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The main objective of this article is to explain for the Norwegian population the reasons why we don't have a Natural Enemy during the National Shield competition.

Brief explanation about Natural Enemy

As erepublik wiki defines,

"Natural Enemy (NE) is a law that can be used to define the most hated enemy of your country. Every country can have only one natural enemy chosen at a given time. Both congress and president can propose it.
A country may only declare another as its natural enemy if they share a common border."

NE law gives a bonus of 10% for citizens of the declaring country when fighting against the Natural Enemy.

It seems to be a great advantage, much more when we are on a competition of countries. Sure it is. We would be a little bit better if we had a NE. But things are not simply as they seem to be.

Setting a Natural Enemy

In the first day of my government, it was released that in the following day, it would be started the National Shield competition. As an unexperience President, I dedicated the first day to talk to ministers, join in Asgard HQ and other stuffs, without realizing that I should also start conversations with other countries towards setting a NE in the beginning of the competition. This loss of time in the first day was probably decisive... or not??

First attempt: UK

As we already had lost much time, in the second day of my government, the first day of National Shield, it was unanimous in the Congress that we should set a NE and we considered UK the greatest option by that time, because it is a country with which we have good relations and bordered us. I proposed the law and we could hold our votes and wait to vote just after talking to them. The precipitated law proposal was just to gain time. However neither I nor the congressmen realized that UK had already published an article saying that they would NE Germany, since in the day before they had talked about it. We still were close to an agreement, but UK considered they could still lose regions even in a not real war, and they would disrespect Belgium, as the country also contacted them in the they before about it. As they denied Belgium, we should also be denied. So the proposal was taken down. On that day there was some bug in erepublik so just me could vote, congressmen not. That's why we had a 0-1 result. I got in the conclusion however that even if we had talked with UK the day before together with Germany and Belgium, UK would choose Germany in the same way. Everybody agreed in rejecting the proposal then, since we could be attacked by both UK and Germany if we started a war without support of them, and not respecting their agreement.



Second attempt: Lithuania

With our first option discarded, we should try other countries. A congressist had a meeting with Lithuanian CP and Lithuania was not planning to NE us, but they were willing to have a NE battle with us for the 10% dmg bonus. However later they changed their mind and attacking them could be a risk, as we didn't reach an agreement. We NE them, get 10% bonuses and risk to have to no Congress in the next elections, or we keep the way we are? The Congress was divided and certainly the great doubt is if we would have conditions to keep a war with Lithuania or not and if the 10% would be worthy for it. While I was sleeping a new votation started and everybody held their votes. My opinion is that to be approved, this NE should be followed by a deal, because we would be risking to have no Congress. Few hours later, I talked to Lithuanian CP and they didn't want to go ahead in the NE law, however he said we wouldn't be attacked unless we attack first. Summarizing, we would be safe the way it is, or we could risk and NE them. Each Congressist voted of course considering what he thought it is the right thing to do. I recommended them to vote NO and I'm going to explain why in some lines to come. The result was tight, we almost NEd them.



Third attempt: Hungary

I've also tried to talk to Hungarian CP, but I didn't get any answer and it seems Congress was right in not giving any credit to this attempt. For me, this one was the last attempt in the competition.





My position

I took a cautious attitude during all this process. As the President, I don't want to see my country wiped or losing badly a war. If we already have regions, we could help our allies to also have some. We don't get the 10% bonus, which will mean a little bit less gold, but we keep our Congress safe, and fight for Sweden, Finland, Canada, Russia, and the Netherlands for exemple. There are countries that are needing our help in this moment. Asgard is in a bad situation and fighting in RW and other wars is not a scathe. Congressmen can have of course a much more positive attitude and in fact is what Congress decides that defines our country position. As coming from a diplomatic school, I try always to solve the problems with agreements, deals with other countries, never tending to have a risky position. See that I was for many times in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and never in the Ministry of Defense, for exemple. So, I believe that being prudent is really the behavior that I expect from me and Norwegians also could expect. We can be in a war, but I do not intend to fabricate one just for 10% bonus that woudn't bring us so much as it can seem.


What do we do now?

Fight for our allies! Follow Asgard Orders!
http://tinyurl.com/Asgard-Battle-Orders

Norway is in 19th place in the competition and we would be even better if it wasn't the lack of criteria by erepublik team when defining country goals!





Starting the works

After some days organizing the ministries, we will have soon news from ministries of Foreign Affairs, Solidarity and Fun and Games. Check the published articles and be updated!


Per Jostein
Country President of Norway