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Greetings, Mad Paulys. Today, we'll be reviewing some of the recent events that have been taking place across battlefields across the world. Whilst things may, on first look, seem much quieter since the occupation of the US was finalised, actually the world is a hotbed of real war. First and foremost, lets return to the US, and look at how things are settling in.
To begin with, the Americans everywhere are asking themselves why us? There have been a flurry of articles which have tried to analyse the situation, the cause, the possible solutions.

To begin with: the cause. It's quite simple, you cannot avoid the Balkan arena. No alliance has survived without Balkan damage, and the reason Asteria has been so successful is quite simple: if you win in the Balkans, you win in eRepublik. The majority of articles in the US have talked about rebirth, growing society and coming out of things stronger, but the issue is; what direction will they take?. They were invaded with alliances that have ~80% of the world's damage, and both alliances are practically invincible in their hours of peak activity. As well as that, countries from both alliances have moved their capital regions to the US. This makes undoing this invasion incredibly difficult. Croatia, Bulgaria and Macedonia have all moved their capitals here, so they can take advantage of American resources.

The soul searching has begun in earnest, with articles written by people from all over the world offering their two cents;
Iain Keers
chickensguys
The leader of Pacifica
And that guy who tried to troll Croatia.

Regardless of the discourse which takes place, it is very unlikely America will be returning to its former status any time soon. As things stand, they have a peace deal with Ireland, and have returned to the map in the northern parts of the East coast, but exactly what they can do to mobilise their allies, or even their own troops, is as yet uncertain. Combined with that mountain, comes the issue of trying to fight against a group of countries made up of two alliances, and accounting for the vast majority of the damage on eRepublik, including nations that have even stronger ties to some of their Pacifica allies than the States themselves: it's clear, getting their country back will be no easy task.

The previous week has seen a variety of interesting things across the battlefields of the world. Firstly, the suspiciously quiet South American big hitters of Chile and Argentina finally woke from their slumber. When I first saw these proposals, I assumed they would be hitting Estonia in their Japanese regions (held as part of a training war betweent the two countries), and use them as a border to hit other Pacifica members, either Russia, Taiwan, or perhaps even as a route into America. However, both countries have since launched their battles here and here. The choosing of Estonian core regions is interesting, especially the Chilean choice of Luna Lovegood, which borders Russia and Latvia. The Argentinian choice of Winnie the Pooh seems puzzling more than interesting, as it borders Bulgaria, and thus, is a risky choice. However, I assume the thinking behind this is for Argentina to be given the luxury of time. As they need another battle to open a border with Latvia or Russia, I'm assuming they will hold their Natural Enemy proposal until Pacifica acts, and seek to counter any Pacifica moves against Chile. However, the smart money is on both of these countries using Estonia and Latvia as their first targets, before moving on to Russia once they have a secure base in the Baltics.

The astute amongst you will also note Canuckistan also raided Estonia: but this is part of a region swap agreement, so is not a malicious move. However, now that Estonia is under threat, I assume they will be used tactically to attempt to disrupt any Chilean/Argentinian plan. With the whole of Estonia between them, this opens up Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Finland and Russia to potential attack. Whilst possible, I think it is highly unlikely that either of these countries would risk engaging Poland directly, but, in theory, any invasion of Sweden would give a border to Polish regions through the Scania region. I doubt this will ever happen, but it would be interesting if this turned out to be the real motivation behind the Airstrikes. For now, the smart money is on Russia and Latvia as the next victims of the Andes-Pacifica war.

Finally, a look at South-East Asia/Oceania. Last week, quietly the latest installment of Indonesia-Australia began, whilst everyone else was gasping at the aftermath of 'green card thievery' across the Atlantic. Backed heavily by Croatia and Albania, the Australians have pretty much taken all of Indonesia, and whilst there has been resistance, ultimately Indonesia's lack of allies has cost them. The reason Indonesia was caught without alliance pacts (MPPs) that allow soldiers from other countries to fight in their wars, is because they recently had a TW with Bulgaria, which cancelled out all mutual protection pacts (MPP), since then a few have been signed, but things looked bleak for Indonesia.

Until, of course Macedonia and Bulgaria came from their Asian colonies, to save the day. The war began in earnest yesterday, and it looks like a rout on both fronts, with Macedonia graciously ensuring Australia gain nil poit, and Bulgaria almost as dominant in their victory too. A look at the battlefield history shows that Australia and her allies are offering little resistance, so I would assume that they have accepted their fate, and will look to use their relatively good relations with Peru to try and gain some sort of peace deal.

That's all for now, folks
jamesw