Edge of War

Markus:

When I wrote last I had taken the story up to late winter of 2014. Your uncle Josh had just found his way from behind the lines in Vietnam, returning to Hanoi with the help of the CIA and Navy SEALs. He thought he had escaped hell. The truth was, the worst part of his ordeal was just beginning.

I know it’s hard for you to imagine what the world was like in 2014. It’s probably impossible for you to think that the world believed China was innocent of aggression, or that its leader, Cho Lai, wasn’t bent on taking over the world.

How could we have ignored such an obvious threat?

It’s hard to explain, even looking back. People were under tremendous strains. Many of the world’s economies had crashed. There was a great deal of turmoil. Right around the time this happened, there was an election in Italy that saw the Communist Party take control of the government! This was something that had not happened even right after World War II, — when many of the partisans had been Communists. It was an incredible, stunning development. It just showed how crazed people were. The last thing they wanted was trouble with China, let alone a war.

Even America, which had been fortunate to escape the worst effects of the environmental changes, was struggling. China had become an important country financially — the U.S. owed it trillions of dollars. Many politicians were honestly reluctant to anger Premier Cho Lai, worried that he would order Chinese banks to start selling U.S. treasury notes and bonds wholesale. That would have sent interest rates soaring and destroyed our economy.

But many politicians were simply blind. They refused to see the threat, even when it was staring them in the face. Only when their own lives were threatened did they wake up. By then it was too late…