On Austria And EDEN

Day 860, 14:03 • Published in USA Austria • by Rangeley


With Austria on the verge of losing it's last region, there are some things that I feel need to be said.

It has been argued that it is justified to do the things that have been done to Austria - to invade it, to take it over, to destroy our only hospital, to steal our treasury - if, in the end, it can lead to the liberation of the Heilongjiang region of China. But there is something inherently flawed with this concept; that one nation deserves to be free, while another does not. That one nation can determine the uses of its own regions, while another cannot. And that to achieve an "ends," it is justified to destroy and occupy as the "means." This last concept should look familiar. After all, this is the justification that Hungary uses to remain in Heilongjiang.

In neither case - Austria or China - is the occupation itself truly the end goal. Rather, the occupation is done for the strategic benefit - the things that possession of the regions can bring them, such as a stronger position in the geopolitics of this game. While we have been told by Croatia that this invasion of us is different, ultimately, it's the same concept. A large, powerful nation, telling a smaller unaligned nation that it is going to take their regions for a time that they - the larger nation - determines, for their own strategic benefit.

Just as with Hungary and China, Croatia did not receive our consent, but went forward with their invasion regardless. They didn't just seek the quickest route through - they purposely targeted our capital, and hospital region, as a message to us that our decision would cost us. We were threatened that we would have to pay 300 gold per region, to return on the map, if we did not change our mind. And when we didn't, and their invasion became bogged down, they threatened to stay in Austria and never surrender their holdings, "eternally," as a lesson against us for not simply conceding our regions to them as they wanted.

And after they finally lost this region to a successful counterattack, some weeks later, Austria was the target of a PTO with the election of a President who stole the treasury, and retreated half the nation to Poland - again, unnecessarily destroying our hospital which we had just purchased to replace the previous. And now, the invasion of a battered Austria nears it's completion with the fall of Vorarlberg imminent. The ends - a planned Chinese liberation - has come with a virtual decimation of Austria as the means.

If you wish to take the point of view that wrongs will always be committed, and that there is no reason to not also participate in these wrongs, then I suppose this is something you can do. You can concede that both superalliances are, in the end, pretty much the same except for the nations in them. That one is ultimately no more justified than the other. That the talk of liberation, defense, and moral superiority is all just talk. That you're fine with it, and that it's good enough for you.

But it doesn't have to be. And frankly, I don't think it should be.