Babylonian Empire

Page 644

I see! The shrewd Mrs. Thatcher saw the essence of this time clearly at once.

The downturn in oil prices this time is actually equivalent to a reshuffle of the oil companies. Those companies with weak strength will all be cleared out of the market.Therefore, oil companies with capital and strength will probably welcome this oil price cut very much, and they will use this opportunity to complete the further expansion of their own oil companies. Everyone knows that this low oil price, It will definitely not last forever. People in the Middle East are just viciously competing. Oil prices will eventually return to a reasonable level. Those companies whose funds are broken and unsustainable can only sell their own company shares, that is, , has become the fat in the mouths of those big companies.

If it weren't for the instigation of the British zhèngfǔ, BP has been committed to developing the North Sea oil fields. Although this will play a great role in improving the UK's own economy and solving the employment problem, if it is not for BP's resistance The price of oil with the answer is in full swing.Well, the current British Petroleum Company definitely has enough funds to carry out a new round of mergers and obtain more oil shares.

Among all oil explorations, subsea oil exploration is the most expensive, and the loss-making operation has put a heavy burden on the British Petroleum Corporation. Now, it is the turn of the British oil companies to cut their flesh.

It is said that the current vice president of the United States is a big oil businessman in Texas himself. No wonder the United States has been unwilling to put pressure on the Middle East to increase oil prices, because the United States wants to take a profit from the United Kingdom. !

Interests, these are naked interests. No matter how good the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom is, or how good the personal relationship between Mrs. Thatcher and President Reagan is, they cannot violate the rules of this game.

What should Britain do now?Thinking of the last experience in the eastern power, Mrs. Thatcher, who has always been very proud, is known for her toughness. Mrs. Thatcher, who was called the Iron Lady by Reagan, had a gloomy expression on her face. Britain needs to Bow your head and throw in the towel again?

Mrs. Thatcher pushed open the window, and on the open space outside, a group of fiery red roses were blooming.

No one disturbed Mrs. Thatcher. She just looked at the British Prime Minister, the roses blooming outside representing England, and the fluttering British flag, with an inexplicable sadness in her eyes.

In the past, our national flag was planted in every corner of the world. The people of our British Empire, no matter which country they went to, would be treated like nobles. The representatives we sent to all over the world were the local emperors there. If anyone refuses to accept, then the knives and guns of the British Army will make them realize their mistakes.If the opponent is stubborn, then the British team will definitely not mind letting the opponent disappear completely, they have that ability.

But, now, a native of the Middle East who used to be their colony, a proud British royal aristocrat who never looked at it, actually wanted them to bow their heads and admit defeat!

Two years ago, their fleet used force to cross the entire Atlantic Ocean and recapture the Falklands. Although they won a decent victory, the price Britain paid was very high.Now, they absolutely do not have the ability to use force to conquer Iraq in the Middle East, regardless of political factors and international factors. From a military point of view, Iraq has developed very strong. The last time Iraq was in a conflict with Israel , behaved very domineeringly.

Britain has no choice.

For the benefit of the United Kingdom, for the sake of the British North Sea oil industry, they must compromise.Mrs. Thatcher sighed and turned around.

"Give that Iraqi spy to the Iraqi charge d'affaires in the UK."

Although Weber did not mention the spy when he was negotiating with President Qusay last time, Mrs Thatcher, including all senior British officials, knew that the reason why the Iraqi side engaged in such low oil prices Come on, that spy is a fuse.

They underestimated Qusay. Even without the spy, Qusay still wanted to do this. It's just that with this spy, Qusay acted more blatantly and forcefully.

"Madam, then, is this the only way to forget about our lost data?" William asked.

"This is all MI[-]'s dereliction of duty." Mrs. Thatcher said, "We got nothing from that person. Let MI[-] continue to investigate and get back the information!"

"We restarted the sky flash project with Iraq. We immediately sold the entire production line to Iraq, with a few hundred missiles ordered by Iraq and Saudi Arabia in the early stage. Please pay the remaining funds immediately." Mrs. Thatcher continued. .

What Qusay meant was that the production line was no longer needed, and he asked the British to return the money to him and stop the project.Not to mention that Britain has no money now, even if Britain has money, it cannot be given to Iraq in this way.The United Kingdom originally wanted to get stuck in Iraq on this project, but now Iraq has gone a step further and kicked off the United Kingdom to conduct research on the active sky flash project with Sweden.

Therefore, the sky flash of the British semi-active seeker is already outdated. Exporting it to Iraq can bring new profits to the UK and interfere with the cooperation between Sweden and Iraq. After all, Sweden’s active air-to-air missiles are still It will take several years to develop it.Now, Iraq has very urgent requirements for advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles. They no longer want to use Sparrow and French Super Matra 530 missiles imported from the United States, let alone use unreliable medium-range air-to-air missiles imported from the Soviet Union. range bomb.

At this point, the United Kingdom is only late in fulfilling the contract.

"As for the fan-hunting early warning machine project, we can extend the after-sales maintenance for one more year, which can be regarded as compensation for the Iraqis." Mrs. Thatcher continued.In this way, the British can also get more experience from the Iraqis in improving the early warning aircraft, and they will never pay money to Iraq.

The first condition proposed by Qusay, she has proposed a solution, but the second condition is that the UK will stop its military cooperation with Israel, and the third condition is that Iraqi funds enter the British market. Mrs. Hall would never agree.

Britain has military cooperation with Israel and has nothing to do with Iraq. This is completely interference in internal affairs.As for opening the British market and allowing Iraqi funds to flow into the UK, that would be even more dangerous. God knows what Qusay’s idea is. What if he wants to use all of Iraq’s funds to buy half of Britain?

"Webb, make another trip to Baghdad and convey our opinion to them, and hope that Qusay will accept our conditions tactfully." Mrs. Thatcher said.

On this condition?Wei Bo felt a bit difficult. It was not terrible to sit on the bench by himself. The terrible thing was that he would not agree to it at all. That guy Qu Sai was not so easy to negotiate.

"Ma'am, what if the Iraqis don't agree? We only agreed to one of the conditions they proposed."

"Didn't we release the spy? Isn't that enough sincerity?" Mrs. Thatcher said, "They should agree. If they still don't agree, we will show our cards, even if We are the ones who sold BP's shares in Texas to American oil companies, and we can't take that Qusay cheap!"

Mrs Thatcher was very determined.

"Yes, I'll go to the Middle East again." Although Weber had a headache meeting that cunning Qusay, this time he must show the dignity of the British and negotiate with them to the end!

Chapter 766 Using Gold Reserves?

"Now that oil prices are so low, our oil industry has become our burden. Not only does it not bring us any income, but on the contrary, we need to provide subsidies." Nikolai said.

"Yes, now, we are unable to continue. We extract oil to make money, not to invest in the oil industry. The oil pipeline we are building now has also been forced to stop. If this continues, our The oil industry will collapse." Fedor said: "We need to respond to the above."

"Above? Who do we respond to now?" Nicholas asked back.

This is a rather complicated issue. Originally, this issue was not a problem, and it would be enough to directly respond to the general secretary. However, the general secretary has been in the hospital for several months now. Internal news has spread that the general secretary is likely to be on the verge of death. no more.Since the general secretary is not here, he should report to the country's second-in-command.However, the old Chernenko did not designate a successor. Now, the secret battle between Gorbachev and Grishin has already begun. Whoever they report to will be regarded as his cronies. , If the other one comes to power, if they don't get it right, they run the risk of being washed out, and they don't want to take the risk.

"Two ministers, Secretary Gorbachev is looking for two." At this time, they received the news.

Gorbachev took the initiative to find them?The two knew that it seemed that they had to report to Gorbachev first.

Yes, Gorbachev was looking for them.

Originally, Gorbachev didn't have the energy to manage these things. His main focus of work was how to get the support of the central committee members.But Gorbachev must now ask.

Because, Gorbachev just came out of Arbat Street in Moscow, where is the headquarters of another intelligence agency of the Soviet Union, the GRU.

When mentioning the Soviet intelligence department, almost everyone would think of the KGB, which is a famous intelligence agency in the world. Compared with the KGB, the GRU's reputation is not very famous, but it is also a very important intelligence agency.

GRU is the abbreviation of the Intelligence Department of the General Staff of the Soviet Army, code-named 44388 Military Department. It originated after the October Revolution. Lenin signed a decree to establish the "Republic Field Staff Registration Office". The national unified military intelligence supreme leadership agency established on the basis of the military intelligence agency was the predecessor of the GRU.

However, in the subsequent purges, the GRU was hit hard.Until the outbreak of World War II, military intelligence regained the attention of the Kremlin, and Philip Golikov was appointed as the head of the Intelligence Department of the General Staff.Under his leadership, the GRU quickly began to operate efficiently, and a steady stream of information was continuously transmitted from all over the world to the GRU headquarters in Moscow.The GRU has done outstanding work, and successively established the Trepal intelligence network, the "Red Band" intelligence network, and the "Rado" intelligence network in Europe; the Zorge intelligence network in Asia; Soviet combat provided effective intelligence support.

After World War II, the GRU was once depressed, but the advent of the Cold War made the GRU active again.The GRU occupied half of the country's intelligence, until the KGB began to rise, and gradually formed the two major systems of national security and police, and the KGB was still unable to replace the GRU's military status.

GRU leaders, as assistants to the Minister of Defense, can indirectly participate in the decision-making of major issues.Therefore, this secret intelligence organization is also the target of Gorbachev's wooing.

Unexpectedly, when Gorbachev talked with Alexander, the current leader of the GRU, Alexander said very dissatisfied: "Although our intelligence department is not as large as the KGB, we are also the most important military intelligence of the Soviet Union. Organization, there are more than 5000 people in our headquarters, and there are more than 400 spies sent to foreign countries. For the Soviet intelligence work, we need enough funds. The annual budget is one billion rubles (the Soviet ruble is very strong. , 1 U.S. dollar can only be exchanged for 0.6 rubles. In later generations, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the ruble began to depreciate sharply), which is not enough for us at all, but now, it is already March, and we have not received [-] million rubles. , Our intelligence work cannot be carried out at all!"

Speaking of this, Alexander was full of complaints, wanting the horse to run, but not feeding the horse, how could there be such a reason!

Hearing Alexander's complaints, Gorbachev knew that the time had come to get the GRU leader to support him: "Yes, the GRU's funds must not be in arrears, and I will go find them immediately. Finance Minister Gostev, let him meet the GRU budget no matter how difficult the finances are.”

Alexander was very happy to hear Gorbachev's words, but Gorbachev scratched his head.

He didn't expect that the Soviet Union would be so poor in the past few months when he was not in charge of finances.He has always been preparing to fight for the greatest power, ignoring the most important economic lifeline of the Soviet Union.

As the secretary of zhōngyāng, Gorbachev knew that energy exports played an important role in the Soviet Union's economy, and he had worked on agriculture, economy, ideology, etc. rely on.Reforming this country requires funds, and realizing his ideals requires funds.Although he has already planned to gradually disarm after he came to power, reduce the number of nuclear weapons, and even jump out of the mud pit in Afghanistan, the reduced investment will be used to improve the current situation in the Soviet Union and improve people's lives, but saving It is not the final solution, income is the most important thing, supporting the operation of the huge red empire, energy export is already the most important source of income.

Now, Gorbachev sat next to the Minister of Finance, opposite the Minister of Economic Development and Trade and the Minister of Petroleum, and opened a simple round table meeting.

"Originally, last year, due to the high oil price, our oil income was not bad. At the highest point, it reached more than 80 US dollars a barrel. With the help of high oil price, we increased our foreign exchange income, which can be exchanged for the food we need, although there was no drought last year. , We still have a food shortage. But this year, the price of oil has been falling, and now it has fallen to nine dollars, a difference of nearly ten times." Nicholas said.

"Most of our crude oil is buried under permafrost. Although the cost of mining is lower than that of seabed mining, it is definitely higher than the cost of shallow crude oil mining in those countries in the Middle East. Now, those oil producers in the Middle East The country, because of the conflict with the UK, tried in vain to overthrow the UK's oil industry, so it has been increasing crude oil production, and the world oil price has been pulled down by them. The current output of the major oil-producing countries, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, is almost In this case, the world oil price has fallen to the current level, and the oil industry of the British has been losing money, and so has ours." Petroleum Minister Fedor said.

In the current situation, he had to come up with enough reasons to explain that Fedor had been studying the current oil situation for a long time, and the conclusion he had analyzed, even without the help of intelligence agencies, was almost close to the truth.

Iraq and Britain are choking?Gorbachev frowned. Although he was happy to see Iraq and the United Kingdom turn against each other, the low oil price caused by this was unacceptable to him.

"We are already operating at a loss. Our oil fields have not brought us profits. We have to invest in them. The oil pipelines we are constructing have also been shut down. We have reduced oil exports to a minimum. Only in this way can we Our losses are smaller," Fedor continued.

"The various expenditures of our country are very large, so we can only compress various expenditures now. We are not deliberately delaying and deducting funds from various departments, but we no longer have enough funds to support them. .In particular, the funds we borrowed from the Paris Club last time are about to expire, and we have not yet repaid the funds.” The Minister of Finance said.