To temporarily nationalize the defence industry companies, Mr Minister, I did not hesitate to reply, Only by placing military production under the strict control of the State can the output of military production be rapidly increased to the quantities we need at a reasonable cost, but, again, this measure alone will not suffice.
There was an outrage in the audience. No one expected me to say that. Tobolsky raised his hand and the noise stopped.
Gentlemen, the President said firmly, we are gathered here to make important public decisions. Please remember that and keep your emotions in check. Nor did I expect Mr Lavroff to make such an offer, but I would like to hear his arguments to the end. Continue, Captain, the President called me by my low rank, either he made it clear to me that I had to think over what I was saying, or he simply did not wish to use civil form of address in the circumstances.
So, I continued: The Earth Federation has become too loose and amorphous, gentlemen, I thought Id drop off some long-standing thoughts in my head, because I didnt know if I ever get a similar chance, There have been similar precedents in our history. You all remember World War II. Germany, a great power that had managed to subjugate almost all of Europe at the beginning of the war, was too late in converting its industry into military uses, and it did so only by the end of 1942. Three years of war, the Germans on the home front continued to live as if there was no war. So what? Their army entered the war as the most powerful and capable fighting force in the world, but by the end of the third year of the confrontation, it had lost its advantage and suffered decisive defeats in Russia and northern Africa.
Weve been on this destructive path for 15 years. Remember the first, the most difficult years of the war, as it once seemed. Thats when the economy was mobilized. Nobody thought about profit, profitability, rights and freedoms. Everyone knew it was us or them. And we had survived. But once we got the quargs off our territory, and not even from the whole territory, because we still havent recovered some of it, the mood started to change. Now we have an economy that produces non-military goods in quantities that are clearly excess to a belligerent State, luxury goods, miscellaneous services and a host of other junk that devours productive and human resources that could and should be channelled into the military industry. And the enemy has behaved differently all these years. We thought wed made a breakthrough in the war on our own, and it turned out that a large part of the enemys troops and resources had been diverted by another, unknown theatre of operations. Instead of mobilizing all forces and decisively defeating the enemy, we gave our adversary the opportunity to focus on destroying our potential allies, leaving only deterrent forces on our front. And now we have a logical result. The Ally is on the verge of defeat, and were going to be left alone with the enemy whose strength we never imagined until the last moment, and Im not sure we have a complete picture of the strength of our adversary at this time.
They listened to me. The facial expressions were different, from annoyed to brooding, but I didnt see any indifference.
May I ask Mr Lavroff a question? The Minister of Labour was up from his seat.
Tobolsky silently nodded.
Am I to understand correctly that you are proposing to transfer a significant proportion of civilian production to the defence industry?
Quite right, Mr Minister.
And what do you imagine, Mr Lavroff? In this sector of the economy, 80% of companies are represented by small and lower-middle-sized businesses. Are you going to nationalize all these businesses, too?
In no case. There is not enough state management resources, and the efficiency of their work is going to go down a lot. They will receive orders from the enterprises of the military-industrial complex centrally. Again, there are precedents in the history of the same Germany or Japan.
Gentlemen, these are the details. We can discuss them later, The Minister of Defense has interrupted our discussion, Mr Lavroff, you said that nationalization alone would not be enough. You want to surprise us with another social bomb?
No, Mr Minister, I dont want to, I answered without reacting to Bronsteins sarcasm, It would be purely military measures. There are three operations to be carried out: the destruction or disabling of the docks with the enemys superbattleships under construction, a reconnaissance raid on potential allied territory, and a sudden, demonstrative attack on one, and better yet, two star systems in quarg territory. This is the only way we can significantly delay, if not prevent, the deadly enemy strike.
Its utopia and empty fantasizing, Captain, the Chief of the General Staff was heard from the Presidium table. General of the Army Mazilescu was outraged by my insolence and impertinence, which clearly was on his face. The Commander-in-Chief has appointed you, Captain, to the general officer post of the Chairman of the New Equipment and Weapons Commission, and Im sure he knew what he was doing making that decision. It is in this role that you are at this Senior Command Meeting, although your rank doesnt match its level. Nevertheless, you take the liberty of proposing strategic initiatives upon which the Federations fate depends, although, as I recall, you havent even graduated from the General Staff Academy yet.
General of the Army, Sir, responded I with the utmost neutrality. It was not my intention to destroy relations with Mazilescu, The Commander-in-Chief gave me the floor at this meeting to make my observations, and I am making them. The assessment of what I say will naturally be made by superior officers, of whom this is immediate responsibility, and who will also take the final decisions.
Ehh Mr Mazilescu, suddenly I heard a familiar voice from the audience. This was Indonesian professor Suparman Alatas in the generals uniform, which, as usual, did not fit. In his usual manner, he ignored the statutory appeals to his superiors, and anyway he didnt care at all about all the rules and regulations. Im sorry to interrupt, but it was Mr Lavroff who got us the information were all here to discuss. It seems to me that this fact alone obliges us at least to listen carefully to him.
The discussion, which periodically turned into a heated debate, lasted more than five hours. A variety of proposals have been made, discussed and discarded, but the outcome was not at all what I wanted.
I was listened to, but not heard. The idea of a diversionary strike on the inner planets of the quargs, intended to cast doubt on the safety of the rear, and to force the enemy to postpone the offensive until the problem is resolved, was rejected. It has been hailed as unrealistic proposition, given the Federations lack of forces even to effectively defend its own systems, let alone a major offensive.
The admirals also had an open skepticism about the surprise attack on the enemys shipyards. Such structures are located in well-protected star systems, where forces sufficient to strike effectively cannot enter without being detected. Consequently, we will have to fight our way there, which means casualties, probably very large.
The meeting was more or less comfortable only with the idea of a reconnaissance raid to find star systems of a potential ally, but I have also been pointed out that there are no ships in the Fleet with the necessary characteristics of invisibility and range.