Development of productivity started in 1981

Chapter 266: U.S. Response and Response
"Hello, Director William. This is the White House office. The president is in an important meeting. Please call back in 10 minutes, or I can pass on your message."

After the White House secretary received a call from CIA Director William J. Casey, he looked at the president's work schedule note on the desk and asked William to wait.

"Miss Daisy, please give me half an hour. I have important matters to report to the president." William said very politely on the phone.

"Okay, contact Line 15 in 2 minutes." Daisy quickly arranged the new presidential work schedule.
"Thank you very much! Bye~." William waited until the other party hung up the phone before putting down the receiver.

Ten minutes later, then-US President Reagan ended a two-hour economic meeting and walked out of the conference room rubbing his nose.

There were several heavy smokers inside, smoking, which made his nose feel uncomfortable. Although he was the president, the other party was a senior senator and didn't care about his smoking at all.

Although the US economy recovered some blood by forcing the appreciation of the yen, German mark and pound sterling at this time, the trend of manufacturing outflow could not be curbed.

Among the top ten domestic conglomerates, the bigwigs behind seven of them have become disenchanted with the extremely low profit margins in the manufacturing industry and have collectively turned to the financial industry with super high returns.

Among the remaining three conglomerates, the main business is the military-industrial complex, and they urgently need a war to achieve greater development for their companies.

The United States has not fought a large-scale war for a long time since the withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam, and the operating rate of production lines of enterprises under the military-industrial complex has been less than 50%.

President Reagan came up with the Star Wars plan with the help of his staff.

Continue to invest heavily in space and information technology.

However, this type of investment is extremely risky. Although the rate of return will become extremely high due to breakthroughs in certain projects, the uncertainty is also extremely high.

For example, after his term, the space shuttle, which had invested a lot of money, suffered an extremely serious safety accident in early 86.

1986年1月28日，挑战者号航天飞机（STS-51-L）在发射后73秒爆炸，7名宇航员遇难。

Because the cause of the accident has not been fully determined, all space shuttle missions had to be suspended.

During this period, the government has to support a large number of aerospace experts and staff.

Because of this accident, the stocks of some related companies hit the daily limit and the government had to step in to rescue them. Otherwise, if these companies collapsed, subsequent launch missions might be affected.

In the meeting just now, someone mentioned cutting investment in the aerospace sector and investing more fiscal revenue in the information sector.

However, the Star Wars plan was a major national policy after he came to power, and it was also an important means to bring down the Soviet Union. He would not stop unless it was absolutely necessary.

Thinking of this, he felt a headache. As soon as he left the meeting room, he walked towards his lounge, thinking about having a cup of coffee to relax.

"Mr. President, Director William just called and said he has something important to report. He needs half an hour. I asked him to talk to you on line 5 in five minutes." Secretary Daisy saw the president coming out and handed him a cup of coffee that was just the right temperature while reporting.

"William? What happened to him? Damn it, can't the president go off work?" President Reagan looked at his watch and felt a little bad, because it was already 9:25 in the morning on September 5th.

He had originally planned to take a quick rest after the meeting as he had several important meetings to hold in the morning, but now it seems that plan has been ruined.

"Five minutes later? Okay, I can still rest for three minutes."

After talking to the president, he slowly walked to the lounge at the side while holding his coffee. The phone there could also receive calls from the director of intelligence.

"Hello, William, good news or bad news?"

"Mr. President, standard bad news. Another country has joined the space club. It is also possible that it already possesses nuclear weapons."

"What? Is it India? Their rockets seem to be still small. A rocket that can't even send a 1-ton object out of the Karman line poses no threat to us!" The first thing President Reagan thought of was India.

Because the United States, the Soviet Union, China, Britain and France all had large rockets long ago, and nuclear weapons even earlier, and apart from these countries, only India has this possibility.

Originally, South Africa had the potential to develop large rockets, but its previous apartheid policy caused it to be sanctioned by the whole world, and the black riots in the country in the past two years interrupted its development, so it can basically be ruled out.

"Mr. President, you guessed wrong. It was Myanmar, next to India. Just an hour ago, they launched a large rocket and successfully sent a large thing that is said to be a communications satellite to an equatorial orbit of more than 1 kilometers."

"Myanmar? Which country is this? When did they become so powerful?" President Reagan, who was an actor, had very little impression of Myanmar and could not remember its geographical location for a moment.

So Director William had to explain to the geography-blind president over the phone some of the things that high school students should have learned.

"William, they have informed us of the launch plan and orbital occupancy before, right? Why didn't you report it before?"

President Reagan had been instilled with a great deal of aerospace knowledge by his staff, so he knew that in the late 70s, the launch of large rockets generally had to be notified in order to give civil aviation time to adjust flights and avoid humanitarian disasters such as collisions between rockets and passenger planes.

"Well, Mr. President, they did report it yesterday, but my people didn't take it seriously. They thought the Burmese government was just bragging. So they didn't tell me the situation until their rockets successfully crossed the Karman Line."

"Damn it, this person who neglects his duties must be removed. The taxpayers' money is not for his retirement. Go on."

"Yes, I will definitely get rid of him. Mr. President, what should we do?"

"William, my CIA director, I should be the one asking you what to do. You just said that what they sent into space was a big thing. How big is it?"

"They themselves reported that it was more than 10 tons, but judging from the size of their rocket and its flight trajectory, that big guy is closer to 20 tons?"

"More than 10 tons? Close to 20 tons? Which one is it?" Reagan raised his voice and questioned the other party when he heard the huge difference between the two numbers.

"Mr. President, because our space observation system is still under construction, we have not yet detected the target in space. However, our large radar in the Philippines observed the flight trajectory and volume of the rocket and calculated that its payload is close to 20 tons."

"Damn, a 20-ton communications satellite in a 1200-kilometer orbit? What kind of operation is this, William? How long will it take to track that satellite?"

"If the orbits they reported are not false, we estimate that we can complete the tracking mission in at least 12 hours."

Since the space shuttle accident at the beginning of the year, the United States has also seen a series of failures in rocket launches.

On April 1986, 4, a Titan 18D rocket exploded after launch, and the KH-34 Hexagon 9 (reconnaissance satellite) on board was destroyed along with the rocket in the accident.

On May 1986, 5, the Atlas-Centaur rocket failed to launch and GOES-G (Geographic Environmental Satellite) failed to successfully enter orbit.

In the following months, all space launches had to be temporarily suspended.

Therefore, the many satellites that were originally planned to be launched can only stay in the satellite manufacturing plant.

In this case, William said that it would take at least 12 hours to know the specific situation of the satellite.

Although the observation capabilities of satellites in the sky are insufficient, there are still some large telescopes and large radars on the ground. However, it takes time to allocate resources and wait for the satellites to be in the air.

"12 hours. Okay, I hope you can bring me accurate news by then. Come to Washington at 6 o'clock tonight to attend the emergency meeting. Be prepared, my Director William."

Bang~, the phone was hung up.

President Reagan rubbed his temples, took out a few pills that were only available to the upper class, and swallowed them with mineral water.

A few minutes later, President Reagan, who was refreshed, called his secretary Daisy and asked him to adjust his schedule.

At 6 o'clock tonight, we have invited some members of the House and Senate, William Casey of the CIA, James Fletcher of NASA, James Abrahamson, Director of the SDI (Office of Strategic Defense Initiative), and Secretary of State George Shultz to talk about the Burma issue.

Just when the United States mobilized various forces to investigate the satellite launched by Myanmar.

After successfully entering orbit and deploying its solar panels, Sentinel-1 immediately conducted a laser cannon test over the Indian Ocean.

After that, the satellite pretended to be a normal communication satellite and carried out signal transmission tasks, and the 20-megawatt laser cannon fell silent.

Time passed minute by minute, and at 1 p.m. Eastern Time, CIA Director William finally got the information he wanted.

One of them was a document of the satellite launched by Myanmar, with a blurry photo of the satellite, which was captured by a large telescope on the ground.

Based on volume and various parameters, intelligence personnel calculated that the satellite weighed between 18 and 21 tons.

"Damn 10 tons. They want such a large satellite as a communication satellite. Aren't they afraid of losing money?" Director William muttered to himself after reading the satellite intelligence information. The second one was the construction status of the commercial nuclear power plant in Myanmar.

Data shows that there is a large nuclear power plant in Myitkyina, Myanmar, which is generating electricity, but they did not report the nuclear power plant to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

If he hadn't guessed that Myanmar was developing nuclear weapons and that there should be nuclear facilities already in operation, the group of idiots under his command would have missed the intelligence about this nuclear power plant.

The data also shows that another nuclear power plant located in Sittwe Port on the coast of Myanmar has completed 80% of the infrastructure work. The French side reported that the core components will soon be manufactured and then shipped to Myanmar. The power generation equipment has been delivered to Sittwe Port in Myanmar and the installation work will begin soon.

The International Atomic Energy Agency was informed of this nuclear power plant in the early stages of its construction.

According to the contract signed between France and Myanmar, the infrastructure construction of the core should be completed at this time, and the installation of core equipment should begin.

But France defaulted on the agreement, and Framatome employees went on strike, causing repeated delays in equipment delivery.

However, Myanmar is no longer in a hurry. According to the contract, if Framatome's construction period is delayed by one day, the corresponding penalty will be deducted.

Therefore, it is Framatome that is in a hurry.

Later they found a way to speed it up, but in April 86, when they were about to start manufacturing the reactor core equipment, they encountered the Chernobyl nuclear accident in the Soviet Union.

The impact of this accident was so great that it was classified as Level 7 (major accident), the highest level on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES).

Radioactive materials spread to many European countries, and parts of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia were seriously contaminated.

Although Framatome's reactors are different from those of the Soviet Union, international organizations still require Framatome to conduct a comprehensive inspection of the reactors it manufactures.

The investigation work drew on a large number of engineers, so the production of Myanmar's reactor equipment was postponed again. It was not until August that people were available to produce the equipment inside Myanmar's reactor core.

"Strange, who helped build this reactor in Myitkyina? France only reported the two reactors in the Sittwe Nuclear Power Plant. Could it be that France concealed the reactor in Myitkyina and secretly built two secret reactors for Myanmar?" After reading the intelligence, William discovered a major problem. That is, Myanmar has an unreported nuclear power plant, and the two reactors inside are very similar in appearance to Framatome's reactors.

"Hank, please check with the French side to see how many reactor equipment they have provided to Myanmar.
If the response is two, then ask them why Myanmar already has two reactors in Myitkyina that are very similar to theirs and see how they respond.”

"Roger that, Chief William."

Wang Jiankun actually did not expect that the reactor in Myitkyina could be kept secret for so long. At the end of 85, after the reactor completed testing and successfully started generating electricity, he thought that the United States, the Soviet Union and other countries might soon discover this reactor that was beginning to run at increasing power.

Because once this conventional large reactor is started, professional reconnaissance satellites in space can detect weak nuclear radiation, electromagnetic radiation and temperature differences.

But God seemed to be protecting him and the Quanjie Formation.

In early 86, an accident of the US space shuttle caused the delay of a series of reconnaissance and monitoring satellite launches, resulting in a blind spot in space reconnaissance of Southeast Asia.

Because this is a low-risk area and the US reconnaissance forces pay the least attention to this area, the deployed reconnaissance satellite was the last to be launched.

A few months later, a serious nuclear accident occurred in Chernobyl in the Soviet Union, which resulted in the Soviet side not having the energy to carefully check the radiation intelligence launched by Myanmar.

"Director, the French side reported that they have only signed contracts for two reactors, and their core equipment has not yet completed factory inspection. So they were very shocked by the intelligence we reported. They hope that we can give them the relevant intelligence and send experts to inspect Myanmar's nuclear facilities together. From their tone, they seem to be very angry about Myanmar stealing their nuclear technology." Intelligence Officer Hank also imitated the angry voice of a Frenchman.

"Strange, since France didn't provide any equipment, how did Myanmar get such high-precision equipment? And who made their rockets? It can't be them themselves?" William would have been fine if he didn't think too much about it, because he became even more confused when he thought about it.

"Director, the special plane is about to take off. The meeting the president invites you to attend is at 6 o'clock sharp." The secretary knocked on the door and interrupted William's thoughts.

"Got it. I'll set off now and assign three groups of personnel to strengthen intelligence work in Myanmar. I want more detailed information, all information." William instructed his men before leaving.

After getting on the helicopter, Director William couldn't help but recall the "ghost" aircraft intelligence previously reported by the Philippines. Somehow, he thought of this in his mind at this moment.

It’s true that anyone who can become the Director of the U.S. Intelligence Agency must have extraordinary sensitivity and intuition in terms of information.

However, based on the intelligence he had been exposed to for a long time, he still couldn't believe that Myanmar had so many black technologies and an unreasonable development speed.

Up to now, he has allowed Myanmar to obtain support from the Soviet Union or China and complete the manufacture of reactors and large-scale launch vehicles.

Unfortunately, there is very little information and no direct documentary evidence.

Just as he was making all kinds of speculations in his mind, a helicopter took him to the White House.

"William, what is the situation? Why did the president call us together for a meeting on Burma?"

James Abrahamson, the chief scientist in charge of technology development for the "Star Wars" program, asked after seeing William.

"I'll talk about it later. The time has come. The situation is very serious. A force we don't know about has appeared in Myanmar. This has brought huge challenges to our original plan. We need everyone to discuss it together."

Over the next 20 minutes, CIA Director William picked out the important intelligence on Burma that various departments had collected during the day and reported and explained it one by one.

When he finished speaking, except for President Reagan who already knew some of the information, several others such as Secretary of State George Shultz, NASA Administrator James Fletcher, and James Abrahamson of SDI were all stunned.

"William, are you right? Burma, a former colony, now has such a powerful force?" After hearing this, Secretary of State George Shultz stood up excitedly.

"Yes, William, didn't your subordinates say before that Myanmar's rockets were just bullshit rockets, balloon rockets that can only fly within the atmosphere? Now you tell me that they have sent a satellite weighing about 1 tons into space?" NASA Administrator James Fletcher said angrily.

"William, you are talking in your sleep, right? Even China and ESA do not have the ability to manufacture rockets with this carrying capacity. You told me that Myanmar has successfully launched such a rocket and delivered a 20-ton payload to the designated location?" James Abrahamson of SDI has a very thorough understanding of the aerospace technology of major countries in the world, so he did not dare to believe what William said.

"Gentlemen, what I'm talking about are all information with clear intelligence sources, so no matter what, we will be facing a new space power, or even a nuclear power, next," said William.

In the following meeting room, there were constant quarrels and William was tired of dealing with them. Although the president was dissatisfied with William for missing such important intelligence about Burma, he was his right-hand man and had always been very supportive of his work, so he began to smooth things over.

"Gentlemen, be quiet. There is no point in making unnecessary accusations. Let's talk about how to deal with this."

"We must not reduce the pressure on the Soviet Union, otherwise the front line we have worked so hard to gain will be pushed back. If the Soviet Union slows down, we will be the ones to fail." Secretary of State George Shultz was the first to speak out.

Under his promotion, the United States and the Soviet Union had begun negotiations on the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), and the newly-elected Soviet leaders had basically agreed to the conditions he had proposed.

Once achieved, the Soviet Union will truly be in the noose of the United States, and then the United States can use a soft knife to cut the flesh and blood of the Soviet Union.

"We need to complete the space shuttle's return to flight as soon as possible and start the rocket launch immediately. We can't wait any longer. There are a lot of reconnaissance satellites in line. If we can launch these satellites earlier, we can detect everything happening in Myanmar earlier." NASA Administrator James Fletcher said.

"I agree with Fletcher's proposal. In addition, I need more intelligence from Myanmar in the aerospace field. Their rocket technology has many similarities with ours. We need to conduct an internal inspection to see if there has been any intelligence leak." James Abrahamson said.

"All your proposals require financial support, and our finances have reached their limit." After hearing the responses from several people, President Li said with a headache.

"We can speed up the bleeding of Japan, Germany and Britain, make them suffer first, let them hold on for a while, and then give them more broth after the Soviet Union is defeated by us," said a senator attending the meeting.

Next, there was another heated discussion in the conference room.

Finally, an immature plan came out.

The first was to speed up the depreciation of the Japanese yen, German mark and British pound, thereby drawing more funds to the Star Wars program and work with the Soviet Union, speeding up the dismemberment of the Soviet Union.

The second is to restart the base in Thailand, strengthen the base in the Philippines, and begin to increase support for India to outflank Myanmar from both sides.

Finally, we should strengthen our work with China so that Myanmar will not get any support from China.

Although the US has good ideas, except for the first one which was implemented well, the others have not been very effective.

Although China is close to the United States, it only has its own strategic considerations and cannot be shaken by a little favor from the United States.

India is a hopeless case. No matter how much money is invested, it will be a bottomless pit.

As soon as the Thailand base was put into operation, it was almost completely taken over by the new humans who had completely unlocked the array.

The reorganization of power in the Asia-Pacific region is no longer something the United States can control, unless it gives up Europe and mobilizes all its forces to the Asia-Pacific region.

(End of this chapter)