[aSC] The Eastern Front

Day 1,680, 02:27 Published in China China by mihail.cazacu

Right now EDEN is fighting several key campaigns in Eastern Europe.

1) Turkey against Bulgaria, with the aim of completely liberating the Turkish territory;

2) Greece against FYROM, with the aim of keeping FYROM at bay and eliminate their contribution from other battles of ONE;

3) Albania against Serbia, a David vs Goliath type of campaign, with the purpose of triggering the expected Serbian irrational reaction on the loss of Kosovo, thus eliminating the Serbian contribution from other battles of ONE;

4) Romania against Hungary, with the aim of liberating the last occupied Romanian province and then carry the war to ONE's core regions;

5) Croatia's dash towards Western Europe, where until now ONE seemed unstoppable;

6) The Ukrainian war against both Hungary and Moldova.

The last war deserves a special comment because of the involvement of Moldova in all that mess.

The road to disaster

To set the record straight, the conflict between Moldova and Ukraine started as a Training War which had quickly gone bad due to both sides thinking with anything else except their brains.

When I inherited the management of the conflict (my first day as aSC, 9 days ago) there were two sets of demands:

The Ukrainian president was insisting that Moldova should be first wiped out then "punished" either by ceding several regions to Ukraine or by paying a 200 gold fine.

The demand was unrealistic for several reasons:

A ) An independent inquiry carried out by a commission of MoFAs had established that the guilt was equally shared, with Ukraine being the most recent offender. Therefore from the moral point of view, when two parties are guilty we cannot punish just one of them;

B ) Wiping out Moldova would have required that EDEN abandoned everything else for 2 days, right when several key campaigns needed the alliance's full attention.

In the same time, on Sunday 17 Moldova's point of view was rational: they agreed the war was stupid and they were ready to close it as soon as Ukraine can switch the NE from them to somebody else.

They were unwilling to allow themselves to be wiped out and cede regions or pay fines since they were not the only guilty party.

They pointed out that the war could have already been finished by then had not Ukraine voted a fresh NE on Moldova just a day before. They also explained the MPPs with ONE were the only way for them to resist being wiped out since Ukraine had all the EDEN behind her. Far from being pro-ONE, they claimed they were only using ONE for self defense.

Unfortunately the Moldavian government's rationality was short lived.

The conflict further escalated on the 19th of June, when the Ukrainian MoD made an insulting statement which was published for two long days in the Ukrainian official newspaper.

It is one thing if the private persons troll in their private newspapers and a whole different thing if members of the government insult a whole nation in an official newspaper.

Any wise government would not have allowed such a thing to be published even for one second, no matter what their private thoughts on the matter were. The Moldavian diplomacy used to their advantage the disastrous behavior of the Ukrainian government (a behavior criticized at home by several Ukrainian players) and secured an MPP with Romania.

The MPP itself was hard to get, won by a very narrow margin, with 17 votes against and 20 votes for. Had the Ukrainian government not insulted the Romanians, the MPP would have been rejected.

Unfortunately the Moldavian government took the approval of the MPP like a blank check, like a licence to do whatever they wanted in order to "teach Ukraine a lesson".

So in spite of the Moldavian president being personally and repeatedly asked to use the war with Ukraine only as a means to block the Hungarian advance into Ukraine, he decided otherwise now his back was covered.

All the Moldavian president needed to do after he got his long-coveted MPP was to attack Podolia and then Volhynia, slamming the gate in Hungary's face and preventing Hungary from getting access to grain.

Instead he first allowed Plato to attack Bassarabia, wasting precious time.

Only then he attacked Podolia and got pissed off the Ukrainians were not cooperated, fighting Moldova full force, instead of delaying the Hungarian advance in Subcarpathia and then in Galicia.

Mr. President, you attacked Bassarabia first, giving Hungary access to grain. Did you expect the Ukrainians (or anybody else, for that matter) to be enthusiastic about your little hissy fit?

Yes, the Ukrainian behavior of fighting full force in Podolia instead of Galicia was self-defeating but two wrongs never make one right!

Since Hungary had already conquered Galicia and attacked Volhynia by the time Moldova finally arrived in Podolia, now the only helpful move left was for Moldova to attack Polisia.

But guess what?! The Moldavian president was keen to "teach Ukraine another lesson". So he attacked Taurida instead of Polisia, leaving the gate wide open for Hungary to gain even more resources and become even stronger.

Apparently the Moldavians remember they are Romanians only when it suits them best. Otherwise they have no problems with the fact their little "revenge wars" are helping Hungary getting stronger right in the middle of the ongoing Hungarian-Romanian war.

Is there an end to this craziness?

From the strategic point of view, the real danger in that campaign is the Hungarian access to resources.

Moldova's "strength" is actually based on the support she received from Romania, by abusing the Real Life connection, and on the support received from ONE, who of course was glad to find a lapdog willing to assist Hungary in her quest for bonuses.

So whatever bonuses Moldova holds now, allegedly protected from Hungary, will be RW-ed by the Hungarians and their friends from ONE as soon as Hungary gains a border with those regions.

Since Moldova itself is lightweight, once ONE starts fighting against them, they have no chance to hang on to those regions. Therefore all they are doing now is to act as custodians for Hungary, keeping those regions warm till Hungary needs them.

In short, since Moldova has failed to close the gate, EDEN will have to deal with both Hungary and Moldova this month. Something which could have been avoided easily in the absence of unrealistic demands, insults, inflated egos and ardent desires to teach the other side a lesson.

Next time we will hopefully have more luck intercepting conflicts in an earlier stage. The new system of having regular weekly meetings for the Country Presidents, Ministries of Defense and Ministries of Foreign Affairs offers 3 points in which such a conflict can be tackled and diffused before it reaches the "all-out war" stage.

Let's start to use our brains for a change. This is, after all, a game of strategy.