Paladin's Honor

18 January 2010, Day 790 of the New World. Ever since the beginning of the Asian campaign, there has been much ado about American expansion and imperialism. Many of the qualms against imperialism stem from sentiments that have no place in eRepublik. The term is thrown around a lot, likely because of Old World connotations, so let’s clear some things up. First, this is not an argument in favor of imperialism. The creation of an empire is imperialism. To have an empire, you either need to be ruled by someone calling himself an emperor or have some territory that doesn’t belong to you.

eRepublik makes it very obvious which territories are yours and which ones aren’t. There are no historical or ethnographic claims one can fall back on to argument for sovereignty over a territory; each region in eRepublik already has one country that owns it by default. A successful resistance war will always award the region to that country. This makes it very obvious when one country controls another’s territory.



The war module is a major aspect of eRepublik, and each region is a battlefield. With a vacuum of other issues, the primary focus of foreign relations relates to war – forming alliances and coordinating strategy. The New World is divided between two major power blocs, and arguably always has been. Both of these alliances benefit from access to high resource regions, as they fuel their war machines. Not every nation is affiliated one or the other, though, and the list of unaffiliated countries has grown larger since PEACE shed some members to produce Phoenix and since Sol became more prominent. Obviously Phoenix and EDEN will wage war on each other, but I contend that the two alliances interact with neutral nations in a qualitatively different way, and the way one bloc approaches it more strongly subscribes to imperialism.

Hungary holds Heilongjiang without the consent of the Chinese government. Indonesia likewise held Karnataka from India. China and India are not member-states of EDEN, the rival empire to PEACE and Phoenix, so their occupation is not an example of the mutual war waged by the two sides. Hungary and Indonesia are stronger than China and India, and they attempted no other justification for their colonization of the resource-rich regions than that.


Day 747 – the United States plans to stretch from Maine to Zhejiang

The United States now holds territories belonging to other countries. During the first few months of my e-life, that was only a fact for a very short while after conquering Manitoba and then Nunavut from Hungary. Both were promptly returned to Canada in resistance wars started by the enemy as a distraction. The current possession of foreign regions started with Kyushu, Japan, and then our zone of occupation expanded westward into Tibet. We invaded Indonesian-held Xinjiang, and then promptly returned the region to China. From Zhejiang, we swapped our way north to invade Liaoning, which was under Iranian occupation.


Manchuria, Day 683

Iran was a member of PEACE and is now part of Phoenix. During The Invasion, Iran came into possession of Northwest Territory, a high-diamond region. I consider this a more legitimate war of conquest because Canada was a declared enemy nation of PEACE. The Iranian occupation of Liaoning, which only ended with United States intervention, is another story; China was not, and still is not, a member of EDEN. The occupation of their territory is not vengeance for joining a rival superpower but punishment for having high resource regions and being too weak to defend them. War between equal powers is war, but asymmetrical war is essentially empire-building.


The Indian Subcontinent, Day 690

It is no secret that the United States will be keeping Karnataka for more than a transient period of time since capturing it from Indonesia. Trolls and enemy spin-doctors are quick to label this imperialism or, if they have no qualms with imperialism, hypocrisy, as a segment of the United States media proclaims that our cause is for freedom. The critical difference between the Hungarian occupation of Heilongjiang and the United States occupation of Karnataka that they ignore is that we entered Karnataka with the cooperation of the Indian government. We have entered into negotiations with the Indian government for use of the region. The iron we extract from the region will fuel further efforts to liberate other Phoenix colonies, including Heilongjiang.

Phoenix is not simply an alliance opposed to the United States, but the two subscribe to different philosophies in foreign relations and what constitutes success. Phoenix would be content to see the world firmly under their heels, even unaligned countries. We approach international affairs with a respect for others’ sovereignty. Indonesia threatened Japan with annihilation if they did not comply with a land-swap through Kyushu. When the United States attempted the same land-swap, it was only after months of diplomatic efforts. Admittedly, the current administration failed in that endeavor, but it was an endeavor the Indonesians wouldn’t have bothered to undertake.



Our enemies occasionally goad us to admit our imperialism and drop our good-boy routine if we want to be as powerful as we are. We are like the United Federation of Planets – we are a military power but respect unaligned groups and do not resort to wanton empire-building. This is a perfectly sane way to approach foreign affairs, and it will conserve our might to direct towards our real enemies and secure friends and allies for those wars. Being delicate and respectful as we hunt down Phoenix colonies, I argue, produces a better result that thrashing through the globe and makes us a better empire.


Being nice to neutrals doesn’t make the Federation weak.