The Effects of Imperialism on Allied Nations
Alex Drex
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
Comments
fair analysis
An excellent read. On the other hand, admins designed this game so that every single module serves the military module. So I don't see this imperialism dying anytime soon.
Nice points. As they guy above me said, this problem will not be gone from the eEarth anytime soon.
That is true, Kemal. People love to fight, its an entertaining part of this game. However, people seem to forget the past. In V1 when there were no big battles/wars going on, there were training wars set up to make sure everyone was still gaining experience every day, and having fun.
Yes, there will always be imperialists, but I think it's more fun to fight against them, than to fight with them. 😉
Yes a good read, but I too see the games mechanics are bent on acquisition of Territory as a tactical goal. Removing resources from a belligerent for a long period of time isn't colonialism per-say, it is the only way to disable a countries potential fighting force in other theaters.
A very intelligently written article. I'm always looking forward to reading what you have to write.
F*ck Imperialism.
Good read.
Nice article, true words...
Well said, Commander. Free Germany!
it's good to have someone shine a light on this issue. a very important article.
Very very good article
Thanks for this article. Vote (already subbed😁).
realy good read.
subscribed, alot of truth (:
~hyuu~
voted and supported!
Good opinioning. Thanks!
voted!
o7
voted and supported
Nice article, very good read! 🙂
Nice. Thanks.
Very good article
Thing is that in this military module you can't help allied nation expect making pressure on some other enemy nation....
Best example is thing with Poland and Germany where German allies can make some progress of freeing some of the German region trough RW's but that would mean nothing when direct attack comes from Poland. This is only because MPP rules that are now + 10% bonus when there is NE on some country.
Also hurting some ONE nations will have far more greater effect that liberating some allied nations. Best example of this we can see with Serbia where Bosnia is now pretty much safe when Serbia is still pretty busy. If there wasn't this war between Serbia and Croatia+Bulgaria front would probably be on Bosnian territories....
The analysis is kinda "fair" like someone above me said but for most of the countries are just searching a suitable NE in the opposite alliance. For example Bulgaria can NE FYROM but we cant get them out of Italy with that NE, Croatia can NE Slovenia but that means leaving Serbs with a big bonus which is almost a suicide so dont mix stupid game mechanisms, particular countries military power and the fact that people must fight to save their own countries with imperialism 🙂
voted
Voted, ExZilYon has a good point as well.
Problem with this war module is that sure, we could focus only on liberating/defending allies, but then we'd start losing resources. Once you start losing resources your productivity goes down and you end up weaker in the long run for it. With the war in Spain we've had a few times already where we've ruined Spain's economy by surrounding its capital and preventing it from accessing trade routes properly. We gain some resources while in Spain and also cripple's ONE's ability to concentrate their forces by splitting their damage into two fronts ie: Western Europe/Balkans. I for one would like to liberate Germany more than anyone, and we could, but for how long would it last, honestly? In this war module it is incredibly cheap to maintain a long-term occupation of a nation. Natural Enemy declarations make war free, and Poland is a powerhouse in Central Europe. As soon as we liberate Germany, Poland will just war it again, and then we're stuck in an indefinite resistance war campaign. Just something to consider. But anyways, fair analysis, good job.
voted o/
voted from spain.
I help my Allies in Sweden(vs China) and Macedonia(vs Italy)
superb analysis
vote
I'm sorry mate but just in case you haven't notice😛
1) If somebody wants war even when he's losing, imperialism or not, you have to show that you're talking business.
2) Spain must either go down or accept being neutral and/or paying reparations for the previous invasions.
3) Germany is indeed in big trouble. And it's time the allied forces strike down the Polish.
4) In case you haven't noticed, Serbia erased Bosnia and Croatia and isn't willing to agree on peace terms, Bulgaria got attacked by West Bulgaria and was almost erased. They, too, aren't willing to back down at all. Plus, it was a good diversion for the Italians to liberate their land.
5) Greece... Well, let me give it to you this way: Arabia would fall anyway, it was a matter of who would get the most influence, Egypt went berserk by allying with a particular member of ONE (FYRO West Bulgaria) and that's pretty much that.
6) Australia is indeed a problem. But I guess the Chinese will deal with the Indonesians soon enough. That'll give room for the Australians to become independent.
7) I guess the Russians seek some sort of corridor to reach Kaliningrad, to guard it from the Poles.
😎 Ukraine is a damn good example... I give this eCountry like 4-5 days before it falls to the Turks. And, unless there's some concentration of fire and coordination, the Ukrainians will be erased.
Overall, it's a good article, I liked reading your opinion, you indeed have a point and it's voted. I guess the fact that TERRA and EDEN are different alliances is the reason of the bad coordination... o7
voted
Voted but less words more pictures!
Calingula Oo How does Bulgaria get attacked by west bulgaria 😃 when they hittin again so i can watch?
freakin socialists...
Major problem with focusing entirely on MPP wars is that as soon as we drop our NE, we'll lose a hundred people, at the very least, weakening us in all areas right then and there. Then, if we're talking about Germany, it's a huge problem on the get-go. Poland wised up and realized that if they want to hold onto German regions, they need to drop any other regions, which we helped them with when we initially freed Germany last month. So now we can start 2, I think, RW's in Poland a day, and in Poland, that's not exactly an easy win.
I'm being a downer, I know, but those are the facts I'm faced with every day. And the people above were right - screwing up Spain's economy hurts NWO as a whole. It's imperialism, but it's helping all our allies every region we take. We could just as easily take Asturias as well as CyL to doubley secure our iron holdings, but cutting off their resources does more overall good.
It's not a great situation, but it's what we have to work with.
please read, vote and sub this article:
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/filigree-pavements-special-eolympic-games-specijalne-eolimpijske-igre--1774651/1/20
Fair point, however you have missed one thing. eEgypt was a neutral nation, we were attacked in an attempt to gain connecting land with eSaudi Arabia. We ended with a trade but the war became a self propelled war that ended with eEgypt making a last ditch MPP with eMacedonia (after losing two regions outside of the deal) and eGreece used that as an excuse to roll over eEgypt. We have been long time allies of EDEN and Terra powers and have consistantly fought four our allies but again the allies did nothing to help us in our hour of need.
Your report is fair and well written but I am afraid it will fall upon deaf ears.
I agree with the point of the article.
Imperialism effects allied countries negatively also in the long run. With eEgypt it's not that simple as it seems at first glance and how hatred blinded Greeks by FYROM red flag see it and example of Egypt is extreme imperialism, where Greece deleted a friendly country:
EDEN, We Have a Problem!
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/eden-we-have-a-problem-en-hr--1774051/1/20
Read | Vote | Sub | Shout
Tomorrow we will try to liberate Egyptian region, all friends of eEgypt are welcome, especially Americans, Brazilians, Chinese, Cypriots, people of Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and of course Greek friends, if any. Come to #eEgypt IRC Rizon channel for logistic support.
Voted!!!
That's because 2-3 countries have all the power in EDEN/TERRA and they are only looking for their own interest.
Partisan Resistance aprove this article!
V+S
That's because 2-3 countries have all the power in EDEN/TERRA and they are only looking for their own interest. +1
super analysis
vote
Nonconformist mkd, I would say that that happens in every alliance. However, I would also argue that TERRA/EDEN are far more "team-oriented" than ONE is.
We have to see from all perspectives.
If we fight only to free Germany, Ukraine, Italy or Australia, the invaded rivals will attack USA, Brazil, Russia, Croacia, Bulgaria, Romania.
It's a strategy game, we can't forget a door opened on west side to close another door on east side.
Imperialism is just an eufemism.
A very nice reading.
Regards from Brazil.
Nice article
FREE EGYPT! FREE SAUDI ARABIA!!