Before the signing of the Agreement on Deepening Friendship and Cooperation, John also happened to get a copy.

In his office, Cold War living fossil Alfred picked up a fax and quickly scanned it, then calmly placed it on the table.

"Sir, I don't think you invited me, an old antique, to pray for witchcraft."

"Don't say that, ahem...... Last time it was an accident......"

The last time Alfred tried to find John, he was stopped by Pio, but the news of his relationship with a group of wizards in the presidential palace still spread in a small area, which made Alfred particularly angry.

Fortunately, he has seen a lot of chaos this year, but now he still took the opportunity to express his dissatisfaction.

After the Artemis II accident, John felt that his past plans were completely disrupted, his staff team was not reliable enough, and McMaster was not around, so he decided to hire some "strategists who have stood the test of history" to help him analyze.

One of the most famous figures was Zbigniew Brzezinski, a long-term and resourceful elite who died in May.

Only Alfred was still active, so the latter returned to the presidential palace with a few protégés.

"Alfred, I wonder why our astronautics have become unreliable?"

John directly asked his biggest doubt, from the dream chaser at the beginning of the year to now, Ami has had two manned flight safety missions in half a year, which is definitely high-risk.

"Obviously we have given enough funds and given any support that NACA wants, why did it become like this, and the Chinese people were more urgent than us, but there were no safety incidents."

Alfred had been prepared for this, and waved his hand to bring out a report.

"I think you must remember XAP's large-scale recall of overseas Chinese elites, for which the CIA spent a lot of energy, and later even large-scale expulsion of Chinese American employees, or marginalization."

John: "It's necessary, NACA has studied XAP, they must have a strong technical accumulation, but it is not directly related to their space agency, so this can only come from the outside world, it can't be created out of thin air." ”

"Yes, that's one of the reasons." Alfred flipped through the report and pointed to a graph above:

"Aramco is a country of immigrants, and we first recruited researchers and elites from Europe, and of course we still do now.

But the Chinese are also an important part, they are smart, hardworking and creative, Lin Hua, who came to study abroad with Qian, designed the 'Minuteman' series of ballistic missiles for us, which is still one of the supports of our missile system; Wang An's computer company also shined in the last century, especially in the field of semiconductors, and the Chinese community is a very powerful research force.

Since we have weakened them, we have to make up for them from something else, and that is the Indian origin. ”

John: "I seem to understand something. ”

Alfred: "Boeing is outsourcing more and more of its software work to cheaper Indian engineers, and their university system is far less rigorous than China's, and their industrial base is weaker, so there is a hint of immaturity everywhere, and although they look similar, they are actually completely different."

If you look at the new SpecaX, their ships and rockets have been on a lot of missions, almost all of them successful except for experimental missions, and the difference between it and Boeing is that it has almost eliminated inferior Indian talent.

We can't rely on the Chinese because they're not loyal enough, and we can't rely on India, they're not good enough to prop up the high-tech system. ”

"So you want to develop local talent?"

Alfred had a teachable expression on his face and said firmly:

"I've been to several think tank meetings, and we think that the failure of the Artemis program shows that the consequences of letting the industrial exodus go are serious, or at least to curb it.

In the coming years, we need to provide high subsidies to small and medium-sized manufacturing companies and local students, so that the best Aramco manufacturing and local elites can replace the unreliable outsourcers, so that the miracle of the last century can be repeated.

Your Excellency, we are confronted with a monster like never before, with an astonishing industrial output, an educated population several times more than us, and more steel than the world's second to tenth combined, and never before, such a formidable opponent.

Not only do we need to re-strengthen ourselves, but we also need to regain control of Europe in order to maintain our advantage. ”

Alfred's words made John ponder for a long time, he understood the correctness of these suggestions, and finally saw the inside of the surface of defeat.

It's not that a company has a problem, it's the environment that needs to change!

But if you add to that the huge expenses of the Ares program and the social security program he is promoting, as Alfred said, the financial pressure is too great.

Seeing that John was still hesitating, Alfred released his ultimate:

"The Bretton Woods system has collapsed, and while the oil pricing power is still in our hands, it is not difficult for us to solve the problem of funding.

I can say with precision that these schemes that are good for industry are far more attractive than social security, and that there will be a lot of people supporting them, and that they are long-term schemes that you can't do if you only serve one term, so you have to have to serve two terms. ”

"Hiss......"

This sentence made John not calm, and the hesitation just now was gradually fading.

"I don't have people I can trust, I don't know if you can ......"

"I'm very old, but I know some young people who are energetic and able to do that."

John looked at the list that Alfred had prepared, and the first person made him frown.

"Jack Sullivan?"

"Yes, don't let go of some small things, I want you to trust him."

"I'll think about it."

Before leaving, Alfred made a final patch:

"According to Bloomberg, a total of 13 billion people around the world watched the live broadcasts of the Dawning 3 and Artemis 2 missions, which is an unprecedented opportunity to get the word out.

But you gave up this opportunity, and the Dawning Project gained great prestige, taking away all efforts, including the Artemis Project, and all the fruits were reaped by them.

We can afford such a failure, but there will be no next one. ”

After Alfred left, John carefully flipped through the reports he had left behind, which were the most detailed and meticulous reports he had ever seen, and the accuracy of his analysis of the problem was many times better than that of his own staff.

In fact, many of the above solutions are old routines, not that no one can't think of it, but it just depends on whether the interests of more people are met after implementation.

Reason told him that there was no perfect plan, but the promise of re-election and the current situation of temporary disadvantage made him very excited.

1,000,000 words!

(End of chapter)