The rise of a great power: starting with military industry

Chapter 763 Cease-fire Conditions
Liu Tao took a breath of cold air.

These happened recently, but he didn't know about it.

I didn’t expect there would be so many new developments. It turns out that many of them cannot be understood just by reading the news.

"Are Americans crazy? Demanding 4000 billion US dollars in compensation? The claims against the defeated countries in World War II were far less than this number!" Liu Tao clicked his tongue.

4000 billion US dollars is an astronomical amount of wealth. The Americans proposed this armistice condition not for the purpose of ceasefire.

Not to mention the current Iraq, even Iraq before the war broke out could not come up with such a huge amount of money.

Besides, even if there is, I'm afraid you can use this money to buy a lot of mushroom bombs. By then, with mushroom bombs in hand, who would be willing to pay such a large sum of money.

"The Americans just don't want a ceasefire. They just want to destroy Iraq, occupy Iraq, and take Iraq's oil resources for themselves!" Prince Sultan said angrily, "How can you make such a condition? Even if you sell Iraq, you may not be able to get so much money."

Anyone with a discerning eye can see that the Americans have no intention of ceasefire and are determined to continue fighting.

The Americans' plan is to destroy Iraq.

All the Arab countries are very dissatisfied with this. The Arab coalition forces have not been working or making any effort during this period, and have even been causing trouble, making it impossible for the United States to launch an attack on Iraq again. Even the American air strikes can only be carried out by carrier-based aircraft taking off from aircraft carriers. Aircraft from land airports cannot take off and have to guard against the Arab coalition forces.

Liu Tao sighed inwardly, what the Americans did was too obvious and too unkind.

In fact, judging from the losses of both sides, Iraq's losses far exceeded those of the multinational coalition.

The air strikes launched by the US military and other forces on Iraq caused direct economic losses of more than 2000 billion US dollars to Iraq. The horrific photos of Iraq being bombed have already spread all over the world, making the whole world feel the cruelty of war.

As for casualties, the large number of civilian casualties alone was enough to prove the intensity of the bombing, and the military casualties were at least over 200,000.

This war will definitely cause great damage and strain to Iraq.

As a result, Saddam announced that he accepted a ceasefire, but the Americans obviously did not want a ceasefire.

Prince Sultan and Prince Fahd also began to explain the purpose of their visit, which was to help drive away the Americans.

"The Middle East belongs to the Arabs, and the Arabs should be in charge of the Middle East. We will promote the integration of the Arab League. After the war, we will retain a well-trained Arab coalition force of 30 people. This 30-strong army will maintain peace in the Arab world. We will strive to achieve political, economic, cultural, and military integration earlier than Europe," said Prince Sultan with anticipation.

The Arab League, also known as the Arab League, is a regional international organization established to strengthen the unity and cooperation of Arab countries. It is also the earliest regional organization established in the world. It currently has 22 member states. Its purpose is to strengthen close cooperation among member states, safeguard the independence and sovereignty of Arab countries, and coordinate their activities.

But it is obvious that the current goal of the Arab League has changed and is moving towards the integration of the Arab world.

All we can say is that the influence of the European Community is extremely far-reaching, affecting all parts of the world.

In 1950, French Foreign Minister Schuman issued a statement (the "Schuman Plan"), suggesting that France and Germany establish a European Coal and Steel Community. In 1952, France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg formally established the European Coal and Steel Community. In 1958, the six countries established the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community. In 6, the main institutions of the three communities were merged and collectively called the European Community.

This is undoubtedly the result of Europe's learning from the lessons of the First and Second World Wars, and its intention to seek European integration and gradually achieve political, economic and military integration. Now the European Community has reached the point where it is about to sign the Treaty on European Union, thus taking a big step forward on the basis of the European Community and evolving into the European Union, or EU.

The European Union, unlike the European Community, is already a European economic and political community. At this point, regional integration has been further strengthened, and it is only a matter of time before the EU's unified currency is launched.

And now, the Arab League is apparently also learning from Europe.

But to be honest, Liu Tao is not very optimistic. European integration is the result of the painful lessons learned by Europeans during World War I and World War II, and they explored it in order to avoid a new world war in Europe. Europe is also the birthplace and development place of modern industrial civilization. Even after World War II, Europe quickly completed its reconstruction, and many countries have reached the level of developed countries. The people are highly educated, and it is a truly modern country. Europe has also been integrating step by step and working hard to resolve differences, which led to the present and the upcoming European Union.

But the Arab world is still full of emirates, which cannot be considered modern industrial countries at all. These countries have no industry except oil.

As for education, it is even worse than that of China.

The Arab world is a third world country!

Although these countries are all Islamic countries, Islam is also divided into factions. Islam is mainly divided into two major factions, Sunni and Shia, and there are great conflicts between them.

Not to mention, the gap between the rich and the poor in these countries is very large. For example, Saudi Arabia, which has abundant oil and can export a large amount of oil every year, can make money without doing anything. Even if the royal family takes out a small portion, the people can live a pretty good life. But for those who don't have much oil resources, they are very poor.

It will be much more difficult for the Arab League to achieve integration than European integration.

There is no hope for at least the next 30 years.

However, Liu Tao was also happy to see the integration of the Arab League. A multi-strong situation is much better than a bipolar structure or a one superpower and multiple strong structures.

Liu Tao was also thinking about how to get the United States to leave the Middle East as soon as possible.

It is certainly impossible for the United States to leave the Middle East willingly.

Americans would like to stay in the Middle East forever and control the Middle East, the world's energy center.

Therefore, Americans must be forced to leave the Middle East.

In order to force Americans to leave the Middle East, something more important would have to happen somewhere else.

There are only two options here. One option is the United States. If something serious happens in their base camp, they will naturally have to send troops back. The other option is Europe, which is where the United States' most important overseas interests lie.

Once the United States loses Europe, it will no longer be a hegemonic power.

Therefore, the United States cannot afford to lose Europe and must choose Europe.

After all, compared with the Asian, European and African continents, America is actually just a world island.

(End of this chapter)