MoFA [Week 1]: "Tangled hierarchies and other usual affairs"

Day 1,650, 21:54 • Published in Canada Canada • by Plugson

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"Le tenebre fuggian da tutti lati,
e ’l sonno mio con esse; ond’ io leva’mi,
veggendo i gran maestri già levati.

«Quel dolce pome che per tanti rami
cercando va la cura de’ mortali,
oggi porrà in pace le tue fami»."

Purgatorio, Canto XXVII
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Article Video: "Pig in the Middle & other sexy affairs"

Hello eCanada,

Today marks the third week of my time working as Minister of Foreign Affairs under the supervision of Sperry. Again, it’s been a fairly quiet week since there have been few MPPs to renew and limited work to be done among the alliances. There were no T/EDEN summits this week to report on (even then, nothing can be publicized about those meetings anyhow).


Embargoes, MPPs, and other meat of the potatoes

Embargoes are being tracked in the CICERO spreadsheet that Sperry set up. The MoFA has little to do with prepping for each proposal, so Sperry does all the work/button pushing while I report it here. I cannot document the economic consequences of an embargo against players in an enemy nation, except to say “It just feels good.”

Embargoes:
May 27 – Pakistan
May 26 – Spain
May 25 – Sweden
May 24 – Poland
May 23 - Hungary

Mutual Protection Pact Proposals:
May 25 – Russia
May 25 – Albania
May 23 – Singapore (failed)
May 22 - Cyprus

While it may seem like not many MPPs were created this week, it’s mainly due to the fact that many came at the beginning of the month and many will come due at the end of the month. That’s just how the spread works.

The only interesting thing to report was an MPP proposal with Singapore. Their CP approached us wanting to set up an MPP. The Singapore CP made the proposal and 23 out of 27 of our Congressmen voted “Yes” to it. Strangely enough, the MPP failed to pass. Why? Well, it seems that Singapore has only 1 active Congressman at times and he failed to show up that day. So with a 0 “Yes” and 0 “No” vote in Singapore Congress, the MPP was not passed. No big loss there and no real consequence to eCanada. Just an amusing story, that’s all.

I saw one Congressman comment that with recent MU funding cutbacks that we should consider limiting the number of MPPs issued. I’ll bring this issue forward to Sperry and in Congress to see if this is a valid concern and/or solution. To be honest, I think a little trimming in eCanada would do some good overall.

Natural Enemy Proposals:
May 26 – United Kingdom (still in vote, will not pass, read report below)
May 23 – Hungary

As you may recall, eCanada made an attempt to NE Hungary when they occupied the French region of Brittany, which borders Nova Scotia. While eCanada was prepared to enter into a war with Hungary to help our allies and bring some True Patriot fun to our players, Hungary opened up a Resistance War and then tanked to lose the region. As such, even though the proposal passed, we lost our front with Hungary and so the NE proposal could not pass despite being voted in favour of.


The Irish-UK Treaty, and an accidental UK-Natural Enemy proposal

Today, the United Kingdom began its ‘attack’ on Irish region of Dublin after passing a Natural Enemy proposal yesterday. eCanada will not be supporting Ireland in the battles since Ireland is meant to lose these battles as part of a treaty presented over 2 months ago (Day 1,586). The reason why it has taken so long for the treaty to be put into action was partly due to eCanada’s and eUSA’s invasion into the eUK, as well as Ireland’s venture into the German-designated regions of Denmark (they still hold Nordjylland), which they defended in a strong Sebian-led RW today.

The terms of the treaty are presented here in an article by UK’s former CP, Talon Karrde, “Peace Be With You” and then backed up with a release by the current UK CP, “A Glorious Sunshine Shall Rise Over Dublin.”

Basically, Ireland gets to keep the UK region of Scotland and the UK region of Northern Ireland while the UK gets to keep the Irish regions of Dublin and Louth. Plus, there will be some form of an agreement of peace between the two nations. I’m interested to see how this treaty influences relations not only between Ireland and the UK, but also with UK and other EDEN nations. Keep in mind eCanada is under no obligation to remain peaceful to the UK during or after the region swaps. Even some Irish are have many questions regarding the treaty and that its terms/methods may not have been so clearly communicated to the general population, which you can read all about in the comments of this article: “lol silly Libertard.”

EDIT: A great summary was recently published here ~
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-seanan-everything-you-need-to-know-ire-uk-treaty-2046196/1/20

So what does this treaty mean to eCanada? Not much if we are following the current administrations aims of securing war on another front beyond the typical UK invasion. If anything, it proves that Ireland, like eCanada, is growing weary of the old back-and-forth and wants to venture into new territory/gameplay.

It also means that eCanada should support Ireland (an EDEN ally) in making the peace treaty go through with ease. Our surprise NE proposal against the UK could have complicated that process if it were passed, since the UK would then have another war to contend with as it began its region swaps with Ireland. UK thinks we’re morons anyhow for spending hundreds of Gold to attack them in a three-day war, so harm there. Yet, we don’t want EDEN HQ to look at us as the sorry excuse of a nation they thought we have been in the past. If we determine at some point that new UK-Irish relations put constraint upon eCanada’s interests, then we should deal with it directly by speaking to Irish leadership and EDEN HQ. Firing off surprise NEs proposals won’t get us any further ahead, since the allies that we can rely on around us will only end up looking at eCanada as a loose canon. If we do want to make great changes to our relations with nations around us, let us at least be up front with those intentions and express why we’ve made those choices. For example, I may as well tell you now that eCanada is funny case when it comes to alliance allegiances and war demands among our own people. It’s something I’ve come to call Bacon in the Middle…


The T/EDEN Burger: Bacon in the middle, with extra MPPs, hold the strategy

Lately, it has been expressed to me that eCanada should play a role of supporting its allies by directing its damage into battles fought by EDEN and TERRA members. When you are in an alliance, this makes perfect sense. When you are in two alliances, this also makes sense, just not perfectly. The great news is that we have access to so many MPPs that we will never be short of battles to fight in, and we should have a great supply of assistance to come our way when we enter into a serious campaign against a serious foe (sorry, UK…you do make a good enemy with production benefits, yet you’re just not that sexy anymore…maybe we should, y’know see other people now that you’re hanging out with Ireland anyhow).

The trick is getting allies to support your war ambitions. I’m not just talking about convincing them to set eCanada’s campaign as higher priority on the roster of T/EDEN battles. I’m talking more about getting them to approve the strategy necessary to simply get an NE started that would let us fight an opponent other than the UK. It does require more than a Congressman or CP proposing an NE to start a war with a new opponent. Actually, it doesn’t, but rather, it takes more than a simple NE proposal to get us a war campaign that our allies with back us on. eCanada could have chosen to ‘go it alone’ against another ONE nation, yet complications arose with alliance hierarchies. Or rather, complications arose out of competing alliance hierarchies that have separate sets of treaties and different plans of attack.

eCanada may have a whole host of MPPs to buffer us, yet it also has two sets of alliance HQs to negotiate with. But what if one says “No” to a plan of attack while the other is relying on you open up a new front on an enemy as part of a coordinated attack among several or more nations…Well, you had better show up on the battlefield when that time comes, yet eCanada, quite simply, failed to do that on 2 separate occasions this past month. I can tell you that it was not eCanada’s leadership failing to see the plan of attack before us, but rather we failed to negotiate between two separate sets of alliance superstructures to pursue our own True Patriot aims and also support of an ally under ONE occupation. Yeah, we continue to play on the sidelines supporting T/EDEN because there is too much redtape keeping us from charging into the fray. Paring down those tangled branches that hold us back is no easy task. Perhaps a CP like Rylde or Acacia believes that a quick-fire solution would bring the fun to our players, yet it could also bring damage to eCanada's reputation among the allies it wishes to hold onto. Repositioning eCanada on the gameboard will require a more subtle approach. Perhaps more of that will be discussed in my final MoFA Week 4 report.


Media tidbits and treats, battles & rookie reports

I’d like to end off this week’s update with some media treats that I came across while looking for more details on battles and international relations. What surprises me is that both war analysts are rather new players and quite new to the media scene. I highly suggest you sub the papers to these two promising correspondents if you want to keep track of some current events across the New World.

Shoi12 (May 15, ’12) ~ A Rookie’s Foolish Ideas ~ eCanada
~~“Weekly Power Rankings #1; Resurgent Turkey”
(sounds like a case of indigestion to me)
~~“Around the World #1; Who won this week?
(quite a fantastic analysis of the losers vs losers of major battles around the New World)

Hale26 (Jan 11, ’12) ~ The Stairway ~ eUSA
~~“WORLD WAR NEWS -DAY 1648 : The America's Edition”
(a nice overview from a TERRA ally’s perspective,)

Proponent (May 8, ’12) ~ eUK ~ The New Link
~~“The Past Few Days for eSlovenia”
(not directly relevant to eCanada, yet I do like his presentation)
~~“The UK is now Canadian free”
(more directly relevant to eCanada, and still a good presentation, always good to keep your eyes on ONE propaganda)

If you have any other people you are subbed to that you think present great articles on international affairs, please post a link to their profile, paper, or article here so that I can check out what they have to offer.

Cheers and play safe, eCanada (you know we always do…)

Plugson
Minister of Foreign Affairs for eCanada, May ‘12