[Lonqu] Foreign Affairs for Dummies

Day 2,318, 14:57 Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom by Lonqu



Hello.

This is a republication of an article I once wrote – thankfully, I was able to retrieve it due to a friend having translated the original for publication in Russia – the Russian translation can be found here. The original was published at the request of one of my eIndian friends (sadly now long dead) who I was trying to introduce to Foreign Affairs. I am republishing this article as part of an effort to bring my newspaper to life once more.

This article is, basically, a simplistic tutorial or crash course in foreign policy. You can either agree with my views, or not – at least it will further debate, which is good. xD Some points may seem obvious, some not so, but I simplified the article for the sake of brevity.



Preface
My experienced ex-mentor, a former MoFA of eIndia, Sir Valaro Volcrum (now known as Alexander Valkor II) – who I will hereby from now on abbreviate to SVV – once wrote an article about ‘soft’ power and ‘hard’ power about two to three years ago. I will argue that those concepts are still applicable and relevant to the current world scene, though I will speak mostly of soft power. The eUK is renowned worldwide for its capacities for ‘soft power’ – for example, we have the famous Iain Keers. 😃 Our ‘hard power’ is OK, but not great, and I do not have particular ideas of how to fix this.

SVV was an ardent supporter of this theory, which I was nurtured in when I first started out three years ago, and I think it still works. Some argue that diplomacy and foreign relations are not even close to the significance that is given to military action - and it is simply used as an excuse (casus belli, if you wish) for a declaration of war and also as a medium for peace treaties.

It's fair to say that many wars arise with serious diplomatic situations as the excuse, but I still strongly disagree with this point of view. The fact that this game is about war, by contrast, gives more importance to diplomatic relations and ‘soft’ power, especially in terms of agreements, alliances and strategy (well, whatever strategy is left in this game). And that's why the Ministry of Foreign Affairs plays an important role in any government.


The view of no-one EVER ...



Do and Don’t
Originally this section was to be basic guidance for my friend. But when I originally decided to write and publish this article, I converted it into a list of what to do and what not to do. Of course, this little guide is not intended to be exhaustive, and does not serve as a list that will cover every situation without fail, so you may eventually need to adapt it to the situation every now and then.

Do: keep abreast of world events. A good start would be to subscribe to the newspapers of the main alliances (Sirius, Aurora etc.), and perhaps the newspapers of some presidents and foreign ministries. Awareness of the situation is the key to success in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – you can better react to whatever situations which arise, and your 'soft' power will be used as efficiently as possible. Many times during my diplomatic career in eIndia, I came across diplomats who had no idea what was going on or of a particular relevant event, nothing whatsoever. In principle, it would be best if such embarrassing situations were avoided. This leads to: -

Don’t: enter the discussion entirely ignorant of the situation (obviously). I strongly recommend you publish articles periodically about the foreign policy situations in the world, or at least keep notes. I used to manage to stay in the loop thanks to this approach, though not so much now.

Don’t: ignore or be disdainful of your allies, but at the same time, Don’t: be a puppet in their hands. In general, be constructive and, at the same time, be helpful - the interests of the alliance need to be appreciated as well as your own. Be loyal, but at the same time, if you really need to, do not be afraid to challenge your allies and ask questions if necessary. However, most importantly, do not overdo it. For example, at the time of the publication of the original article, eTurkey was considered spineless and disloyal due to their actions in the past, despite their efforts. Another example is the breakdown in the relationship between eBulgaria and EDEN – neither side was ready for a constructive dialogue. Relationships take a long time to build, but with careful nourishment they will bear rewards in time.

Do: promote respect for your nation. As he wrote in his article, SVV argued that respect is key to the growth of your diplomatic influence, and thus your "soft" power. If any government does not have much respect on the diplomatic stage, it does not have much ‘soft’ power.

Don’t: be rude and/or tactless, even if you can’t stand the other guy. For example, eCroatia once invited Indian diplomats to a channel called #jebeskrave for negotiations last year. Jebeskrave (my spelling might be wrong) means f*ck cows in Croatian. I'm sure you can imagine what this led to, despite Croatian protests that they were in fact referring to the ingame resource, cattle, rather than the sacred Indian animal. Once again, tact is very important in diplomacy.



Hopefully, this wall of text will be useful, if you have even read it at all... Again, it was conceived as a simple analysis, so I apologize in advance for any inaccuracies or inconsistencies.

Lonqu.