48: military contractors

Senator McConnell and a group of senior Democratic Party officials beside her were equally grim-faced.

They had anticipated resistance from the other side, but they had not expected it to be so resolute, so swift, and so uncompromising.

This was no longer a political demonstration.

This was a naked declaration of statehood, a most direct betrayal of her as interim president and the entire federal government.

"Treason! This is treason!" Miles jumped up from her chair, almost screaming, her well-maintained face twisted with extreme rage. "How dare they... how dare they split our great nation!"

Less than an hour after the declaration was issued, Miles immediately summoned all the cabinet members and media advisors who still listened to her and held an emergency press conference with extremely tough wording in the press briefing room of The White House.

"Just a few hours ago," she stood behind the podium, facing cameras from around the world, her voice trembling slightly with anger, "a small group of political opportunists led by Elon, bought off by foreign powers and evil tech oligarchs, publicly made statements to split the country. This is the most shameless trampling on the Constitution of the United States, and the most vicious betrayal of all citizens who love this country!"

"I hereby solemnly declare to the whole world in the name of the interim president of the United States and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces:"

"Any attempt to split our country will be regarded as rebellion!"

"For these rebels," her eyes flashed with a crazy and dangerous light, "we will take the most extreme and toughest measures to crush them completely!"

"America, will never allow division!"

Her words were tantamount to an undisguised declaration of war.

However, hidden behind her seemingly tough stance was a hint of undeniable weakness.

Because she knew very well that the "America" she could command was no longer that complete superpower with unrivaled power.

The division of the country also brought about the splitting of military power in two.

Within hours of the publication of the "Sacramento Declaration," a fierce process of taking sides and splitting began within America's massive global military machine.

The vast majority of combat troops stationed overseas—such as the main army and air force units stationed in Europe, the Middle East, and Japan and South Korea—chose to continue to obey the Washington federal government, which represented "orthodoxy."

For these troops far from the mainland, deeply influenced by traditional military ideology, breaking away from the federal government was an unimaginable act of treason.

But the situation was not one-sided.

The Third Fleet, stationed at the San Diego Naval Base in California, this powerful fleet responsible for guarding the U.S. West Coast and the eastern Pacific waters, announced its allegiance to the newly established American Union at the first opportunity.

Their reason was simple—their families, their roots, were all in California.

Several air force wings stationed at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, with the most advanced fighter jets such as the F-35 and F-22 as their main force, also chose to support the American Union.

The technological power of Silicon Valley and the air force bases in Nevada had always had intricate and close ties.

Not to mention those strategic missile forces scattered across western states, holding a large number of nuclear missile silos; although they did not immediately make a clear statement, that ambiguous silence was in itself a most powerful deterrent.

Overnight, the U.S. military, which had once made the whole world tremble, was forcibly torn in two.

An angry Miles and the interest groups behind her became even more hysterical after realizing that they did not have an absolute military advantage.

They immediately demanded that the Department of Defense formulate a military operation plan codenamed "Hammer."

The core of the plan was simple—without using nuclear weapons first, they must launch a lethal lightning strike against the American Union with thunderous momentum in the shortest possible time, destroy its command center (that is, Elon himself), disintegrate its military power, and thereby end this "rebellion" in the shortest possible time.

Thus, in the following weeks, the atmosphere across the entire North American continent became extremely tense.

The military forces belonging to the Federal United States began large-scale and frequent movements.

The Second Fleet, stationed on the East Coast, began to assemble toward the Panama Canal, preparing to detour into the Pacific.

The army armored divisions stationed in the central region began to advance toward the state borders of Colorado and Arizona.

Countless strategic bombers and transport aircraft began to take off and land frequently at major air force bases.

An unprecedented war was on the verge of breaking out.

The division of the United States was like a magnitude 12 super earthquake, instantly attracting the attention of the whole world.

Although the major powers had already sensed that something big was about to happen in the United States after the assassination of President Donald.

But no one expected this change to come so quickly and so violently.

In just a few short months, this once arrogant superpower had collapsed amidst chaos and clamor, just like that massive red giant more than thirty years ago.

Moreover, the two sides of the split were at daggers drawn and about to clash with weapons.

This dramatic turn of events made almost everyone's jaw drop to the ground.

After the initial shock, media and netizens around the world broke into extremely heated discussions.

The British BBC commented in its usual calm and slightly sarcastic tone: "History is always surprisingly similar. The decline of an empire often does not stem from external enemies, but begins with internal decay and division. We seem to be witnessing the end of an era with our own eyes."

Russia's "Pravda" made no secret of its schadenfreude: "We said long ago that the hegemony built on capital greed and hypocritical democracy is destined not to last. Now, they have finally tasted the bitter fruit they brewed themselves."

And Chinese newspapers published an editorial with neutral but profound wording: "We respect the choice of the American people themselves, and hope that both sides can maintain calm and restraint, and resolve internal differences through peaceful dialogue. A stable and prosperous America is in the interest of the whole world."

On the Internet, the reactions of netizens were more direct and unrestrained.

"My god! 2030 is too magical! First there are aliens coming, and now a U.S. civil war!"

"Elon is awesome! He directly pulled 23 states to declare independence! What kind of chosen one script is this!"

"Feel sorry for the American people for one second, and then... hahahahaha!"

"So the question now is, if Federal United States and the American Union go to war, who should we support? Waiting online, it's quite urgent!"

In this global frenzy of spectators, some ambitious people with keen instincts suddenly realized that a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity had quietly arrived.

The United States, this former world policeman, had in the past few decades been constantly provoking regional conflicts around the world to maintain its own hegemony and reap benefits.

But its powerful military presence had objectively maintained order and stability in most regions, allowing many potential conflicts to be suppressed in their infancy.

And now this aging lion king was too busy with internal strife to look elsewhere, and it no longer had the power to maintain its influence around the world.

Thus, those long-suppressed ambitions and desires began to sprout wildly in every dark corner of the world like poisonous mushrooms after rain.

In a certain Middle Eastern country, a dictator who had long coveted the rich oil resources of his neighbor began to secretly send more troops to the border.

In a certain part of Africa, two warlords who had long-standing grudges due to tribal and religious conflicts took their long-rusted AK47s out of the warehouse again.

Even in the seemingly calm Southeast Asia, a certain country began to make restless moves, trying to challenge the long-established maritime boundaries.

The order of the whole world began to show signs of collapse after losing its only "foundation stone."

Faced with such a situation that was about to spiral out of control, the United Nations Security Council urgently convened a closed-door meeting.

And at this meeting, the Chinese Representative dominated the entire agenda with an unprecedented tough stance.

"Gentlemen," the Chinese Ambassador to the United Nations stood at the podium, his voice steady and powerful, "we can no longer rely on that country which has fallen into division to maintain world peace. The United Nations must take action!"

"We propose to immediately dissolve that inefficient, power-restricted, and long-defunct United Nations peacekeeping force."

"Instead," he looked around at the representatives of the other four countries present, and threw out a proposal that shocked everyone.

"We will exclusively contract all future United Nations peacekeeping and humanitarian relief operations authorized by the Security Council to a capable, powerful, and neutral third-party entity in the form of a contract—"

"Paradox Technology."

As soon as this proposal was made, the entire conference room fell into a brief silence.

Let a commercial company take on the heavy responsibility of maintaining world peace? This sounded like a fantasy.

But everyone knew that Paradox Technology was not an ordinary commercial company.

The Russian representative was the first to express cautious support: "This proposal is bold, but not unreasonable. The military strength and global deployment capabilities demonstrated by Paradox Technology in combating Middle Eastern terrorist organizations last year are indeed impressive."

The British and French representatives also indicated that they could consider it after a brief discussion, but the premise was that a strict supervision mechanism must be established.

This was a result that Lei Wen had already finalized after several rounds of secret discussions with the highest levels of the four permanent member states (except for the United States, which had fallen into paralysis) through the white flower.

Lei Wen showed them the muscles of Paradox Technology that were enough to make any country feel awe.

The completion of the voyager starship had irrefutably demonstrated the miraculous industrial capabilities of Paradox Technology.

The white flower's ubiquitous information infiltration demonstrated its absolute dominance in network and intelligence warfare.

And to put these politicians completely at ease, Lei Wen even exclusively showed them through encrypted video his [Velociraptor] combat robot legion hidden underground in Tianqiong City and tens of thousands of armed drones of various models.

That steel legion, as neat as a science fiction movie and filled with the cold beauty of killing, dispelled their doubts about the strength of Paradox Technology, while also casting a shadow of uncontrollable power over their heads.

After showing his muscles, Lei Wen threw out a "carrot" that could not be refused.

He promised that Paradox Technology would engage in deeper technological cooperation with the four countries, including but not limited to selling them advanced weapon technologies and cooperating to build super data centers driven by [Apocalypse] optical quantum computers within each country, and providing a large number of high-end chips with precision exceeding physical limits at low prices.

These high-value technology cooperation and engineering construction contracts were an irresistible temptation for any country.

Finally, after some symbolic discussion, this proposal named "Proposal on the Reform of the United Nations Global Security Action Framework" was passed in the Security Council with an overwhelming majority of votes.

The main content of this proposal had only one point:

The United Nations would formally authorize Paradox Technology and its subsidiary, Global Defense Solutions Company (referred to as GDS), as the only designated global security contractor for the United Nations Security Council, responsible for executing all authorized peacekeeping, counter-terrorism, and humanitarian relief missions.

From this day on, Paradox Technology officially transformed from a commercial giant into a super-sovereign "world policeman" with legal authorization from the United Nations in the eyes of the world.

Lei Wen finally brought the power in his hands from the shadows to the front of the whole world.

And on the same day, all the personnel for the biological laboratory that Lei Wen established next to Dikuili University of Science and Technology were in place, and research work could officially begin immediately.

That blood orchid, which his parents had entrusted someone to send back to the country, had a little accident on the way, but thanks to the efforts of the white flower, it was finally delivered to Lei Wen in good condition.