The Effects of Imperialism on Allied Nations

Day 1,273, 23:08 • Published in USA Germany • by Alex Drex
UPDATE: Here's the German translation by MachtGeil, thanks very much to him!
Here is the Croatian/Bosnian translation by Pisoj Zobr. Again, much thanks goes to him!

One often hears about the effects of imperialism, the struggles it brings about, the negative consequences that come from it, etc. However, this familiar story is often told by those fighting for the existence of their own country, or by those fighting for an allied country. In this article, I will examine the effects of imperialism on allied nations. What do I mean by that? Simple. How does one nation's imperialistic tendencies and policies effect their own allies?

I would like to preface this by stating that, even though I am not a blind supporter of any alliance, I will be writing this article from the TERRA/EDEN perspective simply because I am living in a TERRA nation, the United States.

Wars of aggression, wars of revenge, imperialistic wars, etc. are all pretty much the same thing. Imperialism. An attempt to wipe out an enemy for the betterment of the aggressor nation. While we often think about the repercussions of having an imperialistic war for our own country, or for the country facing the aggression, we do not often think of what that means for our allies, and for our overall goal as an alliance. Clearly, the goal of our alliance, like any other, is the defense of the member nations within said alliance. During periods of worldwide conflict, as often occurs in eRepublik, alliances must do their utmost to maintain the sovereignty of all member nations. While this is not always an easy task, it is arguably the only goal of an alliance. Alliances are not created to help perpetuate offensive military action against any nation, even "enemy" countries.

Regardless of the true purpose of alliance foundation, we often see all alliances work together to create a war-machine and set the gear to offensive. This action often has repercussions that are overlooked. Repercussions that hurt, or even severely cripple, our allies. When an alliance is focused on the offensive, it is lacking in the defense department. This leaves the alliance open to assault in other areas, often in countries other than the aggressor country.

Let's look at some recent examples of this. Spain invaded Brazil and the United States, after they had invaded France. The U.S. and Brazil were able to repel the Spanish invasion. In retaliation, they fought back on Spanish soil. At the beginning this was not a problem for one reason: this action was anti-imperialist, not imperialist. You may ask, "how was any assault on a sovereign nation anti-imperialistic rather than imperialistic?" Well, Spain at this point was in control of a large portion of France. The United States and Brazil's attack opened up two more fronts in that war, the war to free France. This distracted Spain from holding their French colonies and allowed them to gain the upper hand in those battles. However, this war became a problem as soon as the last French region was liberated, and it continued. Why? When the war did not end after the liberation of France, it became a war of revenge. One can argue that other nations are oppressed by allies of Spain, and attacking them opens a front to help free those nations who are oppressed by the Spanish Allies. However, I would argue that that is not a sound enough reason. That's like kicking the friend of the guy who punched you.

Now you're thinking, "well, they invaded our allies, they deserve it." To that I respond with another question, "do our allies deserve it?" To which you may ask, "deserve what?" Well, I'll show you.


While the U.S.A. and Brazil are busy invading Spain,


Germany is occupied by Poland and Sweden.


While Croatia and Bulgaria were so determined to erase Serbia, and Croatia occupies Montenegro,


Italy is entirely occupied by Macedonia and Slovenia.


While Greece is hellbent on expanding its empire in Egypt and Saudi Arabia,


Australia is facing another Indonesian occupation.


While Russia is fighting with the Baltic nations,


The Ukraine is being invaded by Turkey.

As these countries all focus on attacking their "enemies," their allies face assault. Because the other nations within the alliance are busy attacking, there's not adequate defense put up for almost all of the attacked or oppressed allies. But wait a minute! I thought the purpose of an alliance was to defend its members?

Furthermore, there are neutral countries that are being occupied by ONE and its allies, such as Switzerland, the Netherlands, the Philippines, and Malaysia, that might otherwise receive some help from TERRA/EDEN if we weren't fighting our own imperialistic wars.

Also, while articles like this one are nice they are a bit contradictory, too. This article claims that TERRA will launch a "holy war" against Sweden and Spain and then free Germany. We can clearly see that if you want to free a nation, attacking another one is just about the worst way to do that, unless that other nation is directly (not indirectly) oppressing the one you wish to free. To be fair, Sweden does have one German region, but it makes far more sense to just RW that region back to Germany, rather than launching a "holy war" against them. Let's not forget that Germany's faced Polish aggression for quite some time now, and TERRA has yet to provide any real support for them. I'm wondering, how long must we wait until TERRA "liberates the Fatherland" if it's taken this long to be acknowledged as a problem? If TERRA were to focus entirely on defense, then it is likely that we could see some advancement in the liberation of Germany happen quite soon, if not immediately.

Based on this analysis, I conclude that imperialism not only hurts those who are being attacked by an imperialistic country, but it also hurts the allies of an imperialistic country. I think it's reasonable to argue that if the U.S. and Brazil (and other TERRA forces) weren't focused on invading Spain, Germany is not occupied, or at least is able to gain back a majority of its regions and put up an actual resistance. What does this evidence lead me to believe? Quite clearly, it proves that we should not operate as an imperial nation. Our duty is to the protection of our country, and our allies; not to the destruction of our enemies. Imperialism is not only a harmful force to fight against, it's a harmful force to fight WITH. In order to fulfill our duty to our alliance, and our allies, we must cease fighting in wars of aggression.

Finally, I must again say that I wrote this from the view point of TERRA/EDEN because I'm an American citizen, and the US is a member of TERRA and works closely with many EDEN nations. The same things I've spoken about in this article can also be seen on the opposite side of the war, ONE's side.


Freedom Writers

Thanks for reading, and I hope you've enjoyed this article, and perhaps learned a little something about the dangers of imperialism! For the few people out there who enjoy reading what I write, sorry it's been so long since I've written something.

Until next time,
Alex Drex
Commander of the Socialist Freedom Party Bear Cavalry
Revolutionary Committee Member
Freedom Writer