American Strategic Deception Bureau

　In a White House lounge, Dr. Kissinger, returning from another intelligence gathering, revealed to Phiri, "What's even more devastating is that the French troops at Dien Bien Phu were blocked by Vietnamese artillery fire at the airport, leaving them with no way to retreat. That's why over 10,000 French troops fought desperately at Dien Bien Phu for three months."

　Our troops, now trapped in Bien Hoa, have maintained helicopter transport links with the outside world, with troops evacuated daily. Furthermore, if they leave the highway and take side roads, there's a chance they can escape. Furthermore, after General Weyand's assassination, USVI and the Pentagon haven't issued strict orders to them to hold their ground, nor have they designated a supreme commander... Consequently, morale has only worsened."

　On the one hand, the Vietnamese army's encirclement was not tight. As long as they could seize the helicopter bay or abandon the baggage and leave the road to take the small trail, there would be hope of breaking out. On the other hand, the Vietnamese army's atomic bomb self-explosion attack was really scary. Every time a mushroom cloud rose, at least several thousand people would be killed.

　As a result, the American troops in the encirclement either had to rush to get on the helicopters or desert and find their own way out. Soon, these 100,000 Americans who had huddled together in the rice fields abandoned their baggage and made a dispersed breakout without the approval of the Pentagon!

　But in the end, only more than 20,000 people arrived at Vung Tau Port, which was still under the control of the US military. As for the fate of the others...

　Well, being escorted to a prisoner-of-war camp with their bodies intact is already the best outcome for them.

　"It's good that these 100,000 people were wiped out. At least the Pentagon won't have to worry about how to rescue them."

　Fili curled his lips irresponsibly. "As for the loss of face and damaging of the international image... hey, what international image does the United States have left to destroy these days? The whole world has long known that we Americans are an incompetent, brutal, and useless devil!"

　What's more, what happened on Phu Quoc Island is probably even more shameful and humiliating, right? "

　"Yes, the mutinous American soldiers killed each other, and the 101st Airborne Division, who were ordered to suppress the rebellion, actually disobeyed orders and fled..."

　Dr. Kissinger's expression was also strange, mainly because of the Phu Quoc Island incident, which was so embarrassing that he had nothing to say.

　First, the newly arrived American recruits rebelled. Then, the defeated remnants of the army that had fled to the island were provoked and blew up their camp. Then, more than 10,000 Viet Cong prisoners of war on Phu Quoc Island took advantage of the chaos to escape, seize weapons, and rebel.

　The commander of the US military in Vietnam rushed to the island to quell the riot, but was shot in the head as soon as he got off the plane and died in unclear circumstances.

　The Pentagon urgently dispatched the 101st Airborne Division from Singapore to the island to suppress the rebellion. However, the Khmer Rouge across the strait also seized the opportunity to send their own soldiers, carrying miniature atomic bombs, to Phu Quoc Island and encountering the 101st Airborne Division. Immediately, a mushroom cloud rose. The 101st, considered one of the US Army's most powerful troops, was devastated by the nuclear bomb and abandoned their mission, hastily fleeing the inferno that had transformed Phu Quoc Island into.

　Now, a red flag is said to have been raised on Phu Quoc Island, and the surrounding sea is filled with rafts and small boats carrying American soldiers. However, the US Navy still dares not rescue them, fearing that there may be communist "nuclear bomb suicide boats" among them... In the end, they can only requisition civilian ships from Hong Kong and Singapore to rescue people, and reporters from various countries take the opportunity to mix in and grab the news.

　, conducted exclusive interviews with the rescued American soldiers, and then exaggerated the story to the world.

　Oh, it's so embarrassing that even my butt is exposed!

　"What can be done? The leaders refused to take responsibility, forcing the US military to withdraw from Vietnam while stubbornly refusing to cease fire or seek peace. This ultimately resulted in the worst possible outcome - neither face nor substance could be saved, and the mess became increasingly difficult to clean up.

　"In recent days, hundreds of thousands more Americans have been held in Vietcong prisoner-of-war camps. Adding those previously captured, an estimated 300,000 Americans have been captured by the Communists. That's enough prisoners to form a full-scale US military presence in Vietnam! Among the prisoners is a former commander-in-chief of US forces in Vietnam!"

　Firi sighed. "What is President Nixon thinking now? Does he intend to continue to expand the draft and send troops to the Vietnam War?"

　"More conscription? Nuclear weapons are useless, so what good is conscription? Just cramming more people into Vietcong prisoner-of-war camps? The Vietcong say their country has been reduced to a radioactive wasteland and they can't afford to keep so many American prisoners. They've already handed over 50,000 prisoners to China and another 50,000 to the Soviet Union. Brezhnev is parading American prisoners through every major city in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe!"

　Imagine the disillusionment of pro-American liberal intellectuals in the Soviet Union when they saw American prisoners of war walking through Red Square with their heads drooping. How would the Germans have felt if East Berlin had also held a prisoner parade, with our prisoners of war wearing prison uniforms and circling the Berlin Wall?

　Dr. Kissinger smiled bitterly and shook his head.

　On our side, our intercontinental missiles are nearly exhausted, our nuclear deterrent is nearly bankrupt, our finances are already bankrupt, and public discontent is boiling over nationwide! If the federal government continues to draft more soldiers and further expand the Vietnam War at this moment, the Black Panthers and left-wing revolutionary youth will truly "turn the imperialist war into a civil war" in the United States!

　Well, if President Nixon really decides to continue sending more troops to Vietnam and escalate the war, I'll have to resign from the White House and go home to dig shelters and stockpile canned food. You'll have to give me some advice then. You're a world-class expert on how to survive apocalypse..."

　"Don't worry, I don't think things will get to this point."

　Ferry reached out and patted Kissinger on the shoulder. “Ten years ago, even with the threats of assassination and rebellion, the French soldiers failed to force President de Gaulle to continue the Algerian War. Instead, they made clowns of themselves.

　By now, our country's war advocates were unable to force President Nixon to continue the Vietnam War, even if they assassinated the president.

　The entire United States hated this war. The New York Stock Exchange recently fell below 500 points. More than one hundred banks across the country went bankrupt. The deposits of more than 10 million people evaporated due to bank failures. The army began to rebel. How could the Vietnam War continue?

　Now that Saigon has changed its flag, Bien Hoa has been severely defeated, Phu Quoc Island has fallen, and 200,000 American troops have been wiped out, this is the perfect opportunity to prompt the White House to make up its mind to cease fire."

　"I hope so!" Dr. Kissinger shrugged. "After ten years of war and human suffering, the public security in New York and Washington is as bad as in Saigon. Even if the war ends, who knows how long it will take for social atmosphere to improve..."

　——Due to the consumption of war, the devaluation of the US dollar, the decline of the economy, the division of society, the proliferation of drugs, and the rise of various cults, gangs and "revolutionary organizations", the current security situation in the United States is so bad that it is almost becoming a rule-based fantasy universe that is very popular in plot-killing.

　For example: lock your doors and windows at night, drive when you go out, and walk less if possible; stay away from open-air basketball courts, and stay away from abandoned buildings with iron bars around their doors and windows; look at roadside graffiti, but don't show excessive interest; if you see a group of people dressed similarly, don't approach them or listen to anything they say; refuse any sales pitch, no matter what it is; buy things from street vendors, but never follow the vendor elsewhere, no matter how tempting their offers may be...

　Doesn't sound like much, right? The same thing is true of the 21st-century America under the rule of a certain sleepyhead, "Sleepy Joe."

　But the United States in this dimension has just entered the 1970s!

　The overseas war was lost miserably, the domestic order was in chaos, and the purchasing power of the US dollar plummeted.

　Both the moral value and the force value are overdrawn to negative numbers.

　How can such a failed country be qualified to lead the world?

　Anyway, the withdrawal issue has been resolved. We have directly withdrawn into the enemy's prisoner-of-war camp. It should be much easier to carry out strategic contraction next, right?

　After three or four days of fighting, we ended up filming an episode of a fantasy drama!

　Chapter 457: The World is Upside Down

　On January 20, 1970, a cold wind blew in Berlin, the capital of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).

　Tens of thousands of German citizens, wearing coats, gathered on the streets, looking with rather complicated and tangled eyes at the groups of American prisoners of war, each of them wrapped in an old cotton jacket over their tropical camouflage uniforms, dragging the American flag backwards with a listless look, as they walked along the street leading to the Brandenburg Gate.

　——Since the outbreak of the Vietnam War in this dimension, more than 300,000 American prisoners and more than 20,000 South Korean prisoners, plus a small number of Australians and Filipinos, have been successively sent to the Viet Cong prisoner-of-war camps on the China-Vietnam border.

　Obviously, such a huge number of prisoners has far exceeded the support and management capabilities of the small country of North Vietnam.

　At the same time, as a country with little industry and backward agriculture, North Vietnam could not effectively utilize this huge labor force.

　Especially after the United States launched a full-scale nuclear war against Vietnam and used nuclear bombs with a TNT equivalent of over 100 million tons to bombard this small country into a radioactive wasteland, the North Vietnamese Workers' Party believed that it was difficult for them to continue to maintain such a large-scale prisoner-of-war camp while persisting in the anti-US war; and it was also difficult to dissuade the North Vietnamese people, who were extremely angry about the destruction of their homes, from flocking to the prisoner-of-war camps and abusing these American prisoners to vent their anger.

　Thus, upholding the spirit of mutual assistance within the "socialist family," North Vietnam began transferring large numbers of "low-value" American prisoners from its POW camps, especially those idiot American soldiers with extremely low IQs, to China and the Soviet Union for "safekeeping," starting in 1969.

　The first batch of transferred prisoners of war alone consisted of 50,000 each to China and the Soviet Union.

　But China itself is now in a mess and has limited interest in accepting large numbers of American prisoners. The Soviets, on the other hand, are very keen on this.

　Therefore, Beijing only symbolically took in 10,000 American prisoners of war and settled them near the capital. The remaining 90,000 American prisoners of war were sent to the Soviet Union. The Soviets regarded these Americans as excellent political propaganda tools and quickly paraded them through major cities in Eastern Europe.

　For a time, the group of American prisoners of war with their heads hung and dragging the American flag backwards became an attractive sight on the streets of major cities in Eastern Europe.

　Let the people of the Eastern Bloc behind the Iron Curtain discover that in addition to jeans and rock music, the free Western world also has shameful and useless soldiers.

　In East Berlin, where the Berlin Wall stood, this famous "Cold War showcase," the parade of American prisoners of war, used to proclaim the "great victory of socialism," was particularly grand. Berlin businesses, institutions, and schools even closed for the day to allow everyone time to observe.

　According to East German officials' plan, these American prisoners of war captured in Vietnam, after parading through the streets of East Berlin, were to walk a long distance along the Berlin Wall, clearly visible to the West Berlin garrison, as a humiliation to the entire "free camp"...

　Well, it was a bit of a hellish scene for the Germans watching American prisoners of war paraded through Berlin.

　What's even more infernal is that many German veterans who participated in World War II solemnly hung Nazi-era medals on their chests when looking at prisoners of war.

　Of course, although it was a prisoner-of-war parade, it was still a parade, and according to the tradition of Western society, the parade must be accompanied by music.

　So, when unarmed American prisoners were paraded through the streets of Berlin, the trucks following behind them played cheerful songs with loud speakers: "If buttercups buzz behind bees, if sailboats are on land and churches are on sea, if ponies ride on people and tender grass swallows cows. If cats are chased by mice, if mothers sell their babies to whores for a coin. If summer turns to spring and spring turns to summer, then the whole world is turned upside down!"

　——The reason why this funny song with absurd and humorous content was played during the prisoner-of-war parade actually has an anecdote behind it.

　Ever since October 19, 1781, when 10 British troops, led by General Cornwallis, marched out of their positions at Yorktown, Virginia, while their military band played "The World Is Turning Upside Down" in a self-deprecating manner, and surrendered their weapons to the "Continental Army" led by Washington, which played "Yankee Tune," "The World Is Turning Upside Down" has become the designated BGM for surrender in English-speaking countries.

　However, in the next two centuries, English-speaking countries have always been victorious and invincible on battlefields around the world. Even if they occasionally suffered setbacks, they usually withdrew with dignity, rarely suffering a crushing defeat and complete annihilation, and then there were scenes of thousands of American and British soldiers surrendering and being captured.

　Even if they lost a few battles, as long as they persisted to the end, the Anglo-Saxon people would usually be the ones who ultimately won the war.

　Otherwise, the Korean War was just a draw. Why would General Clark, who signed the armistice on behalf of the US military, regard it as a shame?

　The main reason was that the Ansa people at that time had become accustomed to winning all the time, and they couldn't even imagine how they could lose a war.

　However, throughout the socialist camp today, "The World is Turned Upside Down" is being played everywhere...

　In short, watching American prisoners of war parading through Berlin and listening to the radio playing "The World Turned Upside Down", the Germans had very complicated feelings. Especially those World War II veterans with medals on their chests, they felt even more uncomfortable watching these crooked prisoners of war.

　The confused American soldiers couldn't help pointing and talking.

　"Is this the American soldier today? Why do they look so silly and not at all spirited?"

　"Yeah, they're much worse than those Americans in the Ardennes Forest twenty years ago. But they really do seem a bit stupid, don't they?"

　"Yes, they are stupid. I heard that there are too many people dodging the military service over there, so they have to use stupid people as conscripts. Half of the people in a division are stupid people like this."

　"Idiots serving as soldiers? Sounds like an army of "Good Soldier Schweik"? They're idiots, so what? Why are they all trembling, crying, and looking so miserable with runny noses? They even have to be chased away by the police with sticks? Could it be that they caught a cold from the cold wind?"

　"Even if he had a cold, he wouldn't act so strangely, right? He looks like a drunk."

　"

　How can this be a cold? It's clearly a drug addiction! Even "Good Soldier Schweik" is better than them! At least Schweik doesn't take drugs!

　"Honestly, Schweik's brain seems to be just as mad whether he's on drugs or not."

　"But if someone is already a fool and takes drugs, how crazy would they become?"

　"That's not necessarily true. Maybe after a fool takes the drug, the negatives will become positives, and he'll become smarter."

　"If anesthetics could have such miraculous effects, how could there be any fools in the US military?"

　"Alas, it's only been over 20 years since the end of World War II, and the US military has already fallen to such a useless level that they can't even defeat the Vietnamese monkeys in the forest, and they have even captured so many prisoners. Speaking of which, it's been a long time since the Russians last fought a war, right?

　I wonder if the Soviet army's combat effectiveness has also deteriorated significantly? They're only capable of bullying Czech citizens in Prague..."

　Before the German veteran could finish his words, his companion, whose expression changed drastically, covered his mouth with his hand and whispered in his ear, "Shh! How dare you say such things on the street? Be careful of the Stasi (East German State Security Service)! Don't bring disaster upon everyone!"

　The Stasi, East Germany's powerful intelligence agency during the Cold War, was renowned for its vast network of personnel and pervasiveness. It's said that at its peak, 25% of East German citizens were either informants or trolls for the Stasi. Many East German men were shocked to discover their wives were Stasi informants only after the dramatic changes in Eastern Europe and the reunification of Germany, when secret Stasi documents were released. The piles of reports against them were already piled high.

　How should I put it? It feels like the "Big Brother is watching you" scene from the masterpiece "1984"! Or, "We are everywhere!"

　Therefore, when the word "Stasi" was mentioned, all the German veterans of World War II present couldn't help but shudder.

　The guy who couldn't control his mouth before was startled and shut up immediately.

　After a while, someone finally laughed and changed the subject.

　"What will happen to these American prisoners of war after the parade? Build a prisoner-of-war camp near Berlin to hold them?"

　"Ah, the Soviets weren't that generous! These American prisoners of war were only temporarily brought to Berlin to show us how useless the American military is today. Then they were shown off at the Berlin Wall, had their photos taken, and then they were sent back to Siberia to plant potatoes!"

　"Siberia? Growing potatoes?"

　"Yeah, and there's also chiseling stones, chopping wood, and so on. The newspapers say the Vietnamese have captured at least 300,000 American prisoners over the years, along with some Koreans, Australians, and Filipinos. With so many captives, their country is almost bankrupted!

　It just so happened that the Soviet Union had always been short of human resources, especially in Siberia, so Brezhnev took all these prisoners of war and threw them into the prisoner-of-war camps where we had been with the Japanese, and let the Americans continue the work we had not finished!

　"That's great! We can't just suffer this hardship alone. We should let the Americans experience the cold winds of Siberia too!"

　"That's right. The Americans should also live in the prisoner-of-war camps we spent time in, so they can feel the pain of having icicles formed from urinating in winter!"

　"And the mosquitoes in the swamps in the summer! I never dreamed that Siberian mosquitoes could be so fierce!"

　"The Soviets also said that with so many Americans working as laborers, a bright future for the development of Siberia is just around the corner!"

　"The development of Siberia? Well, some of the Soviet Union's industrial and agricultural production figures might increase as a result. But no matter how exaggerated the figures in the newspapers are, our stores are always short of this and that, and the goods on the black market are expensive and of poor quality. The better goods all rely on smuggling imports."

　If the potato crop increases and the livestock population increases, the meat ration can be increased, then we should thank God!"

　"

　I'm afraid it will be difficult to increase the ration of fresh meat. It would be nice to have one or two more sausages, but please don't give me canned meat - canned meat that smells like shoe polish, canned meat that smells like candles, all kinds of weird canned meat that the Soviets can produce, it's really unbearable."

　——In this dimension, as the United States was dragged to the brink of death by the expansion of the Vietnam War, the Soviet Union in 1970 seemed to be at its peak.

　The Soviet Union's GDP accounted for 12% of the world's total in that year, and the output value of various industries continued to hit new highs.

　After the "Prague Spring" in Poland was suppressed, the Warsaw Pact member states in Eastern Europe also bowed to the Kremlin and dared not have any second thoughts.

　With the generous assistance of the Soviet Union, a number of third world countries such as Egypt, Syria, and India expressed their loyalty to "Big Brother".

　But those who truly live on the east side of the Iron Curtain know that all this glamour is just an appearance.

　The backwardness of agriculture and light industry caused by the prolonged arms race remained largely unresolved in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, leading to an increasingly distorted social life in the Warsaw Pact. State-owned stores were perpetually out of stock, with long lines for everything from cigarettes to candy. Furthermore, the quality of daily consumer goods produced in Warsaw Pact countries was generally criticized, making them difficult to find and difficult to use.

　For example, the televisions produced by the Soviet Union could hardly be watched through to the end because the cathode ray tubes could not work for a long time. What was even more frightening was that they exploded frequently, so much so that reporters from Pravda complained that such products should be given to the enemy!

　Soviet refrigerators were very noisy, enough to keep people awake at night. They only had a capacity of 100 liters, but they consumed at least two kilowatt-hours of electricity a day.

　Soviet cars were also notoriously prone to "kidney deficiency," with cars reportedly being stranded on the road due to chewing gum stuck to their tires.

　In addition, under the planned economic system established by the Soviet Union, the quality of goods in Eastern European countries was similar and generally extremely poor.

　As a showcase for the Cold War between the Eastern Bloc and the West, East Germany, and particularly East Berlin, enjoyed considerable preferential treatment within the Warsaw Pact, with supplies of various goods and materials even better than those of the Soviet Union itself.

　But even so, the rough quality and monotonous patterns of light industrial products, or "stupid, big, rough and black", still make Germans complain all day long.

　Supply shortages of fruit, sugar and vegetables also occur from time to time.

　In general, in the eyes of the lower-class people in the Warsaw Pact countries, the Kremlin seems to think that the Red Camp only needs to meet the people's minimum modern life needs, so that everyone will not starve or freeze to death, and have running water and electricity. This is enough, and there is no need to supply more or better.

　For those people in the backward countries of the Third World who are in a daily survival crisis, life in the Warsaw Pact countries seems to be pretty good.

　However, the Eastern European people only look to Western European countries, and their complaints are getting louder and louder every day...

　Of course, with the United States nearly crippled by the Vietnam War, the Soviet Union still looked incredibly "great and righteous." Even its bloody suppression of the Prague residents seemed so tender compared to the United States' reckless hydrogen bombing.

　France's Le Figaro and Britain's The Times both used full pages to publish news about American prisoners of war parading outside the Berlin Wall, causing people in Europe to sigh that the American imperialists, who once roamed the world with great power, had finally degenerated to the point where they were as good at surrendering as the French!

　As for various "insulting American jokes", they are flying all over the media around the world, making the American flag even more of a target of ridicule.

　——When reporters saw that the American prisoners were filled with groups of fools and drug addicts, it was probably difficult for them to have any positive impression of them.