The rise of a great power: starting with military industry

Chapter 548 European Integration?

Mid-April.

After several years of preparation, the country officially restored the military rank system.

Looking at the list, Liu Tao showed joy.

With their qualifications, they are naturally not qualified to be ranked in the first row.

However, with his efforts, the two appeared on the second row of the 148-man list.

This is definitely a huge improvement for both of them.

In addition to Li Fuguo and Zhao Guoping, a total of eleven people from six combined brigades appeared on the list of 1300 people.

According to the original plan, the commander of the combined brigade would be given the rank of colonel, which is roughly equivalent to the rank of a full division-level officer.

But now, all of them have been given high-end configurations.

There is no doubt that this is a commendation from above to the combined brigade and also an affirmation of the efforts made by Panshan Group over the years.

And this is an opportunity that only exists now. In the future, there will be no such treatment.

In the future, the commander of a combined brigade will be a colonel, the deputy brigade commander, chief of staff and other regimental-level cadres will be colonel, the commander of a combined battalion will be a deputy regimental-level cadre with the rank of lieutenant colonel, and the commanders of other battalions will be battalion-level cadres with the rank of major.

As for now, the military ranks of the cadres of the six combined brigades have been raised.

Liu Tao did not attend the awarding ceremony because he was not a soldier.

Liu Tao did not attend the awarding ceremony of the six combined brigades, but left it all to Li Fuguo, Zhao Guoping and others to handle. The awarding ceremony for the school-level cadres was presided over and awarded by Li Fuguo, Zhao Guoping and other leaders, while the awarding ceremony for the lieutenant-level cadres was presided over and awarded by the school-level cadres.

Just as China was restoring its military ranks, two major events occurred in the world.

One major event was the first special talks between the United States and the Soviet Union on the elimination of medium-range and short-range missiles in Europe.

Another thing is the birth of the European Currency Unit (ECU) coin, marking the entry of the European monetary system into a new stage.

The United States is very active in eliminating medium-range and short-range missiles in Europe. This is because in Europe, the United States has fallen behind the Soviet Union in medium-range and short-range missiles. It can be said that if they come to a head-on collision, the Soviet Union will surely win in the end.

So the United States hoped to reach an agreement with the Soviet Union on eliminating Europe's medium-range and short-range missiles, so that both sides would be at the starting line.

Of course, it is not easy for the Americans to reach this agreement. After all, the Soviet Union is now caught up in an internal power struggle, but the United States is also having a hard time. The situation of the Soviet Union attacking and the United States defending has not changed fundamentally.

Now neither side is making any efforts in other places, which makes the world as a whole calm. Except for the Iran-Iraq War which is still ongoing, no other war has broken out in the world.

It can be said that the Soviet Union and the United States are behind almost all wars since World War II.

The cooperation and confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States directly affected all aspects of the world.

As for European integration, this is the direction Europe wants to work towards after experiencing World War I and World War II. After all, Europe was the center of World War I and World War II, which truly turned Europe into ruins. The old world order established by European powers collapsed, and Europe paid a painful price.

The United States has gradually begun to play a leading role in the international political and economic arena. In 1947, Marshall claimed that the United States would do its utmost to help restore the normal order of the world economy, and proposed the Marshall Plan aimed at rebuilding the European economy and providing economic assistance for Europe's post-war recovery. In terms of economy, European countries established the Organization for European Economic Cooperation at the urging of the United States. Its main role is to coordinate the economic policies of European countries in an effort to achieve free trade among member countries. In terms of military, 10 major European countries, the United States and Canada jointly concluded the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949 to strengthen the collective defense of the North Atlantic region and counter the Eastern European group headed by the former Soviet Union.

Europeans themselves are also actively promoting European integration.

The world is now very optimistic about European integration, as if it won't be long before Europe will truly achieve integration.

Because now, European integration has made a lot of substantial progress.

However, Liu Tao knew that the so-called European integration was not so easy to achieve.

Because neither the Soviet Union nor the United States wants European integration to be realized.

If Europe were truly integrated, it would be almost impossible for the Soviet Union to make any progress in Europe, because after Europe is truly integrated, the population, land area, and economy will be very strong.

The United States would also not be happy to see true European integration, because if Europe were truly integrated, there would inevitably be economic integration, political integration, and military integration.

With the economic integration of Europe, a unified currency belonging to Europe will emerge, which will undoubtedly threaten the position of the US dollar and make other countries have European currencies as an option for their foreign exchange reserves in addition to the US dollar. Moreover, after the economic integration of Europe, its economic scale may even be stronger than that of the United States, and its industrial level may not be inferior to that of the United States.

With the military integration of Europe, there will inevitably be a European army. By then, what reason will the US military have to station troops in Europe?

Liu Tao knew that in the following thirty or forty years, the United States had been playing tricks on European integration, such as attacking the euro and leveraging geopolitics to manipulate the situation. Of course, the most outrageous thing was that many European officials were originally American citizens, and then quickly became citizens of a European country and served as heads of important departments in Europe.

Under such circumstances, even when Liu Tao left, Europe had not yet achieved true integration, and even various ridiculous chaos had occurred.

Of course, if Europe truly achieves integration, it will definitely be good for China, and China will definitely be happy to see it.

Because of European integration, the countries most affected are not China, but the Soviet Union and the United States.

China most hopes that the world will enter a multipolar pattern, because that will give China the largest room for development and will be most advantageous.

As for the situation of one superpower and many strong countries, it is definitely the last thing China wants to see.

Because at that time, Yi Chao was not easy to deal with.

"It seems that according to the current situation, it will be difficult for Japan to escape the containment of the United States. The bubble will become bigger and bigger until it is burst. As for Europe, I am afraid that West Germany will pursue the unification of Germany next. After all, if Germany is not unified, West Germany alone will not be enough." Liu Tao said secretly.

As a loser in World War II, Germany's territory and Berlin were occupied by the four major Allied powers: the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union. With the fall of the Iron Curtain, Germany was divided into two, into East Germany (Democratic Germany) and West Germany (Federal Germany).

Although West Germany is now the world's third largest economy after the Soviet Union, second only to the United States and Japan, as long as Germany is not unified and relies solely on West Germany, the ceiling is still obvious.

One of the very important reasons why Germany developed so well in the last life was that it had the entire European Union as its base, which enabled it to carry out economic cooperation and competition in the world. Even in the entire European Union, Germany surpassed France to become the leader of the European Union.

Liu Tao didn't know whether Germany could regain its unity in this life, but given the current circumstances, it would not be easy to achieve this.

(End of this chapter)