The Economist ~ On the expulsion of USA from Sirius

Day 2,383, 10:49 Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom by Spite313




Dear friends,


I owe an explanation for the recent events in eRep, and I will get to the exact circumstances of the event which led to the USA being expelled from the alliance. To begin with though, some background.


When Sirius was forming, USA was always a candidate for membership. I worked closely with their leaders, and despite past issues we had built up a mutual trust and friendship which I felt was a strong basis for an alliance. The USA made it very clear that they were aware of past foreign affairs mistakes, but that was all in the past. They proved that time and again as the alliance was formed and successive US governments were both friendly and supportive of allies. I give particular mention to Artela and WildOwl who were omnipresent in government, communicating with the alliance.


This month however this was not the case. From the off, communication with the American government has been non-existent. We have had no contact with the government through in game media, forums or IRC except during the weekly meetings. No plans were shared or followed by the USA. I put the blame for this at the feet of the President, MollyEmma, who seems inactive and passive-aggressive about defending her inactivity. I’ve spoken to her half a dozen times this month at most, and usually to complain about her attitude towards the alliance, which has been distant at best.





The Timeline


The events leading to the bust up last night began with the invasion of Argentina by Spain. This move was taken by Spain because at the time Brazil, also a member, was occupied by Argentina with no apparent means of escape. The plan was that Spain would attack, opening a second front and freeing Brazil. That plan spectacularly backfired, and Brazil eventually left the alliance and then backstabbed Spain by MPPing Argentina, the country Spain kamikazi’d to help Brazil.


With Spain wiped, the priority then became freeing them. It was clear to everyone that the only country capable of doing this was the USA, as they were the only nation with a border. When this was first pointed out to Molly in chat, she became very aggressive and insinuated that she would not help Spain because Poland had been in talks about an unrelated NAP. In fact her response on whether USA would consider helping Spain was “No”, with the reasoning that they would be looking to their own security. Obviously this was a terrible attitude, and was compounded further when a few hours later the USA NE’d Canada, meaning freeing Spain before congress was now impossible.


As a result of this negative attitude, I called an emergency meeting the following day. In this meeting we again asked Molly what her reasoning was not to support Spain. After a heated argument, she backtracked and said that she would support Spain in a direct war if all allies supported her. Every country in the alliance promised full support, even if that cost bonuses or loss of core regions, because for us freeing Spain was a strategic necessity. Molly agreed that as soon as the Canadian war was over, she would launch NE against Argentina in combination with RWs from Spain.


The next step in this saga came a few days later, when the Canadian NAP/peace treaty was signed between USA and Canada. Molly did not inform any other Sirius country about this NAP, and the HQ found out about it by reading the media. Sirius had a full alliance meeting the previous day, and when asked whether there was anything to report, USA mentioned several issues but the concept of a Canadian NAP was never raised, despite the fact talks had apparently been going on for some time. After the NAP was signed, I asked Molly why she hadn’t bothered to tell us about it despite the fact it is required for all NAPs to be approved by HQ and by members. She said that the reason it wasn’t brought up at the meeting is that the other USA reps had not been informed it was going to happen, and “I am president and they wouldn;t have been authorized to talk about it regardless” (a direct quote). She didn’t offer any excuse for why she hadn’t herself brought it to us.


The following day, Molly published a NAP with Argentina in the media. Again we had heard nothing about it, and Molly had not mentioned it despite the fact that we had a fight about this exact topic the previous day. The NAP was effectively a backstab of Spain, since she had previously promised to help them with an NE. It was also unapproved, and she had not communicated with anyone about it. However there was no official response from Molly about it until the following day.


Yesterday, on the 29th, USA attended an emergency meeting where Molly presented several arguments for the NAP which I’ll discuss in detail below. Needless to say, nobody was convinced by this. However despite me being extremely angry, people did offer diplomatic solutions. The NAP simply had to go - it was a breach of Sirius policy, a betrayal of a member, and Spain themselves were considering leaving the alliance over it. However Molly refused to negotiate, or even admit the NAP was a mistake. Either she has zero political acumen at all, or it was a deliberate attempt to offend her allies as much as possible. She then left the meeting, and a vote was held whereby countries unanimously voted to expel USA.





The arguments


The first argument was that the USA would not receive support in the campaign (if it happened) because of potential wars in Croatia and Turkey. Croatia and Turkey were extremely offended by this, since both had made it clear that they would put the alliance ahead of their own personal interests from the beginning. All countries reaffirmed that they would support the war even if it meant temporary wipe for them.


The second argument was that there was no plan in place for a liberation. Despite the fact the Military Commander was eAmerican, there was a plan in place for liberation and we were ready. However Molly made no attempt to communicate or discuss plans, and so I can only assume her ignorance comes from this.


The third argument was that the NAP was the first step into freeing Spanish regions by diplomacy, and that USA was negotiating on behalf of Spain to free regions. However, Spain had not consented or been informed of any negotiations on their behalf. In addition, Argentine officials deny this utterly. Spain was not mentioned at all during the NAP, and in fact one official clarified that one of the purposes of the NAP was to allow Argentina to keep permawipe on Spain, and that Molly was aware of this.


The final argument was that Americans had been offended by a previous NAP negotiated between Poland and other countries in Sirius and Asteria. However this NAP was discussed by the alliance over a significant period of time and rejected. Poland’s CP stood by this and scrapped the NAP entirely when it was not met with approval by his peers. Molly did not discuss the Argentine NAP with anyone, and didn’t even post it to the alliance after she signed it- the only communication we had was through the ingame newspaper of the state department.





The Conclusions


It is my belief that the USA did not act badly in this, MollyEmma did. Her actions destroyed the foreign affairs work of months by hardworking members of the US administration. Even at the end, she refused to negotiate or compromise, forcing the alliance into a position where the choices were to disband altogether or expel USA. She withheld information from her government, forbade them to talk to allies and then used executive power to sign NAPs without speaking to allies.


I do not hold the USA responsible for her actions, and I’m deeply saddened that it came to this. I am not sure what she has told her own citizens, but my feeling is that she has lied to them as she lied to us. The major criticism of the USA internationally is that foreign affairs is a bottleneck for them- only a small number of citizens had access to the alliance channel, and so the information which was fed back to congress and the people was fed through only a small number of people.


I hope that this candid response will be more positive than negative. Many within the alliance felt that it was better not to talk about it, since it’s best to keep this sort of thing private to avoid damaging relations further. We decided to keep quiet about Brazil, but on a personal level I refuse to let one person destroy a relationship which has been building for nearly six months now.

To all my American friends: I am deeply sorry.

To Molly: this is entirely your doing.




Iain