aware of the growing discontent in Formosa Island thanks to the BND's 'associates' that made it clear that while they were anti-communists, they also wanted independence, but I decided to not bring that up. I spent way too many years in Japanese office politics to know when and when not to undercut someone publicly.
"Just a few weeks ago the Allied Kingdom said the situation in Burma is all under control. Considering that the CSR is still proceeding with the railway construction in Burma to link up with North Bharat, we're assuming that was just an Albish understatement." The South Bharatian prime minister responded after finishing his tea. "What makes me also concerned are the Malacca Strait, Sunda Strait and the South Jiuzhou Sea. The CSR would likely take an interest in controlling at least one of those colonies in order to also control one or both of those bodies of water through the usage of their coastal artillery guns and mage armies."
"And that would put a stranglehold on any trade or mutual war support between the two of you." after I swallowed my food. I haven't had this kind of very spicy food for a while.
"Should we get involved in the conflicts with those regions?" the South Bharatian prime minister asked.
"Which side do we even pick?" Akinese prime minister set down his tea. "Backing the European powers and the Unified States would ensure that if the colonies succeed in independence, they will be guaranteed to be aligned against us. Backing the rebels would incur the wrath of those major powers and diplomatically isolate us from them."
Right, and get sucked into an alternative Vietnam War where it wouldn't matter how many battles we won and the history books are filled with stories of atrocities. At least the United States in my previous world had let the Philippines declare independence. Maybe the Akitsushima Dominion are wanting to form their own regional power bloc as a way of establishing a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere by relying on South Bharat and OVEZ to push out the other countries instead of conquering all of the regions by themselves. That is something the Allied Kingdom would have definitely tried to do. Fight an enemy to the last drop of their allies' blood.
"It's inevitable that the Allied Kingdom, Francois Republic, Lothiern and the Unified States will not be able to hold onto their respective colonies." I shrugged. "Last thing we want to do is give the impression to the locals that we're aligned with their colonial masters."
"But if we support the locals, that would sour our relations with those four countries." The Akinese prime minister noted.
"I think our best option is to collectively apply diplomatic pressure for both sides to have peace talks." I stirred my coffee. "While also making it very clear that we will not tolerate any communism in the South Asian region, or any partnership with the CSR."
In Moskva:
Wang took a sip of tea as Loria looked over the proposal.
"It is a bold move." Loria mumbled as he set the paper down. "To hand over all of the information about the CSR's government and military structure and operations to give us a better understanding of how things are run in your country, and in return the NKVD helps you with slowly turning the CSR's intel apparatus against your superior?"
"Well, we should be in a spirit of cooperation under the International Security Treaty Organization, but both of us know how the ISTO is currently centered around one member, when it should be the model of international socialism. But that won't happen as long as the CSR's leadership is filled with those who simply use communism ideals to further Chinese nationalism." Wang said. "Also, I've heard that you expressed interest in the latest mage augmentation technology?"
Loria narrowed his eyes. "Your superiors would brutally kill you if you handed any of that over."
"Which I find hypocritical. They stole that technology from your people."
"What would you want if you gave it to us?"
"They can only kill me if they're in power." Wang waved his hand. "So it is important that our work succeeds."
Loria smiled. "I can assure you of the NKVD's loyalty to you over Kang."
Wang nodded in reply, satisfied by the assurance. "How is your military research and development going by the way?"
Loria hums, "A bit of a slow start as we're still picking up the pieces from dissolution of the Russy Federation. But now that we have access to various coalition hardware that were left in North Bharat or Tibet, ranging from either in pieces or fully intact, it should help us make up time."
"And your operations in Suomi?"
"We're making good progress."
1947, July 4th, in Berun:
"Captain Chaim G. Rickover asked to move to Germania after the US Navy rejected his appeals to be allowed back into the navy." Elya reported. "What should we do with him?"
"Do we know why he was pushed out of the US Navy? And what is his current attitude on naval nuclear propulsion?" I asked.
"It's somewhat hard to tell." Elya shrugged. "Based on the interview of his friends and colleagues, the general impression I got was that he's good at managing highly technical projects, holds very high standards for people around him and has zero tolerance for any sort of incompetence or deviation from details. He made a lot of enemies with that zero tolerance attitude, such as military contractors, his peers and superiors. There was one dispute where a company asked for additional money to fix manufacturing defects, he told them to take a hike and that they should fix it for free of charge. It turned out that the company had friends in the US military and Congress. As for nuclear propulsion, he is still committed to that idea."
Hmm. I could use someone like that to oversee nuclear reactor developments. At least I wouldn't have to repeatedly emphasize safety requirements.
"Do you think we could trust him with overseeing naval nuclear propulsion development? There's no way the nuclear power plants' reactor designs and the containment structures would fit even in an aircraft carrier, nevertheless a nuclear submarine."
Elya visibly pondered for a brief moment. "I could keep him under heavy passive observation by the BND if he is to look at our nuclear technology and research. He did mention that even if the US Navy wants him back, he would end up in the same situation that led to his dismissal."
For a company to rehire someone that they had publicly fired, not just one of those 'So and so has left our company to seek other interests.' corporate speak statements, would require that company to admit that they had made a major mistake. What is their loss is my gain I guess.
"We'll hire him then, just keep him away from our nuclear bombs. And do have him sign some ironclad non-disclosure agreements before we let him anywhere close to our reactor projects."
1947, July 6th, Karlstein am Main in Germania:
When I arrived at the construction site of the second nuclear power plant, the Kahl Nuclear Power Plant, I saw Willy Kohol, the new Minister of Energy, in a deep discussion with General Ugar, a few scientists and some engineers.
"Ah, good morning Chancellor! We were discussing the transition of the military control of nuclear electricity generation over to civilian control. There are some design changes based on lessons learned from the first nuclear power plant."
Although some of the details went over my head, one thing that did catch my attention was that while the reactors' output would be multiples times of the first designs, the containment structure would still be relatively the same strength.
"Wouldn't a reactor with higher power output also be able to generate a larger catastrophic meltdown or explosion?" I asked.
One of the scientists said "An explosion is statistically impos-" before being cut off by Kohol and General Ugar.
I glared at the confused scientist before General Ugar spoke up. "Water jackets are built around the fuel assemblies so even if there was a complete loss of flow, the water would provide plenty of time for fully withdrawn control rods to be fully inserted by preventing the reactor's power from rapidly rising due to the positive void coefficient design. The jackets themselves are connected to a separate pressurized water reservoir to replace any water that is boiled off, and as a last resort, firefighters can connect hoses from their pumping trucks to continue adding in water to the jackets."
I nodded, multiple meltdowns learned from my first life had taught me the value of ensuring that Germania's nuclear power plants are as safe as they can be. "And the reason for this design?" I asked.
"It was deemed more cost efficient than increasing the thickness of the already massive containment structure and it can also reduce the severity of a minor accident." Kohol said. "Of course if the reactor had a negative coefficient design where rising water temperature or steam in the coolant channels doesn't cause a rise in reactor power, that itself would be a major safety improvement, but I've been told by the nuclear researchers that the graphite moderated reactors are the most cost efficient ways of producing both power and weapons grade plutonium, and there's no way to avoid the positive void coefficient issue with graphite moderation."
"I'm assuming there were tests to verify the water jackets' performance in an emergency?"
Kohol nodded. "While causing an actual reactor accident to test the safety systems would have been prohibitively expensive, we did test a scale model of the new safety systems such as the water jacket on a small research reactor and a high thermal output electric heater that simulated a reactor."
I had no way of knowing just how capable the water jacket design is, but punishing them for trying to find cheaper ways to meet the same project requirements would just invite perverse incentives and thus stagnation. "No simulations?" I asked.
"To simulate a reactor operation would be far beyond what can be calculated by hand." One of the scientists said before anyone else could speak. "And there are too many unknowns to create a mathematical model that can perfectly simulate a reactor. It would require many more years of intensive research…" The scientist then looked nervously contemplating something for a moment before continuing: "…But if there's funding for both computation engine and mathematical model projects, I have actually been working on a theoretical way to bring such projects into reality."
Kohol and Ugar glared at the bold scientist. I, on the other hand, chuckled a bit at the brazen request for funding, "I'll think about it." I nodded at the scientist, "In the meanwhile, have your superiors put together a proposal so I can justify it when the Diet asks for an explanation."
If the scientist was expecting me to grant funding for a project to create the computer of the future, then he did not show it on his face. "R-really?" He asks, eyes wide, "I mean, of course, Chancellor!"
"Speaking of project proposals, I've been concerned about your proposal to build prototype wind turbines." Kohol spoke. "Their output is always dictated by an unpredictable wind speed, and nuclear power plants are slow to respond to rapidly changing grid conditions."
I racked my mind of 'energy storage' concepts that I heard about in my previous life. Then it occurred to me – the hydroelectric dams. "How fast can hydroelectric dams respond?" I asked.
Kohol paused for a moment. "If they have been designed or retrofitted to handle quickly changing water flow rates, those could help. We might need to consider pumped storage sites in the Alps or elsewhere as there are only a finite number of suitable hydroelectric dam sites. But that brings up the next question of funding. Why build all of these nuclear reactors, wind turbines, hydroelectric dams, pumped storage and other complex systems, when we couldn't simply build more coal power plants? Especially with the proposed aggressive plans of electrifying train networks and other public transportation, while the insurgencies in Caucasia and Kazakh are slowly intensifying again which is complicating our plans of expanding the oil industry in the two republics."
If we were entirely reliant on coal for energy usage as an alternative to the inevitable unreliable oil supply, that could just end up recreating the smogs that I remembered in Japan.
"Coal is cheaper, for now. But its cost efficiency is often tied to the price of coal. Wind and hydro don't need to pay for fuel, and fuel cost is an extremely small expense for nuclear cost." I said, putting out the economical side of the argument before switching to another, "Then there's also the negative environmental and health effects from the pollution from burning coal such as smog and acid rain. I saw the report from the health minister about their studies on tobacco usage, and breathing in smoke from coal burning is just as harmful." At this, I look directly at Ugar, "Imagine the children of Germania breathing all of that in – whether they want to or not."
The face that the man made might've made me feel regretful about using such underhanded tactics, but being from a future facing this exact issue allowed me to deal with it.
1947, August 17th:
I was expecting just a written report from the BND regarding the Unified States' mage bombardier doctrine development. But I was also unsurprised when Elya requested to hold an in-person meeting.
What I didn't expect was Elya to push an embarrassed looking Major Neumann into my office, give me a wink, and then closing the door.
A few awkward seconds passed when I cleared my throat. "Well… I suppose that the best source of information is from the person who saw it themselves."
"It seems like Elya agrees," Neumann said.
I nod, "Well, do you want to start first with your brief, or should we instead first start with a discussion of how your relationship with Birgit Johansson is going?"
His face turned a bit red at the name of his lover before forcing himself into an attention and starting his brief. "The Americans had seriously considered your criticism of strategic bombing operations being an inherently messy work, and how we conduct precision bombing in low visibility conditions."
He projected an illustration of how the American bombardier mages operated as he continued speaking. "They had miniaturized magic detectors enough to be mounted on the tips of bombs, and guide the bombs toward the source of the reflected magic signature. The B-17 Flying Fortress's four 500kg bombs at high altitude rarely hit a targeted block of buildings. With a mage, all four bombs can consistently hit a single building, and some mages can guide more than one bomber's payloads or split the bombs to hit multiple targets simultaneously. They were suspiciously avoidant when I asked if they could hit moving targets or low altitude aerial targets. Even Johansson didn't want to answer that question, so I would predict they either have that capability already or will have it soon."
"And with their developing 'Wild Weasel' and 'Wild Ferret' doctrines, they can also deal with enemy anti-air defenses that could disrupt the bombing operations?" I asked, to which Neumann nodded in reply.
"They also experimented with merging the doctrines together by having bombardier mages guide bombs onto locations of anti-aircraft defenses that had previously revealed themselves to other aircraft or mages."
I nodded, remembering our own use of electronically guided bombs."When this information is briefed to the air force, what would you say if our air force also expressed interest in having our mages do something like what the Americans are doing?" I tapped my pen against my cheek.
"First they would need to get funding to develop strategic bombers which would have to go through you for approval." He chuckled. Then his face turned serious. "And you would also need to find more mages if you want to continue having a large number of special operation mages."
"Ah, in that case I would rather just keep investing in better electronically guided bombs." I hummed. "Unless we have CSR's mage augmentation technology, no amount of extra technology from us will make a regular human or even a C tier mage be able to match a B or A tier mage for behind enemy lines operation."
I paused for a moment, and a sudden realization hit me. "Do you know that size of the magical detectors they fitted on their bombs?"
"Err… Fist size I think?" Neumann shrugged.
"Did you get any photos or recordings of them?"
To my delight, he responded: "Of course. Why?"
I smile, applications of such technology already coming to mind. "Your information could be helpful for our own handheld magic detector development. I need you to brief Dr. Max Kramer about that."
"As you say, Chancellor." He saluted me and was about to walk out of my room when a smile crept to my face. "Major Neumann, have I dismissed you yet? I did mention that I wanted to hear about your relationship with Birgit Johansson."
Neumann froze, "Chancellor, I gave you the brief..." He protested, his face red again.
"I did mention about us first discussing that relationship topic if you didn't want to start the brief." I wagged my finger.
He stared at me for a brief moment, and then sighed, "I'll tell you all about my proposal to her if you also explain why you're not running for office this year."
"Oh?" I sat upright in my chair in the face of such a good trade. "Well, I'm all ears to hear about you taking your relationship more seriously." I chuckle, "As for me, I'm just tired of politics. I don't want to end up in a situation where I'm exhausted in the middle of a crisis. It's also about time for someone new to lead Germania through a new era. Now, tell me about your future, hmm?"
1947, October 8th, Washington DC in the Unified States:
"I never expected this day. The Germanian Chancellor stepping down from power when she could have simply won another landslide electoral victory and extended the duration of her dual Chancellorship and Presidential office." President Frederick Rosenvelt said. "And she also officially confirmed that they have a nuclear weapon, by restricting her successors' ability to use them. Then there's the part where she had a law passed that formally separated the Chancellorship and Presidential offices. Kicking down the ladder so others can't have the same political powers she had I guess."
"It's a complete free for all chaos that she unleashed on Germania." William Riley said. "Her political party is already having internal disputes that are spilling out into the front pages, with some guy called Dressler getting in some nasty quarrels against the senior GWP leaders. The Germanian Democratic Union ripped up their coalition with her party now that she's heading out, and their cofounder Conrad Adenaue is making a bid for Chancellorship while his colleague is trying to stay in office. The anti-GWP coalition is completely dead. I originally thought she was going to conduct a 'Embrace and Extinguish' strategy against the GDU to remain in power."
"What still confuses me is her previous speeches regarding the future of Germania, specifically her goal of achieving 'energy independence'. She's going all-in on nuclear, hydro, and wind power, and expanding hydrocarbon explorations on land and sea with other OZEV members. Strangely nothing about expanding coal mining." Rosenvelt tapped his chin. "And then there's Volksauto. She established it with government support and brought it here. She appeared to be undercutting her very own automotive business with the shift to electrified public transports."
"Maybe she's concerned about the security situations with the republics bordering the Russy Confederation, and doesn't want OZEV to be dependent on oil from us or the Albish? After all, if OZEV got into a war, it could be crippled if it is dependent on foreign oil imports, or at least end up racking up a large debt from buying oil like what happened in their war against the Rus. But I do agree that the silence on simply using more coal is strange."
"Well, I guess we would have to wait and see what was the true reason for her 'energy independence' plans." Rosenvelt stretched. "Anyways, what is going on with the Vaccaro Fruit Company? I have never seen such intense lobbying from them."
Riley cleared his throat. "It's New Granada's parliamentary elections, and a socialist leaning party gained the vast majority of their parliament seats. That company has been concerned with the party leader, Juan Guzmán, over his labor and land reform platform. Juan Guzmán has been accusing the company of allowing large amounts of land to go uncultivated and offered to buy them for double of what the company originally paid for."
"Do you think there's any truth to the Vaccaro Fruit Company's claim of a rising communsit threat in South America?"
"Maybe. I think the safest option right now is to stop any arms sales to New Granada in the event that Juan Guzmán nationalizes businesses or starts contacting the CSR or Russy Confederation. Although speaking of fruits, there is something else I need to bring up." Riley filed through his papers. "The Albish informed us that they have indications of foreign agents contacting researchers and scientists involved with studies of human contagious diseases, human immune system, crop and plant diseases, and livestock diseases. Not just in their country, but in other parts of Europe as well."
Rosenvelt blinked, "That sounds…" Horrible, hideous, "...very concerning."
Riley nodded in agreement "If it's the communists that are involved with that, they may be seeking their own mass destruction weapon as a counter against Germania's nuclear weapons. Especially biological weapons that can target food sources such as wheat and cattle."
"That's insanity." Rosenvelt responded, no longer being able to contain his disbelief. "If it backfires on them, they would be wiped out by the plagues of their own making!"
"Have you ever heard of the phrase 'Don't corner a rat'?" Riley posted, "They have every reason to be worried about a decapitation strike against all of their major cities and military bases, and biological weapons are their only easy way of taking down the Germanias with them. As for us? Well, considering how far behind we are with our nuclear program, we might need to consider partnering with other countries to help catch up." He finishes with a shrug.
Rosenvelt sighed. "Seems like we'll be calling the Albish then, or maybe even the Francoise, too!" He shakes his head, "God knows we'll need all the help we can get if we want to survive this madness."
1947, December 3rd, in Berun:
My introduction with the new Chancellor, Conrad Adenaue, and the new President, Ernst Paul, did not go off with a good start. The Deputy Chancellor, Dressler, of all the people, was tied up with another meeting. I seemed to have underestimated how they would react to a set of new laws that I had pushed through the Diet at the last moment. One of those formally banned the practice of merging the Chancellor and President offices together.
"What exactly did the military research create for you to pass a very specific law that required triple approval from the Chancellor, President and Secretary General to offensively use nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and two approvals for retaliatory strikes if Germania is attacked with those weapons?" Ernst Paul fumed.
I started the projector which had a tape of all of the nuclear bomb tests.
Right after the footage of the first bomb test, Ernst Paul verbally exploded. "All this time! You could have forced the Russy Federation to surrender instead of the current political bullshit where the Russy Confederation remnants refuse to recognize the peace treaty! You could have forced North Bharat to surrender within the first week of them invading South Bharat! Or the CSR when they intervened in the war!"
Hm. I guess it was a good thing that I pushed for triple approval for offensive usage. General Lergen would be guaranteed to use such weapons at the first opportunity, and with Paul also being a war fanatic, that would just leave Adenaue the only voice of caution.
I smiled. "And now you know why I had that law in place. We won't be the only country with nuclear bombs."
"Then we utilize our weapons advantage to secure our peace!"
"I will not set a precedent where nuclear bombs are used casually." I replied. Adenaue remained silent, observing the debate between the two of us. Paul was about to speak again when I continued. "It's only a matter of time before the communists develop their own nuclear weapons, and nuking them earlier would have given them the justification to pursue a first-strike policy instead of a retaliatory strike one."
"They can't develop their nuclear weapons if we force them into unconditional surrender, and if they don't surrender, then we'll just erase their infrastructure until they no longer have the capability to wage war for decades."
In the past I would have been worried about such an aggressive successor. At least General Lergen follows orders from his superiors even if he chafes at being unable to crush his enemies. But at this point, I'm beginning to understand the feeling that some employees would call "burnout".
I shrugged my shoulders. "There's no point in arguing about this with me. You two now have Germania, and OZEV in your hands. If the three of you agree on using nuclear weapons now, I hope you're ready for the consequences. I'll be finishing packing my bags to enjoy an overdue vacation well outside of the blast radius."
Temporary harbor reference: wiki/Mulberry_harbour
"Albish understatement" reference: wiki/English_understatement
Southeast Asia's independence wars reference:
wiki/Malayan_Emergency
wiki/First_Indochina_War
wiki/Indonesian_National_Revolution
Formosa Island unrest reference: wiki/February_28_incident
Earlier history of anti-Japanese resistance in Taiwan: wiki/Taiwan_under_Japanese_rule#Annexation_and_armed_resistance
1948 US presidential elections references:
wiki/1948_Republican_National_Convention
wiki/1948_United_States_presidential_election
First nuclear power plant in Germany: wiki/Kahl_Nuclear_Power_Plant
Reference to the smog in Japan (article from 2007): article/us-japan-smog/smog-smothers-japan-experts-point-to-china-idUST21446820070824
Reference to New Granada's elections: wiki/Jacobo_
Biological weapons development during WW2:
wiki/Operation_Vegetarian
wiki/Unit_731
wiki/Operation_Cherry_Blossoms_at_Night