Failure to Launch: Amateur Hour in the White House

Day 2,828, 12:14 Published in USA USA by Derphoof


We were ready, or so we thought…. So we were told.

We were assured that everything had been coordinated and that the chances of success were very good, not simply for the airstrike, but the rest of the campaign as well.

Late saturday night, we were shown the real state of affairs. BeachBunny’s administration was simply not coordinated enough to pull through on the assurances she had made. From the get go, things looked dire. While we would win D4, D1 and D3 went epic and favored the Paraguayans. Not even BeachBunny, dropping over a billion in D3 could salvage the first round. She had no support in the division, as her nearest compatriot only put down 76m in damage. We lost the first round 10-5.

The second round proved no better than the first. While more support showed up across the board, it simply wasn’t enough to overcome the Chileans, who were adamant on us not landing in the region. Our enemies weren’t putting up a fight in D4, but rather pushing the lower divisions to go epic and seal the lead. It worked and set us back further to 22-10.

This trend would continue throughout the first four rounds as we kept winning D4 and losing everything else. I applaud the NSC for working late into the early morning hours and against all odds, but we simply didn’t have the firepower on our side and the CO’s weren’t effective in bringing in enough foreign damage to outstrip the competition. There’s only so much our population can do on a weekend, a low activity time, even in our primetime, against a nation doing so much more damage.

So, what went wrong? Why did we get so roundly beaten when the administration appeared to be so confident?

It’s simple. The administration has a lack of control, leadership, and sound decision making skills.



From the beginning of the term, advisors and the NSC advised both the President and Congress that we do not directly involve ourselves in the South American conflict. Doing so would be a huge mistake that could cost us a lot of money and would have a low chance of success. Considering how Chile was fairly easily defeated in Europe last month, people may think this to be odd advice. How could a nation like Chile suddenly be such a terrible opponent?

The Chilean community had organized incredibly well for the Regiment Rumble competition set up by Plato. During this competition, they came together and gave it their all. Was a lot of money spent to come out on top? Perhaps. However, they earned a magnificent amount of money which would have made them an incredibly tough opponent for anyone in the near future.

It was mainly based on this information that congressional and presidential advisors, like myself, cautioned heavily against going to war in the region. BeachBunny dismissed this as purely “speculation.” Surely enough, our intuitions came to fruition as Chile started outputting a massive amount of damage compared to usual. Carving into Brazil, fighting off Argentina, and going into Peru, Chile was on track to double their weekly output of damage and challenge Serbia for the top spot on the leaderboards. They were simply on a rampage. Attacking Chile would be equal to attempting an attack on Serbia at this time.

Despite this, BeachBunny decided to go into Chile, believing we could overcome this with allied help. This was after exploring other options, as well. No allies were requesting our help, and those who were asked did not want any… The Greek community is having RL troubles and Europe is fairly quiet. That left those in South America. However, they did not come to us. BeachBunny was looking for war and so the administration went and asked them if they would accept our assistance.

Since they did, BB was determined to have war with Chile, and fast.



As such, the proper amount of planning did not go into this operation.

The same mentality and lack of control that is present in the PDB’s translated itself to IRC, where the president displayed a lack of skill in organizing the situation. This was not something discussed by the cabinet over several days, coordinating with allies and MUs to make sure we had support. Instead, it was a hastily drawn up plan as BB desired to get in as quickly as possible, trying to find the shortest route to war. As she had no prior plan, BB essentially had to be coached by advisors and department heads about how to proceed with her desired war.

When discussion moved to congress, the administration did not say much, except that the eAmerican people wanted a challenge, and that we shouldn’t leave allies out to dry. After that, the discussion mainly turned into a petty squabble that threatened to derail the entire discussion and did for quite some time. Many other questions and concerns were raised, fairly and unfairly, that went unanswered partially due to the petty squabbling.

As such, due to the prohibitive cost, the threat of Chile, and lack of confidence in the plan, the vote in congress nearly failed. Though since it was approved by a slim margin, Congress reacted to the spending by initiating a vote on a 93% increase in taxes to 15%. This was due to the fact that we were simply going to war more often than we were in the past. Depending on your view, this may be a good thing or a bad thing. Regardless, this does not happen without the war with Chile. The three months of expensive war prompted congress to raise the taxes to this amount to prevent the steady erosion of the reserves.



BeachBunny ignored the advice of her cabinet and decided to venture off to war, resulting in nothing short of disaster. She did this without much thought as to the cost and the true challenge of the fight she had suggested. This set off the third major conflict for us in as many months, during a month when most advisors thought it best to sit back and recoup. During this time, BeachBunny’s administration has been sorely lacking in activity and effectiveness. Yet, she tried to bring people together and march off to war.

As it turns out, the whole nation did not come out to get behind the effort. This showed on shout-feeds, comments, and on the battlefield. Some of the public was even very displeased with the idea of the war as well as the target. The media did not prepare the nation for war, and official media was not prompted to do so until late friday night. The whole airstrike debacle shows what appears to be the height of ineptitude and ineffectiveness of BeachBunny and her leadership.

Currently, BeachBunny has admitted failure and promised an internal review into how this all went so wrong. Yet, I believe it is obvious to most people that we were simply underprepared and terribly outmatched. Could we have won the airstrike? Possibly. Yet, it’s not possible with the coordination and timing put in place.

This is not to say we should dig ourselves a trench around our border, play defensive, never take risks, and go for “safe” targets. We must simply hold our leaders to a higher standard when they propose these attacks. We must make better decisions about who, what, where, and when to attack. We must make sure the pieces are in place for success. Make sure all of our MU’s are on board. Make sure the country as well as our allies will be on and ready to give full support. We must make sure we are primed for success when we decide to take risks.

BeachBunny often brought up how Tyler’s war against Chile was boring, expensive, and didn’t live up to its promise. This operation was proposed to be just as long and just as expensive, but it didn’t pan out. While Tyler’s war was boring and expensive, at least it got results.

All I see from this administration is a lack of control, planning, and leadership. I’ve still yet to see any results.

BeachBunny is just about halfway through her term. I hope the second half can get some results.