American Strategic Deception Bureau

　(In fact, by the Qing Dynasty, the respect for teachers among the Chinese upper class had become a formality. The Qing Dynasty princes made their teachers kneel on the ground during lectures. Once, Ji Xiaolan's knees hurt from kneeling, so he stood up to stretch his legs and feet. He was first beaten by the princes and then scolded by Emperor Qianlong.)

　Therefore, many private schools in the United States also have a lax school spirit, emphasizing the importance of respecting students. Students cannot be punished for any mistakes, and teachers who arbitrarily punish them will be held accountable. As a result, students often beat and tease teachers, even harassing female teachers, and the dignity of teachers has been completely eroded.

　The only difference from the "let's go" classes in public schools is that if a good student who loves to study takes the initiative to ask the teacher, the teacher will be able to answer.

　But the problem is that learning is inherently anti-human, and it is impossible to not put pressure on children.

　On the other hand, if you expect your children to be able to learn without a teacher and be independent and self-reliant, then what is the point of teachers and schools?

　It must be admitted that the vast majority of children of elites, like children from poor families, are naturally averse to learning and anti-intellectualism. They believe that as long as their family background is strong enough, they can easily become bosses and members of parliament without any education, so they study hard.

　It is meaningless, but youth is short, and enjoying life is the only true meaning.

　As a result, test scores become meaningless in these "money-first" private schools. Many underachieving students are privileged and can get into prestigious schools with letters of recommendation without taking the test, while unprivileged top students may still be rejected by prestigious schools even if they get perfect scores.

　School rules and regulations are also useless because the teaching purpose is to make money. Teachers can only give in to parents, and parents give in to their children. In the end, children from rich families can skip classes and make trouble in private schools all day long, and hand in blank papers for exams, but still pass the exams.

　Well, if the class is filled with either silly idiots or fairies and dandies who act up all day long, and the top students are bullied by the poor students, and the parents just blindly protect their children, then no matter how talented a teacher you are, you will feel desperate, right?

　——Imagine what a speechless consumption environment the state-owned stores have where “customers are not allowed to beat customers without reason”; and you will know what a sigh-worthy learning atmosphere the private schools have where “teachers are not allowed to beat teachers without reason”.

　All I can say is that children who love to study will love to study no matter where they are; children who don’t love to study will be naughty and hate studying no matter where they are.

　This doesn't mean that just sending your children to expensive private schools can guarantee their success, or at least ensure that they don't go astray.

　In private schools, there are both top students who take "smart drugs" and study day and night, and there are also playboys and playgirls who spend their days in prostitution, gambling and drugs.

　In order to avoid getting themselves into trouble, teachers can only teach more those good students who are willing to improve themselves, and ignore those students who are not motivated.

　Not to mention, because religious groups are rampant in the United States, many cults are also working hard to infiltrate the education sector—they need to cultivate fanaticism from an early age! Therefore, international students going to the United States often feel that there are too many weird people there, and it feels like they are talking to a deaf person and unable to communicate at all.

　This may be due to their family factors, or it may be that the schools they attended before were not very serious.

　In short, President Robert Kennedy was very dissatisfied with the current chaotic and messy basic education situation in the United States, and wanted to start from here to increase investment in education, or at least implement the National Defense Education Act.

　Then, his "naive" idea was immediately rejected by Treasury Secretary Henry Fowler.

　"The Treasury Secretary says there's no money, that we've had deficits for five years now, since 1963, and that the national debt has soared to $900 billion.

　A full 1.5 million American troops are still fighting day and night across the Pacific, and the military expenditure alone is suffocating the country."

　Dr. Kissinger revealed to Fieri, “The entire cabinet believes that in a state of war, it is inappropriate to implement large-scale social welfare.

　Congress also disagrees with increasing funding for everything except military spending, believing that everything now must give way to victory in the war.

　"However, the Vietnam War is currently impossible to quell, and the US military on the front lines doesn't seem to be able to achieve any more impressive results. In Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and South Vietnam, our army is currently in trouble. But our new president is eager to achieve outstanding results as soon as possible..."

　Fili rubbed his forehead and lamented, "So, he turned his attention to the universe, or the moon, right?"

　"Yes, the President was very urgent about the Apollo moon landing project. But no matter how urgent he was, we still couldn't land on the moon."

　Kissinger shrugged. "Just like the report we wrote, using the Apollo spacecraft to send people from Earth orbit to Moon orbit. We've only just succeeded once. Where the next spacecraft will go, I'm afraid only God knows..."

　The Apollo 9 spacecraft, launched in early March, did successfully fly 38 kilometers from Earth, carrying three astronauts into lunar orbit for the first time. However, reaching lunar orbit is one thing, and landing on the lunar surface is another, the two present vastly different challenges.

　Moreover, even this seemingly successful flight was full of dangers. The service module had multiple leaks and a group of batteries were damaged during the voyage, causing the spacecraft to not dare to stay in the lunar orbit and to return directly, thus preventing the astronauts from freezing to death or suffocating in space.

　Given the above situation, everyone at NASA, except Director Thomas Payne, believes that there is no way to guarantee a successful moon landing this year.

　Even whether we can launch people to the vicinity of the moon again depends on luck - if we are not careful, they will fly directly into deep space and there will be no return!

　Firi and Kissinger, who were sent by the White House to Houston for an inspection, also believed that the quality of the current Apollo spacecraft and Saturn V rockets was still very unstable and their performance was unreliable. Existing communication methods could hardly support the spacecraft transmitting video signals to the ground from the moon, 38 kilometers away.

　If the White House wants to broadcast the moon landing live and show its face to the whole world, it should allocate an additional $10 billion to $20 billion in space exploration funding to NASA, conduct more launch experiments, and finally attempt a manned moon landing in three to four years. This would be a more reasonable and safe decision.

　——Let’s make a comparison here. China’s lunar exploration program, the “Chang’e Project”, started in 2004.

　Three years after the plan was implemented, in October 2007, Chang'e 1 was successfully launched into space. Three years later, in 2010, Chang'e 2 was launched into space.

　"It was launched successfully. The Lunar Rabbit rover was launched in 2012. The Chang'e 5 rover brought back samples in 2020.

　In 2023, China announced the official launch of its manned lunar mission, with plans to achieve the first Chinese landing on the moon before 2030.

　Despite having accumulated sixty years of experience in materials science, automatic control, circuit electronics, computers, and remote transmission, China still took a full 26 years from the time it announced the "Chang'e Project" to the time it prepared to achieve a manned lunar landing.

　In contrast, the Apollo moon landing began in 1961, but it wasn't until 1967 that the first Apollo spacecraft was launched. That failed, and all three astronauts died in the raging fire.

　Several launch experiments over the next two years, with some successes and some failures, all proved that the current technical conditions were still very immature.

　Firi and Dr. Kissinger personally visited the Saturn V assembly plant and the newly completed Apollo spacecraft. The unreliable lunar module in particular made them both feel, as the former NASA administrator had stated before his retirement the previous year, that the Apollo lunar landing program was still far from complete. Landing on the moon now would be a gamble with extremely low odds of success.

　So, they submitted a report to President Kennedy Jr. and thought the matter was over.

　Unexpectedly, when Ferry and Kissinger finally walked into the Oval Office and briefly introduced their observations on NASA and the Apollo project, they saw President Kennedy with a ferocious expression and red eyes, saying firmly, "Don't tell me it's impossible or can't be done! I don't care how difficult it is! Since my brother once promised the public that he would send American astronauts to the moon before the end of the 1960s,

　So, you must find a way for me right now to let the whole world see the United States successfully land on the moon within this year!"

　Firi:?!

　Author's words: PS: A joke from hell, Hitler's speech is famous for the joke about a piece of bread costing 500,000 marks.

　But in fact, this was just the beginning of the price surge. Just one week later, the price of bread rose to 5 million marks per piece.

　But this was not the end. From the end of November to the beginning of December 1923, one US dollar could be exchanged for 4.2 trillion marks.

　Compared with the German mark at that time, the gold yuan was considered to be a strong currency: when the gold yuan was the least valuable, 500 million was enough to buy a meal.

　Considering the poor harvest and widespread famine in Germany at the time, the price of bread in German cities was probably going to rise to 5 trillion marks per piece, which was 10 million times higher than when Hitler gave his speech - 500,000 marks already had to be transported by a car, so would 5 trillion marks have to be transported by merchant ships?

　Chapter 424: Want to be the commander of the Space Army? Colonel Ferry King?

　In 1961, President John F. Kennedy promised in a speech to Congress that he would send American astronauts to the moon before the end of the decade.

　Eight years later, it was already the last year of the 1960s. So, his brother, President Robert Kennedy, was determined to carry on his brother's legacy and fulfill his promise to successfully land Apollo on the moon within this year?

　Well, this strong brotherhood sounds very touching.

　But the problem is, this is not an extreme sport like climbing Mount Everest. As long as you, my brother, are willing to risk your life, you can complete it independently.

　A large-scale system project like the moon landing requires the efforts of hundreds of thousands of people and the cooperation of tens of thousands of departments, companies and units!

　Even if you are the president, you don't have the ability to kick someone to the moon with just a single order, okay?

　What, President John F. Kennedy's promise eight years ago to "put an American on the moon before the end of the 1960s"?

　Please, put aside the fact that this was your brother's promise to the public, not your own.

　Even if it's a promise you made yourself, it's normal to miss a deadline occasionally, right?

　Since the founding of the United States, how many politicians have honestly fulfilled their campaign promises one by one after being elected?

　On the contrary, whether they are successful businessmen or successful politicians, aren’t they all big liars who talk nonsense?

　I remember that some people seemed to say that in the future they would blow up the Himalayas, some said they would build dams in the Bering Strait or the Strait of Gibraltar, and some said they would reveal the truth about the aliens in Area 51. In the end, these promises seemed to have all been broken, right?

　Even the "Line City" that was built in the Arabian Desert by a Saudi prince who was later called "the most powerful post-80s person on earth" and was 170 kilometers long and 200 meters wide was greatly reduced in scale shortly after it was started. It is hard to say whether this wonder will be completed or left unfinished in the end!

　In short, Firi expressed his incomprehension of President Kennedy's forced assignment of the mission and the demand that the moon landing must be successful this year.

　But President Kennedy Jr. said he also had his own difficulties.

　"I have to do something to mitigate the public opinion storm that is about to happen in the country! Maybe even an impeachment crisis!

　You know, the troops on the Indochina Peninsula battlefield have been commanded by cats in recent months, fighting like drunkards!

　They had made a real mess of the Southeast Asian front in the months before I came into the White House—Secretary of Defense McNamara had just reported to me that the front was overwhelmed and that bad news was to be expected soon.

　Come, I hope I can be mentally prepared in advance..."

　"Excuse me, which front line can no longer hold?" Dr. Kissinger frowned and asked.

　Then, he heard a terrifying answer from President Kennedy: "On all fronts! Dr. Kissinger! In Vientiane, Cu Chi, and Buon Ma Thuot! Our troops are about to be defeated!"

　- In short, during the months when the US presidential election was undecided and the White House entered the "Great Interregnum", millions of US troops in Southeast Asia were taking advantage of the dry season, which was suitable for military operations, to launch a new round of full-scale attacks on the Viet Cong, who suffered a heavy defeat and withdrew from Saigon last year.

　However, as the US military continued to advance, the battlefield where the two sides fought gradually moved away from the coastline, and its offensive momentum gradually became sluggish and weakened.

　For example, the US 1st Cavalry Division, ordered to airdrop into Vientiane, the Laotian capital, was quickly surrounded by 80,000 enemy troops. Attacking in any direction proved futile, and they ultimately could only defend a small area, relying on supplies airlifted from the field airfield to survive.

　In addition, the 100,000 US-South Korean coalition forces that attacked the Viet Cong headquarters in Cu Chi County were also troubled by the Viet Cong's tunnel warfare, suffering heavy casualties and slow progress.

　The most humiliating battleground was Buon Me Thuot, a major highway hub in the Central Highlands region. The US military had launched ten large-scale assaults on the city, dropping over 50,000 tons of bombs. Yet, they were unable to capture the entire city, and their own morale was practically shattered.

　Frontline officers have complained that the Pentagon cannot expect a weird army filled with a large number of idiots to be capable of carrying out such an offensive.

　At the same time, the Viet Cong guerrillas in the Mekong Delta and the Khmer Rouge guerrillas in southern Cambodia had recovered from the massive invasion of hundreds of thousands of US troops, and had readapted to the model of guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines. They began to gain a foothold in rural areas and compete with the US military in wits and courage.

　Further west, the Thai Communist guerrillas were also constantly harassing the US military's logistics supply lines and carrying out surprise attacks in the Chao Phraya River basin and the Tao Hor Plateau.

　In addition, the armed forces of the Communist Party of Burma also crossed the border into Thailand to join the war. Among them were even many "revolutionary youths" suspected to be from Yunnan, China. They then mobilized the Chinese and overseas Chinese in Thailand to launch an all-out war against the invading US military, making it impossible for the US military to establish a stable rule in inland Thailand.

　By April 1969, when this dreadful war, which felt like rolling in the mud, reached the point where General Taylor, commander of the US forces in Vietnam, and General Abrams, commander of the US forces in Thailand, both declared they could no longer fight. Even without achieving their objectives, they had to withdraw.

　The torrential rainy season is about to arrive again, and the US military, with its extremely demanding logistical requirements, simply cannot sustain itself for six months in a difficult-to-supply stronghold behind enemy lines, braving the downpour and flooding. During World War II, Japan's "devilish general," Muguchida Renya, had already demonstrated the dire consequences of military logistics problems in Southeast Asia, as evidenced by the tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers who starved to death under his command during the Battle of Imphal.

　The Japanese, who have eaten very little since ancient times, cannot even survive as a herbivorous people in the jungles of Southeast Asia, let alone the American young soldiers.

　Therefore, the US troops currently trapped in these battlefields must prepare to retreat. If they do not retreat, the front line will collapse!

　In this regard, President Robert Kennedy, who had just taken office, naturally did not dare to confront the Pentagon rashly.

　In addition, he was an anti-war activist and from the very beginning he was eager for the front-line troops to break contact with the enemy as soon as possible to reduce casualties.

　But if this happens, it means that the Battle of Vientiane, the Battle of Cu Chi, and the Battle of Buon Me Thuot all ended with the US military "withdrawing".

　Adding to this the Battle of Taraboriwa, which had previously seen a "glorious retreat" from the Khmer Rouge, it means that the US military stationed in Southeast Asia has failed in all four large-scale battles launched in this dry season. The Pentagon predicts that the US military's casualties this year will be as high as more than 50,000!

　——Although the enemy’s casualties may exceed 200,000, the American people will obviously not be satisfied with such an exchange ratio.

　They can only angrily ask: How long will this shameful war, which insults the national prestige and is a disgrace, continue?

　Well, the answer is, at the earliest, it will take until the next Republican president is elected!

　"It now seems completely impossible for our army to achieve complete victory in the Vietnam War.

　But as a Democrat, I cannot stop the war or withdraw troops. I can only continue to fight this war."

　President Kennedy Jr. sighed and said, "People hate war and long for peace, but I cannot give them peace..."

　According to traditional ideas in socialist countries, the imperialist right is generally reactionary and warlike, while the left is relatively progressive and peace-loving.

　But in modern American politics, there is a paradox - the Democratic Party, which holds high the banner of progress and anti-war and theoretically belongs to the left, is actually more belligerent in foreign affairs; while the Republican Party, which has the color of old conservatives and theoretically belongs to the right, is actually much more restrained in war!

　Why is this so? Because the Democratic Party of the United States wants to prove its innocence and prove that it is not a Bolshevik!

　How to prove it? Of course, by launching a war of aggression like a true imperialist!

　——In general, any reforms that the Democratic Party wanted to implement in the United States after World War II were basically imitating the social welfare policies of the Second International, and then these policies would be criticized by the Republican Party.

　has socialist overtones,” “is not capitalist enough,” and “is not patriotic.”

　Generally speaking, it can be described as "I would rather have capitalist grass than socialist seedlings"!

　Or, as a disaster-stricken mayor in Texas said in the 21st century, Americans should follow the capitalist law of the jungle and not count on rescue efforts. Because that's the stuff of socialist cowards!

　In this way, in order to prove that they have no ties with the Communists and are truly patriotic, the Democrats have to launch foreign wars: Truman, who fought the Korean War, Kennedy, who started the Vietnam War, and President Roosevelt, who participated in World War II earlier, were all Democrats.

　However, the presidents who cleaned up the mess and presided over the ceasefire and troop withdrawal, from Eisenhower to Trump, were basically all Republicans.

　——Since the beginning of the 20th century, there has only been one Republican president who has led the United States to launch overseas wars!

　Moreover, even he was forced to respond hastily due to the sudden 9/11 incident, rather than having a deliberate plan to attack Afghanistan...

　As a result, American politics during the Cold War became extremely twisted. The Democrats were the vanguard in advocating for war, and the pacifists who opposed war were also Democrats. The Republicans watched the Democrats fight among themselves over the issue of overseas wars while making sarcastic remarks.

　In any case, in the United States during the Cold War, the more progressive and left-wing the politician, the more he wanted to be tough on foreign issues.

　President Robert Kennedy could not make any concessions on the Vietnam War. As long as he was president, there was no hope for peace talks.

　If the Vietnam War did not end with a complete victory for the United States, he would have to wait until the end of his term to negotiate and abdicate after the ceasefire.

　But what should he do now, facing the growing anti-war sentiment among the public and the congressmen who are taking advantage of his misfortune?

　——Of course, they can only find something else to divert public attention and gild their own faces!

　At present, it seems that the only topic that can barely compete with the Vietnam War in terms of popularity is the Apollo moon landing project.

　Of course, President Kennedy Jr. was not just a dreamer who would impose a bunch of impossible tasks on his subordinates and then curse everyone in his diary.

　To ensure the success of the Apollo moon landing this year, President Kennedy offered some hard currency as a reward: "Dr. Kissinger, I know that in recent years you have been advocating for a reversal of the US-Soviet-China triangle diplomacy. You believe that we should actively engage with China, widen the rift between China and the Soviet Union, and use the Sino-Soviet contradictions to disintegrate the Red Bloc. I fully agree with this.

　However, my position is unstable now and my approval rating in the polls is very poor. I really don’t dare to rashly come up with such a bold national policy!

　Unless I can achieve some kind of historic success as soon as possible and win enough prestige, I will be able to push for something bold next.

　So, if you can make the moon landing plan a success this year, I will make you Assistant Secretary of State and National Security Advisor next year, responsible for secret contacts with China, paving the way for the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and Red China, and practicing your "Great Triangle Diplomacy" strategy!

　Then, President Kennedy Jr. turned to look at Ferry again, pondered for a moment, and then extended another olive branch: "As for you, my little friend and know-it-all... do you want to be the first commander of the United States Space Force, Colonel Ferry King?