Join the new world

eIreland, a small, peaceful, neutral country has had some changes in it's foreign policy recently. Let's start with their past - there was the Raleigh Treaty, being a
treaty between the United Kingdom and Ireland. It's main points are the creation and maintaining of a non-aggression policy, passing Mutual Protection Pacts each month, trading, defence of both nations and diplomatic co-ordination.
The content can be seen in this wikipedia article. So, what happened then?

When eUK was invaded some time ago, eIreland took hold of Northern Ireland, which is originally a territory of the eUK. I do not want to start a discussion about it's status in RL - however, in eRep, it clearly belongs to eUK, and there is no point in denying that. So, the Irish took it, and they were seriously pissed when eUK started RWs in order to take it back (the first RW was won by them mainly due to American tanks). Shortly after that, a president was elected who wanted better relations with eUK, resulting in new hope for our relations - and some time ago, he was impeached.

Not only was he impeached but Ireland announced to join the Brolliance, an alliance between the eUSA, eCanada and eAustralia. This happened in a time when eAustralia was angry with EDEN because they felt it didn't support them and when eUSA announced to leave EDEN. So, even though a lot of people feared this would mean a threat to PHOENIX or at least felt betrayed by eIreland, this move was planned.

Shortly after, eIreland announced to join PHOENIX!

Why would that happen?

Of course, eUSA want to help EDEN as this is their only chance of living on. They can't succeed alone against PHOENIX. However, with eIreland joing PHOENIX, the Brolliance distances itself from EDEN, therefore changing it into a more neutral alliance. With that, eUSA, as the dominant power in the Brolliance, can act even more independantly, talking both with EDEN (about cooperations) and PHOENIX (about truces). This also means that eCanadian and eAustralian diamonds no longer belong to EDEN without any doubt - it will be a hard bargain for EDEN.

Read the official statement of the Irish president about their POENIX-membership.