While Robert and Lazuli dealt with the trouble, Lind was reviewing intelligence sent by the officers he had planted within the Marines.
When Lind learned that the Marines had essentially adopted a hands-off approach to the West Blue, one thought immediately sprang to mind: Turn up the pressure.
The West Blue was already such a mess that a little more chaos would hardly matter. Besides, chaos was perfect for fishing in troubled waters.
In this world divided by the Calm Belt and the Red Line, every sea had far too many local power brokers. There were bound to be plenty more like Saligei and the Second Treasure Navy.
If Lind wanted to establish a real foothold in the West Blue, he had to deal with them.
But taking them out one by one would attract far too much attention. It would be better to muddy the waters until those local powers had their hands too full to respond.
The final step would be to overturn the board and reshape the West Blue's power structure. Then the people Lind had planted would naturally fight their way out of the chaos and become the new local powers.
Still, controlling the scale of the chaos was crucial. It could not exceed what the Marines and the World Government were willing to tolerate, or they would intervene directly, which would be bad.
Lind needed to think this through carefully.
Based on his experience across two lifetimes, the World Government and the Marines probably did not set the bar very high. Otherwise, a system like the Shichibukai would never have appeared in the original story.
As far as the World Government was concerned, all that mattered was that the number of affiliated nations did not fall too sharply and that the heavenly tribute kept flowing.