Chapter 548 European Integration?

In mid-April.

After several years of preparation, the country officially restored the military rank system.

Looking at the list, Liu Tao showed a happy expression.

With their qualifications, they were naturally not enough to be ranked in the first row.

However, with his efforts, the two appeared in the second row of 148 people.

This is definitely a huge improvement for the two.

In addition to Li Fuguo and Zhao Guoping, a total of eleven people from the six combined brigades appeared in the list of 1,300 people.

According to the initial plan, the commander of the combined brigade was awarded the rank of colonel, which is almost equivalent to the rank of a full-division officer.

But now, all of them have been given high ranks.

There is no doubt that this is a reward from the top for the combined brigade, and it is also an affirmation of the efforts of Panshan Group over the years.

And this is an opportunity that only exists now. In the future, there will be no such treatment.

In the future, the commander of the combined brigade will be a colonel, the deputy brigade commander, chief of staff and other regimental-level cadres will be colonels, the commander of the combined battalion will be a deputy regimental-level cadre with a lieutenant colonel rank, and the commanders of other battalions will be battalion-level cadres with a major rank.

As for now, the ranks of the cadres of the six combined brigades are all high-ranking.

Liu Tao did not attend the ceremony of conferring ranks because he was not a soldier.

Even the ceremony of conferring ranks of the six combined brigades, Liu Tao did not attend, but handed it over to Li Fuguo, Zhao Guoping and others to handle. The ceremony of conferring ranks of school-level cadres was presided over and conferred by Li Fuguo, Zhao Guoping and other leaders, and the ceremony of conferring ranks of lieutenant-level cadres was presided over and conferred by school-level cadres.

Just when China restored military ranks, two major events happened in the world.

One major event was the first round of special talks between the United States and the Soviet Union on the elimination of medium-range and short-range missiles in Europe.

Another event was the birth of the European Currency Unit (ECU) coin, marking the entry of the European monetary system into a new stage.

The United States is very active in eliminating medium-range and short-range missiles in Europe, because in Europe, the United States has fallen behind the Soviet Union in medium-range and short-range missiles. It can be said that if they go head-to-head, the Soviet Union will definitely win in the end.

So the United States hopes to reach an agreement with the Soviet Union on eliminating medium-range and short-range missiles in Europe, so that both sides are at the starting line.

Of course, it is not easy for Americans to reach this agreement. After all, the Soviet Union is now caught in an internal power struggle, but the United States is not having a good time either. The situation of the Soviet Union attacking and the United States defending has not changed fundamentally.

Now neither side has exerted its strength in other places, making the world as a whole calm. Except for the ongoing Iran-Iraq War, no other wars have broken out in the world.

It can be said that almost all wars after World War II have the shadow of the Soviet Union and the United States behind them.

The joint cooperation and tit-for-tat between the Soviet Union and the United States directly affect all aspects of the world.

As for European integration, this is the direction that Europe wants to work hard after experiencing World War I and World War II.

After all, Europe was the center of World War I and World War II, which truly turned Europe into ruins. The old world order established by European powers collapsed, and Europe paid a heavy price.

The United States has gradually begun to play a leading role in the international political and economic arena. In 1947, Marshall claimed that the United States would do its utmost to help restore the normal order of the world economy, and proposed the Marshall Plan aimed at rebuilding the European economy and providing economic assistance for Europe's post-war recovery. In terms of economy, European countries established the Organization for European Economic Cooperation at the urging of the United States. Its main role is to coordinate the economic policies of European countries in an effort to achieve free trade among member states. In terms of military, 10 major European countries and the United States and Canada jointly concluded the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949 to strengthen the collective defense of the North Atlantic region and compete with the Eastern European group headed by the former Soviet Union.

Europeans themselves are also actively promoting European integration.

Now the world is very optimistic about European integration, as if it will not be long before Europe will truly achieve integration.

Because now, European integration has made a lot of substantial progress.

Liu Tao knew that the so-called European integration was not so easy to achieve.

Because neither the Soviet Union nor the United States wanted European integration to be realized.

If Europe was truly integrated, it would be almost impossible for the Soviet Union to make any progress in Europe, because after Europe was truly integrated, the population, land area, and economy would be very strong.

The United States would also not be happy to see the real integration of Europe, because if Europe was truly integrated, there would inevitably be economic integration, political integration, and military integration.

European economic integration would result in a unified currency belonging to Europe, which would undoubtedly threaten the position of the US dollar, making other countries have European currencies to choose from in addition to the US dollar for their foreign exchange reserves. Moreover, after European economic integration, the economic scale would even be stronger than that of the United States, and the industrial level would not be inferior to that of the United States.

European military integration would inevitably result in a European army. By then, what reason would the US military have to station troops in Europe?

Liu Tao knew that in the following thirty or forty years, the United States had been playing tricks on European integration, such as attacking the euro and leveraging the situation through geopolitics. Of course, the most amazing thing was that many European officials were originally American citizens, and then quickly became citizens of a European country and served as heads of important departments in Europe.

Under such circumstances, even when Liu Tao left that time and space, Europe had not yet achieved true integration, and even various ridiculous chaos had occurred.

Of course, if Europe truly achieved integration, it would definitely be good for China, and China would definitely be happy to see it.

Because the biggest impact of European integration is not on China, but on the Soviet Union and the United States.

China most hopes that the world will enter a multipolar pattern, because that will give China the largest development space and the most favorable conditions.

As for the one superpower and many strong countries pattern, it is definitely the last thing China wants to see.

Because at that time, the one superpower was not easy to deal with.

"It seems that according to the current situation, it is difficult for Japan to escape the containment of the United States, and the bubble will become larger and larger until it is punctured. In the direction of Europe, I am afraid that West Germany will pursue the unification of Germany in the next step. After all, if Germany is not unified, West Germany alone is not enough." Liu Tao said secretly.

Germany, as a loser in World War II, German territory and Berlin were occupied by the four major powers of the Allies, the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. With the advent of the Iron Curtain, Germany was divided into two, split into East Germany (Democratic Germany) and West Germany (Federal Germany).

Although West Germany is now the world's third largest economy after the Soviet Union, second only to the United States and Japan, as long as Germany is not unified, relying solely on West Germany, the ceiling is still obvious.

One of the important reasons why Germany developed so well in the last life was that it had the entire European Union as its base, so that it could carry out economic cooperation and competition in the world. Even in the entire European Union, Germany surpassed France to become the leader of the European Union.

Liu Tao didn't know whether Germany could be unified again in this life, but given the current situation, it would not be easy to achieve this.