Chapter 1097 Three-Five Plan

The war on the Pirate Coast was just a minor episode for East Africa. Although the East African army performed poorly, it was also expected by the East African government.

Since the South African War, the East African army has hardly fought for 20 years. Moreover, it is unrealistic to control the situation with just a few thousand people in the desert and on nearly 100,000 square kilometers of land.

In fact, East Africa finally stabilized the local situation by relying on the old method of immigration. East Africa migrated nearly 2,000 people from the Somalia region, with more than 10,000 Far East immigrants, and rebuilt its governance framework in the Beibu Gulf Territory, and relied on these immigrants to support the stability of supply in the later period of the war.

The main thing is to replace the oases, villages and water sources controlled by the original indigenous people. The most important of these is the water source problem. When East Africa did not clear the local indigenous people, these indigenous people would try every means to help the guerrillas, including poisoning the water sources of the East African army.

This forced the early East African army to send troops to guard water sources such as wells, and when the residents were replaced by their own people, East Africa greatly accelerated its control over the local area.

As for the original indigenous residents, they were naturally retaliated by the East African government. They were either eliminated with the resistance organization or left their homes to integrate into other countries and regions.

East Africa's conquest of the Pirate Coast can be said to have relieved the British. After all, with the advantages of weapons and manpower, the East African Army did not show its due advantages, so Britain did not worry about East Africa posing a threat to British colonies such as Qatar and Bahrain.

Britain only provided some insignificant support to the natives of the Pirate Coast in this war. East Africa still fought like this. The poor performance of the East African Army can be said to have provided Britain with a "reassurance".

Of course, Ernst himself believed that the performance of the East African Army was still qualified. After all, this was a battle in a different place. East Africa did not have an intelligence advantage, and guerrilla tactics were very troublesome. East Africa was able to pacify the situation in the Beibu Gulf territory within half a year, which was enough to make Ernst feel satisfied.

Moreover, Ernst believes that East Africa was able to settle the Beibu Gulf territory within half a year mainly because of the small local population. East Africa needs to consider any country with a population of over one million and a certain level of civilization.

In addition, although the troops sent by East Africa to the Beibu Gulf territory this time are elite soldiers of the Northwest Military Region, under the background of East Africa's military reform, this kind of pure infantry and traditional cavalry has actually been marginalized in the East African Army. In order to hide its shortcomings, East Africa cannot send armored forces and motorized infantry to participate in the war, which will easily scare the British in Qatar next door.

Finally, and most importantly, this war of conquest of 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 achieved its own goals with relatively low losses by relying on the hegemony of imperialism, which was originally worthy of East Africa's own celebration.

Of course, Ernst's satisfaction with the results and process of the war does not represent the attitude of the military, especially the participating troops of the Western Military Region. It is conceivable that the East African military will set off a trend of self-examination and self-correction, summarize the experience of this round of war, reshape the 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, the Three Five-Year Plan in East Africa was also underway. Through the previous accumulation and the blessing of the first two five-year plans, East Africa's domestic industry has made great progress and surpassed many former industrial powers, so East Africa's enthusiasm for the Three Five-Year Plan is still unprecedented.

During the Three Five-Year Plan, East Africa formally included the development of light industry in its national development priorities. As the short board of East African industry, light industry has been significantly improved during the Second Five-Year Plan, but overall, it still cannot compete with other industrial countries in terms of quality and total volume.

One of the main reasons for the easing of relations between East Africa and the United Kingdom is that East African industries are different from those of the United Kingdom. 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, East Africa is facing a serious problem in developing light industry, that is, the problem of market commodity differentiation cannot be perfectly solved according to East Africa's plan.

After all, people's needs are different. Take the most basic light industrial products as an example. A skirt, even if it is made of the same material, can be divided into hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of products through cutting forms, colors, thickness, height, width and other characteristics, so as to meet the different needs of each individual.

It is okay in East Africa, and this individual demand can be suppressed temporarily, but once it reaches the international market, people in other countries will not buy the East African government's account, and the monotonous product types are almost difficult to compete with peers.

One of the reasons for this situation is that the East African government's computing power is insufficient. Even if all mathematicians and statisticians in the country are fully invested, it is impossible to complete this workload, not to mention that East Africa lacks advanced and efficient computing machinery.

Therefore, during the Third Five-Year Plan, East Africa's economic policy must make some changes to develop light industry, moderately loosen the economy, and let the market solve this part of the problem.

As a monarchy, East Africa has never rejected the market from the very beginning. The reason why it has coordinated the national economy completely in a 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 is inevitable that it will turn a blind eye to some problems.

Of course, East Africa still needs to make such economic policy changes step by step, and will not be carried out in one step. Just like in the 1990s before East Africa implemented a fully planned economy, it had already conducted experiments, and even from 1896 to 1900 it was even called the "quasi-planned economy era".

At the same time, East Africa's current round of economic policy adjustments is also to connect with foreign investment. If East Africa wants to get more dividends in the possible outbreak of World War I, 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 East Africa's already relatively strong industrial fields can directly compete with other industrial countries, which can also form competition with East Africa's existing industries and prevent East African companies from resting on their laurels.

To give a typical example, why the US civilian shipbuilding industry has been difficult to develop for a long time in the past life is to a certain extent inseparable from the "Jones Act" promulgated by the United States. In the past life, after the end of World War I, the US Congress formally passed the "Jones Act" in 1920, also known as the "Maritime Commerce Act".

The Act stipulates that ships sailing in 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 American citizens, and the crew must be American citizens. Due to the overprotection of the US shipbuilding industry, the Act has turned the US civilian shipbuilding industry into a greenhouse flower, completely losing its global competitiveness.

Of course, the failure of the US civilian shipbuilding industry in the past must be related to deindustrialization and high labor costs, which is almost a common problem in many developed countries in the past.

But the problem is that, except for the era of sailing warships, World War I and World War II, the US civilian shipbuilding industry has been difficult to compete with other countries for most of the time.

Take the present for example, Britain is of course the most developed country in the world, and Britain has vigorously developed the financial industry, making British industry no longer as good as the United States and Germany, but the cost of the British shipbuilding industry is much lower than that of the United States and Germany, monopolizing most 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 opens up some industrial fields, competition will be extremely limited. After all, East Africa's light industry is now too weak, so it still needs continued policy support. Only after the light industry develops to the current level of East Africa's heavy industry can we discuss more market opening issues.