Chapter 1309 – The Americans are sincere

“Are we going to get fully involved?” Marshal Malinovsky was taken aback, as if this First Secretary, who had a kind face and was considered a balancer by all sides, was going to play a big game.

“Comrade Malinovsky, you are mistaken. The degree of involvement is to increase as the power of the United States increases and decrease as the power of the United States decreases. It has to be kept within a range!” Brezhnev said with a smile that could be described as subdued, “To make the United States think that there is hope for victory, but so untouchable.”

Military considerations were simpler still, first of all what Marshal Malinovsky thought would be a victory for North Vietnam with massive Soviet involvement could not be done. Even with the help of the Soviet Union, North Vietnam could not take on the American forces on a frontal battlefield, and standing in the Soviet Union’s shoes, it could only choose from the top of a defeat or a draw until the Americans felt that the loss outweighed the loss and conceded defeat themselves.

Therefore, the way of intervention is nothing but four stages, from “non-involvement” to “limited involvement” to “active involvement” to “complete involvement” policy. The policy of “complete involvement” is that the Soviet Union will put in as much force as the United States puts into the war to balance the power of the United States.

After the Tokyo Bay incident, Brezhnev came to power and changed Khrushchev’s policy of non-intervention, and Soviet anti-aircraft missiles were deployed around Hanoi. Allen Wilson was at the Pentagon, asking the U.S. Air Force to replicate the old firebombing of Tokyo, only to be shunned by the Americans, simply because the Americans had already discovered Soviet anti-aircraft missiles, the SAM IIs, were present in Hanoi.

“Comrade Malinovsky, the Ministry of Defense came out with a plan to provide the air power requested by the North Vietnamese.” Brezhnev thought for a moment and spoke.

This was offensive weaponry, no longer on the same level as anti-aircraft missiles, and it marked the Soviet Union’s move once again from limited involvement, to the realm of active involvement.

“Aid the North Vietnamese side with MiG fighters? Deliver them to the Hanoi side, I understand, Comrade Brezhnev.” Malinovsky immediately nodded that he would arrange it when he returned to the Defense Ministry.

“Wrong, we are only assisting with weapons, the pilots will naturally have North Korean pilots to fly them, and these assisted planes are being built in China close to the borderline.” Brezhnev corrected with a shake of his head, “In this way, the U.S. Air Force won’t be able to use its air superiority to destroy the airplanes we’re aiding.”

The Soviets still couldn’t really send troops into the area, all they could do was assist, and it was up to the Vietnamese themselves to make the Americans pay.

Modern weapons need professional people to operate, for this reason, the Soviet Union should naturally send a large number of military experts and technicians to Vietnam, to help Vietnam to formulate combat plans, installation, repair of weapons and equipment, training of Vietnamese soldiers, as for the personal operation of the weapons to participate in the war? As for personally operating weapons in the war? Avoid it if you can.

Even if the experts and consultants sent, should also be sent in a personal capacity, the Soviet Union certainly can not openly fight with the Americans, as for the future of the situation later.

The aid should aid the détente should also be détente, in the Gromyko arrived in the Kremlin, Brezhnev again changed into a calm face, asked about the Stockholm meeting what progress, and then said, “Now it is certain that Britain will certainly not intervene in the war in Vietnam, by virtue of the strength of the British Royal Navy, to concentrate on coping with the archipelagic country of Indonesia at the same time, while in the landing operations with the United States is not doable.”

“Yes, Comrade Brezhnev. As we can see from the aftermath of the war, Britain is doing its best to maintain the interests of its sphere of influence, but compared to 1945, Britain has still become weaker. Although it is still able to launch counterattacks in certain areas, it can only be said that it is still at the stage of struggling.”

The struggles that Gromyko is talking about are nothing more than the civil war in the Congo, and the show of force against Indonesia, as for many areas Britain is in the stage of contraction, maybe not as fast, but it is certainly contracting.

“And France, we can see that the interests of the European countries and the United States are still different, Britain and France still have the defense of their own interests of the country’s power, will not be unprincipled to follow the United States fluttering dance.” Brezhnev took out the argument of a certain female member of the Central Presidium.

These were the words of Foltseva, and after hearing them Gromyko smiled bitterly, “Ekaterina’s boy, whom I have only just met, arranged for him to go to the Stockholm Conference to learn a little.”

“That’s good, that might make Ekaterina a little happier, before his son had to apply to go to Vietnam, I got the feeling that the whole Central Presidium was out of sorts.” Brezhnev breathed a sigh of relief and a look of afterthought, “Alexeyev, right, it would be good to put it into that neutral country of Sweden for a little exercise. We can give the United States some trouble in Southeast Asia, but the main direction is still to be in Europe, this is irrevocable.”

Brezhnev was well aware that for the importance of the Soviet Union it was so arranged from west to east Europe, the Near East, the Middle East, Central Asia, and East Asia. This will not change and is unchangeable.

Europe is the most important does not mean that the other directions are not important, in fact, the Stockholm Conference is to pull India, military aid to Vietnam is to expand into East Asia, the success of the other directions will make the Soviet Union more dominant in Europe, which is why Brezhnev agreed to such a high level of specification, so that Kosygin dominated the Stockholm Conference.

While the two men were negotiating, Malinovsky was also working on plans to aid Vietnam, the Soviet Union was not on good terms with a certain great power right now, but there was a common position on aid to Vietnam, and the Soviet Union and Vietnam were not next to each other, and the sea shipment would have been faced with the overwhelming sea power of the opposing camp, and if it had been intercepted midway? That would be very humiliating, and borrowing the railroad network of one of the major powers to complete the military aid was inevitable.

It seems that the cost of aiding Vietnam is huge, but compared to the US military spending, what is this small amount of spending? For every dollar spent by the Soviet Union, the Americans will have to pay twenty dollars in response to the cost.

This side of London, Alan Wilson listened to the boring, tedious progress of the Stockholm Conference, idly yawning straight, maybe his wife Pamela Mountbatten and the United States side to talk about arms sales are more interesting than listening to diplomatic rhetoric every day, he did not even need to pay attention to it in person, Makins has already been in the come to the Cabinet Secretary’s Office, the things are relayed to the end of the time.

“My colleagues in the Defense Department said that this is probably the greatest sincerity on the part of the United States. In the past, when we talked about technology transfer or arms sales, the Americans were like Gramps.” With an exaggerated tone, Makins said that many of his colleagues in the Ministry of Defense felt like they didn’t recognize the United States anymore.

“Oh yeah.” Alan Wilson thought to himself, it wasn’t the Americans who wanted to put the Royal Navy on the wrong path of the Arsenal that they were so enthusiastic this time?

He had only yesterday held a meeting of the aviation industry on the supersonic airliner program, ready to argue the case first, and as for how long it would take to argue the case, he would keep arguing the case anyway until the American supersonic airliner program came up with a finished product.

Of course, if the French are willing, he can provide some technical help, so that the French themselves to Concorde independent construction out, Britain and France should be warming up, which are adapted to the.

In fact, in addition to the British in the cake, the first want to eat the cake is the French, now the pattern of the international aviation market is very simple, Britain’s Comet airliner is the first to eat crabs. The U.S. waited until Boeing brought out its own airliner due to its national power, but France had nothing.

Now it’s just that unlike historically, Britain’s Comet airliner is all but dead, and France is chiming in. Instead, it’s become a situation where France sees the supersonic airliner program as an opportunity to break the world’s aviation landscape. Trying to tear down the Comet and Boeing iron curtain in the current two-power landscape.

This can not blame Alan Wilson sat back and watched it all happen, he is British, know that the supersonic airliner is a pit, but he is not obliged to drag France out of the France have annexed Algeria, get such a big bargain, spend some money to practice a supersonic airliner how?

After returning home, Alan Wilson was ready to ask his wife to which step, Pamela Mountbatten knew that her husband was concerned about this matter, and answered directly, “The Americans want an order for five hundred, the first three hundred to be manufactured in the United Kingdom, and the last two hundred to be placed in the United States for production, but also our technology licenses, in exchange for the United States to provide the Enterprise’s fire-control radar, electronic equipment, and a series of air defense missile support, and will send some technical experts into the construction of the missile battleship.”

Alan Wilson raised his eyebrows, isn’t this still a fear of being fooled by the UK to see if the UK is really ready to build a guided missile battleship. The Americans were really not at a disadvantage on this, but fortunately the UK was really prepared to build a missile battleship for installing current US electronic equipment.

“I heard that Whitehall convened economists for a special meeting on economic development, how did it go?” Pamela Mountbatten finished her presentation of this side of the story and asked another question.

“Those crooks, what useful suggestions can they come up with?” Alan Wilson pulled a long face muttered, “only to give them a platform to speak out, showing that the government is still concerned about the sincerity of economic development, if the economy is so good development, the prime minister to always work in the diplomatic field?”

Anyway, Allen Wilson seems to economic development is only so many directions, either like the Soviet Union as the tertiary sector does not exist. Either it becomes a debt society like the US. Either the third route, each road is very difficult, the Soviet Union only focus on agriculture and industry is not destined to live so well, but like the United States eighteen percent of GDP is the medical industry? That’s too much.

The U.S. also creates a trillion-dollar real estate market almost the same size as that of a major country with one-tenth of the steel production and one-twenty-fifth of the cement production of a major country, which is even more outrageous than eight hundred billion dollars spent on the military without seeing finished weapons in service.