Chapter 1284 – Only India Was Injured

“Hmm? What exactly?” John raised an eyebrow, he still didn’t understand exactly what it meant, but came right back to his senses, “An oil embargo?”

“Uh-huh! Singling out India.” Alan Wilson said to his old friend, “Oil is a weapon, and it’s still especially true for India, does India have any large oil producing areas throughout the country? No. If there were would we not know about it? Oil is one of India’s great weaknesses, so once the Indo-Pakistani war begins, having a Middle Eastern country use it as a weapon for once could serve to help Pakistan.”

“Oil, that’s what the Germans lost in the first place.” John grunted, comparing the Germans to India, “You think oil is enough to defeat India?”

“Not if it can beat us, but it can make it quite difficult for India. Then again, how is that not Europe’s weakness. Europe’s comparison to the United States and the Soviet Union lies in the fact that there are so many resource shortcomings here.”

Alan Wilson sighed quietly, Europe, precisely Western Europe, in terms of natural resources on the level of India, stronger than India is the European agricultural conditions are good, at least the rain and heat in the same season, unlike India rain are concentrated to two months.

To say that the natural conditions of the world, in fact, there are not many places, favoring industry and agriculture in a good place, the European part of the Soviet Union, a large country and the United States.

Compare the conditions of the agricultural era alone, the United States is not ranked, North America every few years regular harvest of a cold snap, farming communities can not stand, or Spain would have chosen North America, rather than Central America as the center, of course, the industrial era who all admit that the United States conditions are unique.

Of course, in the industrial era, a large country is not bad, all kinds of mineral reserves are also large, but the quality is not good. It also depends on how you compare, not every country is Australia.

As for Western Europe, Western Europe’s agricultural conditions can be, but for the German-French border of coal and iron belonging to the two countries dog brains are fast fighting out, the British domestic only quality is not good coal and iron are suppression of Western Europe, know that Western Europe and India in the natural resources of the mountain compared to the shoulder is not a waste of time.

“You know this, why do you still do it?” John was surprised, Europe is also short of oil, of course, Britain is not short of, Britain has the North Sea oil, but the North Sea oil is not able to fill the oil gap in Europe, today let the Middle East countries do this to India, in case the Arab countries tasted the sweetness, will not be used in the future on top of Europe.

“In fact, for us, the harm is not great, after the development of the Gulf of Guinea in Africa, the oil embargo on Europe’s harm is manageable. But India can be a condition we don’t have. Plus it’s good to have something like this out there to give European countries a wake up call about oil security.” Allen Wilson’s reason for telling his buddy to do this was simply to use India as a litmus test for Europe.

Alan Wilson was ironically a pro-European Cabinet Secretary, and the pattern was now much bigger than before, at least from Britain Never Surrenders Until Indian Blood Runs Dry to Europe Never Surrenders.

“Furthermore Britain has not withdrawn from the Persian Gulf, and this can be used to get European countries to support a permanent British presence in the Persian Gulf, or at least an understanding.” Allen Wilson continued to follow his lead, “Let them know that Europe is not self-sufficient in energy and has a serious energy security problem. That way, they are at least implicitly supportive of a British presence in the Persian Gulf.”

When playing cards, the timing of the cards will bring different results, the oil crisis was supposed to be the result of the fourth Middle East war period, because of the West’s support for Israel. That time even the United States suffered heavily, not to mention Europe. The British military presence had long since been withdrawn from the Persian Gulf by that time, so naturally it was unable to exert any influence.

It is easy to withdraw a colony, but it is much more difficult to go back to it, and if an oil crisis breaks out while Britain is still in the country, and the tragedy is known to the European countries, not only will Europe have a strong opinion of Britain’s presence in the Persian Gulf, but it will also have a strong opinion of Israel. Not only will Europe have no problem with Britain’s presence in the Persian Gulf, but Britain itself will recognize the risk and not be so naive as to call it decolonization.

As long as Britain stays in the Persian Gulf, it will naturally have the means to deal with many Middle East problems, and whatever the U.S. wants to do, it must have Britain’s cooperation. As long as Britain did not cooperate, then it could not be done.

John was silent for a long time and nodded, “Will the cabinet agree?”

“Would the cabinet dare to joke about their approval ratings? They wouldn’t dare!” Alan Wilson said in a you-don’t-joke tone, “The spontaneous actions of the Arab countries have nothing to do with Britain. Since it has nothing to do with Britain, does it matter whether the cabinet agrees with it or not?”

Anyway, Alan Wilson felt that at a time when Britain still had a military presence in the Persian Gulf, it would be advantageous to have a directed oil crisis. Use India’s plight to Britain’s advantage.

It can also show a bit of unity between the Religion of Peace, and can make Europe realize the energy problem, there are not many things that can be achieved in one fell swoop, and it is totally a win-win ending.

Now that the United States is busy waving its troops northward, it is unlikely to intervene in the war between India and Pakistan, at this time the United Kingdom does not take the initiative to shoulder the burden of the special relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States, when else would it be possible to do so?

The importance of the Persian Gulf is raised, Britain’s huge ocean-going fleet is not necessary to retain, to retain is not also to maintain the shipbuilding industry, which is also good for the Royal Navy.

Here it is important to emphasize that the United States has never been a shipbuilding powerhouse, the United States shipbuilding boom and the World War has a great deal to do with once the war is over the U.S. shipbuilding will hit back. The world’s largest ship fleet is still owned by Britain, and even Japan’s fleet is quite a bit larger than that of the United States.

The United States shipbuilding industry only serves the military field, is not the twenty-first century only appeared fault, but now there are some better than nothing civilian shipbuilding, not like the latter part of the world this point are no longer.

Even the merchant fleet traveling between North America and Europe, most of them are British, the U.S. merchant fleet is very few.

Of course, it is still much stronger than the latter days, the twenty-first century in the world more than 40,000 ocean-going merchant ships, the number of merchant ships registered in the United States is less than two hundred. Despite the fact that the annual trade in and out of the U.S. exceeds one trillion dollars, the vast majority of which is also transported by sea-going vessels, the U.S.-registered ships account for only about one percent of the total.

The powerful U.S. Navy is protecting the routes from one of the major powers to the U.S. and preventing this vital lifeline to the U.S. from being threatened by one of the major powers.

In the year just past, 1964, U.S. civilian shipbuilding fluctuated up and down only 200,000 tons a year, a fraction of the present British shipbuilding industry. With Allen Wilson targeting Japan, a civil shipbuilding competition between Britain and Japan would only have a negative impact on America’s already better-than-nothing shipbuilding industry.

Of course, only in the Arab countries, always a little less secure, Allen Wilson pondered, or took into account the interests of hundreds of years of loyal allies of Portugal. Decided to carry out some exchanges in the field of intelligence cooperation, hoping that the government of Salazar can play an influential role in the Indo-Pakistani conflict to play a positive role.

Although Portugal is in the Goa neighborhood Bray, to New Delhi out of the way, not in the negotiations on the Goa issue, but objectively Goa is still in the hands of Portugal, the Salazar government can not deny this fact, should be for the regional peace to make its due contribution.

In case the Indo-Pakistani war breaks out and affects the stability of South Asia, Portugal’s interests will be damaged, which is bad for everyone, and Britain does not want to see this situation.

The Colonial Commissioners’ Conference closed in victory, and the profits would give Britain another incentive to continue to maintain the colonies’ existence, and the colonial commissioners were still sensible enough to understand what this meant.

The first Marines to cross the ocean from the U.S. mainland, a total of three thousand five hundred, landed in South Vietnam, by now the time the time has come to March, in the past period of time, the U.S. averaged three thousand six hundred aircraft sorties per month, carpet bombing North Vietnam.

“It remains for us and Washington to work closely together on intelligence support, as the Prime Minister has indicated.” Calling Richard White from MI6, Alan Wilson solemnly instructed, “It is not in Britain’s interest to join in the middle of the war, and we are in the middle of a standoff with Indonesia that we can’t spare. However, outside of the military realm, we still firmly support all actions of the United States.”

Richard White nodded in understanding, “We have been in close contact with the American side, and there is absolutely no problem with that.”

“And? Pay attention to the brutalization of civilians by American soldiers.” Since the small matters were finished, Allen Wilson also started to talk about the main matters, “Don’t get me wrong, the Americans always say that Britain is a colonizer, during the Nassau Conference, we took out some evidence of the mishandling of American soldiers in Japan and Korea. That’s a good thing, we have to keep up with the times. You and I know very well that in war everyone wants to leave civilians alone, but it’s practically impossible to do so. War itself is a game of life, and you expect soldiers to act like angels?”

“Brutality against civilians is bound to occur, and us getting some evidence to pinch in our hands will have a positive effect on the UK and the US when they talk to each other.”

“Uh, I see.” Richard White accepted this explanation and heard the Secretary General continue, “Secrecy is extremely important, we don’t want to delay the American army’s operations, and we can even help cover up some of the incidents, but like what was just said, the evidence has to be in our hands. And be careful, Britain will not nominally be involved in any part of the war. Agents working outside, don’t make trouble for Britain.”

The nine agents missing in Indonesia would, for the moment, be unfortunate enough to have died for their country, as the Soviets had not made an issue of it, which was a relief to Alan Wilson, and could only be described as a death well deserved.