Chapter 1097 The Third Five-Year Plan
The war on the Pirate Coast was just an episode for East Africa. Although the East African army performed poorly, it was expected by the East African government.
Since the South African War, the East African army has hardly fought another war for twenty years. Moreover, they fought in the desert and fought on nearly hundreds of thousands square kilometers of land. They wanted to control the situation with just a few thousand people. It's simply unrealistic.
In fact, the final stabilization of the local situation in East Africa was achieved through the old method of immigration. East Africa migrated nearly 2,000 people from the Somali region, and with more than 10,000 immigrants from the Far East, it re-established its governance framework in the Beibu Gulf territory and relied on These immigrants thus supported the stability of supplies in the later stages of the war.
The main purpose is to replace the oases, villages and water sources controlled by the original indigenous people. The most important one is the water source issue. When the local indigenous residents are not cleared in East Africa, these indigenous residents will try every means to help the guerrillas, including providing water sources to the East African army. Poisoned.
This forced the early East African army to send troops to guard water sources such as wells. After replacing the residents with their own people, East Africa greatly accelerated its control of the local area.
As for the original indigenous residents, they naturally suffered retaliation from the East African government. They were either wiped out along with the resistance organizations, or they left their homes and integrated into other countries and regions.
The war of conquest of the pirate coast in East Africa can be said to have made the British breathe a sigh of relief. After all, with the superiority of weapons and troops, the East African Army did not show its due advantages. In this way, the British did not worry about the threats posed by East Africa to British colonies such as Qatar and Bahrain. .
The British only provided some negligible support to the pirate coast natives in this war, and East Africa was still fought like this. The poor performance of the East African Army can be said to have provided "reassurance" to the British.
Of course, Ernst himself believes that the performance of the East African army is still qualified. After all, this is a remote operation. East Africa does not have an intelligence advantage, and guerrilla tactics are inherently very troublesome. East Africa can calm down the situation in the Beibu Gulf Territory within half a year, which is enough Ernst felt satisfied.
Ernst believes that East Africa was able to settle the Beibu Gulf territory within half a year mainly because of the small local population. However, for any country with a population of more than one million and a certain level of civilization, East Africa needs to weigh it.
In addition, the troops dispatched by East Africa to the Beibu Gulf Territory this time are elite soldiers and generals of the Northwest Military Region. However, under the background of East Africa's military reform, this kind of pure infantry and cavalry in the traditional sense have actually been marginalized in the East African Army. It is impossible for East Africa to send armored troops and motorized infantry to participate in the war in order to hide its clumsiness. That would easily scare the British in Qatar next door.
Finally, and most importantly, this war of conquest on the pirate coast was originally an unjust war. As an imperialist country, East Africa brazenly invaded the pirate coast and was not on the side of morality. In this case , East Africa relied on the hegemony of imperialism to achieve its own goals with relatively low losses, which is worthy of East Africa's own celebration.
Of course, Ernst is quite satisfied with the outcome and process of the war, which does not represent the attitude of the military, especially the participating troops in the Western Military Region. It is conceivable that the East African military will launch a wave of self-examination and self-correction in the future. Summarize the experience of this round of war, reshape the internal organizational structure of the East African Army, and respond to the war situation.
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When East Africa launched a war against the Persian Gulf region, East Africa's domestic Third Five-Year Plan was also in progress. Through previous accumulation and the support of the first two Five-Year Plans, East Africa's domestic industry has made great progress, surpassing many former industrial powers, so East Africa Domestic enthusiasm for the Third Five-Year Plan remains unprecedented.
One of the main reasons for the easing of relations between East Africa and the UK is that East African industries are different from those of the UK. This difference mainly refers to the fact that East Africa is not good at light industry, so the development of light industry is relatively slow, which is unacceptable to East Africa.
At the same time, while developing light industry, East Africa faces another serious problem, that is, the problem of differentiation of market commodities cannot be perfectly solved according to East Africa's plan. After all, people have different needs. Take the most basic light industrial product as an example. A skirt, even if it is made of the same material, can be divided into hundreds of categories based on cutting form, color, thickness, height, width and other characteristics. Thousands or even tens of thousands of products are available to meet the different needs of each individual.
In East Africa, it is okay to say that this kind of individual demand can be temporarily suppressed, but when it comes to the international market, people in other countries will no longer buy into the East African government. It is almost difficult to compete with peers with monotonous product types.
One of the reasons for this situation is the insufficient computing power of the East African government. Even if all the mathematicians and statisticians across the country are invested, it is impossible to complete this workload, not to mention the lack of advanced and efficient computing machinery in East Africa.
Therefore, to develop light industry during the Third Five-Year Plan period, East African economic policies must make some changes, moderately relax the economy, and leave it to the market to solve this part of the problem.
As a monarchy in East Africa, it has not rejected the market from the very beginning. The reason why it coordinates the national economy in a completely planned manner is actually for the sake of efficiency. In order to improve the country's industrial level in a short period of time, it will inevitably turn a blind eye to some problems.
Of course, this kind of economic policy change in East Africa still needs to be carried out step by step and will not be carried out in one step. Just like East Africa had already conducted experiments in the 1990s before the implementation of a fully planned economy, and even from 1896 to 1900 The year was even called the "era of quasi-planned economy."
At the same time, this round of economic policy adjustments in East Africa is also to connect with foreign investment. If East Africa wants to reap more dividends from a possible war, it must connect with the international market.
At the same time, as the quality of industry improves, East Africa needs to open the door wider, so that some of the already strong industrial fields in East Africa can directly compete with other industrial countries. This can also compete with the existing industries in East Africa and prevent East African companies from lying on their backs. Rest on your laurels.
To give a typical example, why the U.S. civilian shipbuilding industry has been difficult to develop for a long time is inseparable to a certain extent from the "Jones Act" promulgated by the United States. After the end of World War I, the U.S. Congress formally passed the "Jones Act" in 1920. , also known as the Maritime Commerce Act.
This bill stipulates that ships sailing within the United States must be manufactured in the United States and registered in the United States; or at least 75% of the ownership of the ship must be owned by U.S. citizens, and the crew must be U.S. citizens. This bill overprotects the U.S. shipbuilding industry and has The civilian shipbuilding industry in the United States has become a flower in a greenhouse and has completely lost its global competitiveness.
Of course, the failure of the U.S. civilian shipbuilding industry to develop in the past was definitely related to deindustrialization and high labor costs. This was almost a common problem in many developed countries in the past.
But the problem is that, except for the era of sailing battleships and special periods such as World War I and World War II, the civilian shipbuilding industry in the United States has been difficult to compete with other countries for most of the time.
For now, of course, the UK is the most developed country in the world, and the UK has vigorously developed its financial industry, which has made the UK industry inferior to that of the United States and Germany. However, the cost of the UK shipbuilding industry is much lower than that of the United States and Germany, and it has a monopoly on the world. Part of the civilian ship market.
Therefore, only by allowing competition to exist can domestic enterprises actively transform and upgrade. Of course, even if East Africa liberalizes competition in some industrial fields, it will be extremely limited. After all, the light industry in East Africa is too weak now, so policy support needs to be continued until the light industry develops to the current level. Only after the level of heavy industry in East Africa can we discuss more market opening issues.
(End of this chapter)