[jw] Our foreign policy: it hasn't and won't change

Day 2,269, 23:18 • Published in United Kingdom France • by Hell The Great


Since I started playing this game, over 9000 moons ago British foreign policy, whilst often lambasted across the eWorld for its 'backstabs' has, for the large part, been founded upon a rather simple premise. Reciprocity.

Despite it being a really lame term, its actually the best way you can think about UK foreign policy. And it is an incredibly simple process. Firstly, we need to know the 'real story' of our alliance, which involves ensuring some citizens gain access to (by earning it, I should hasten to add) the vaunted halls of alliance HQs.

Once in these so treasured groups, the country is reminded constantly how we have citizens, friends, and input into the decision making processes that rule the eWorld. And as a country, we are one of the few that has had citizens in the HQs of ATLANTIS (Dish, Hassan, GF) EDEN (yours truly, avec h0h0h0), Phoenix (Dish, Hassan, GF, Keers, Woldy), Terra (yours truly, Artela, Thatchykins), ONE (yours truly, Keers, Kravenn, Woldy, Thomas765?), TWO (yours truly, Keers, Kravenn, Thomas765, Bohemond4? and even that crazy ACroc).

Once there, our foreign policy is essentially incredibly easy to define. Successive Governments and Congress's, have since the dawn of time, trusted these vaunted 'few' to scope out a world view, and gently massage the country through upheavals and scandals. And this, is where the UK can stand tall and proclaim success; for a nation that has for years struggled to really make a difference on our own battlefields, we have changed the tide in countless world wars through co-operation with allies, or through running alliances. But what is in it for our country? Quite simply, those 'in the know' are responsible for ensuring that we remain in an alliance, or aligned to nations within that alliance, who we can rely upon absolutely, to reciprocate.

Few countries can hope to boast as many 'in the know' citizens as we have had over the years, and for that, it makes it incredibly easy for me to summarise and outline the changes that have taken place in the 'what' of our foreign policy, whilst at the same time showing that the process, the 'why' or the 'how', has not changed in over 4 years. It is not our foreign policy that changes, but rather, the world that foreign policy operates within.




Is this legit? For sure, let me outline one of the first big changes that took place, our move from PEACE-GC to Phoenix. Now some of you may say that I'm losing my marbles trying to refer to this as a change in the world, but hear me out. PEACE-GC was, by and large, an alliance reliant upon the brute force of Hungary and Indonesia. A strong PEACE, existed largely thanks to the strength of the armies of Hungary and Indonesia. But when that all crumbled down, the world was a hugely different place. Phoenix was founded not to be reliant upon Hungary and Indonesia, but rather, to harness the huge potential of the new big boys on the block, Serbia. So from PEACE-GC to Phoenix saw the first example of my eLifetime, where our foreign policy stayed the same, yet lead to drastic differences at the same time.

Why? Because our foreign policy is by and large, a result of using the connections we have somehow managed to keep 'in the know' to slowly move from one world power, to the next. We had little, if any real connections to Serbia: they were a newer nation, and an even newer world power. At that point, we arguably had a longer history with Croatia from our ATLANTIS days. How then, did a country we had no real knowledge, links or connection with at all, turn into our greatest friends and allies for years?

You'll notice a theme developing here: through our 'in the know' connected citizens within HQs. We went from hardly knowing the Serbs, to some absolutely insane guy lending them thousands of gold to ensure the heavily romanticised battle of Liaoning was won. Because we made a simple bet: a future close to Serbia, is a future full of victory. This is the exact same bet we made when leaving ATLANTIS to join PEACE-GC: a future close to Hungary/Indonesia, is a future full of victory.




So what, pray tell, does this have to do with anything? When we left Terra, we made another of these gambits, and again it was quite simple: a future close to Serbia remains a future full of victory. Except, things changed.

Serbia is udoubtedly, on measures of strength, unmatched across the world. When the country can unite, and everyone is supplying and doing their utmost, they can win what they want to. Except fractures appeared; disagreements and scandals took hold. Serbia on its day, was still undoubtedly unbeatable, except more and more often, there would be days when Serbia was not united, and thus, was beatable. And the point here is one which our most recent governments have been forced to accept; brute power is no longer an assurance of victory. With battle orders, campaigns of the day and non-government MUs, it is no longer the amount of damage which will decide a campaign, but rather, the direction of this damage. Serbia undoubtedly, would rule the world but for these features of eRepublik.

However, they exist, and that lead to the rise of a new world power.




The move from ONE to TWO, much like from PEACE to Phoenix, cemented the position of a new world power. One based not upon brute strength, but rather, a much more efficient, reliable and consistent force; Poland. And thus, our foreign policy continues; a future with Poland, is a future full of victory.

That is why we are where we are today; we are no longer aligned with Serbia. But that is not a result of a drastic change of our foreign policy; indeed our policy has always been consistent. Find a country which not only has the ability to win wars, but also, shows an absolute cast iron hunger to reciprocate.

This is not us choosing the big guys to win our wars for us, but rather, trying to choose the side that we know and trust to put our battles first, when things really matter. Consistently we have chosen wisely, and this time around I believe we have done so again. From my time spent in TWO HQ, it was clear to the world that the alliance may have relied upon the might of Serbia to dominate, but it relied upon the organisation of Poland to exist at all.

In regards to the recent comments about us backstabbing Serbia, Slovenia, I cannot disagree more. There is no animosity in our actions, nor is there anything against your countries. Both nations have been invaluable allies to the UK for some time, and as the aforementioned insane guy who handed over the BoE to Serbia to secure Liaoning, I believe I can easily show I have a history of being sometimes, too pro-Serbia. But the reality of our world forces our hand; every nation has, thanks to facebook ads at least two warring halves, to varying degrees of animosity. The 'bet' our foreign policy has made is that our chances are better off in countries which have managed to keep their military damage consistent even when Presidents, Congress's and Governments want to wipe each other out of existence.



tl;dr Our foreign policy is one based upon finding someone we can hide behind if we need to, but do our utmost to support when we aren't being hit for six just for giggles. There is a difference between treasuring damage, and reciprocity. And by and large, our foreign policy is centred upon this simple premise. We're more than willing to bend over backwards, open up the keys to our treasury (even disgusting swedes), accept time off the map or months on end with no congress, provided that our allies reciprocate these acts of faith by helping us when the time is right.


PS: On a final note in response to the Serbia/Kravenn argument, its an incredibly easy one to understand. The TWO split was not a surprise, indeed when I was SG of the Alliance I was only convinced at the last second not to dissolve it by a close friend. The splits in TWO were drawn many moons ago, and those splits were simple. Poland, Spain and the UK would go one way, Serbia and Slovenia would team with Argentina and go the other. These moves are not a surprise at all, and anyone who claims otherwise is trying to mislead, or has no idea about alliance politics.

So if Kravenn says Serbia didn't invite us, and Serbia says they did, it becomes clear, right? Sure they had to invite us, but they couldn't run the risk of a real invitation being declined (which we were always going to, and the Serbs knew that) Further, it would give us more of an insight into the intentions (in relation to recruiting allies) that Serbia just isn't willing to risk being leaked. So the result is here: both sides want to claim its the other's fault, when in actuality, the only fault is TWO's, for ruling the world for so long, that the only fights left for TWO nations, were diplomatic, internal ones.