[jw] Our foreign policy: it hasn't and won't change
Hell The Great
Since I started playing this game, over 9000 moons ago British foreign policy, whilst often lambasted across the eWorld for its 'backstabs' has, for the large part, been founded upon a rather simple premise. Reciprocity.
Despite it being a really lame term, its actually the best way you can think about UK foreign policy. And it is an incredibly simple process. Firstly, we need to know the 'real story' of our alliance, which involves ensuring some citizens gain access to (by earning it, I should hasten to add) the vaunted halls of alliance HQs.
Once in these so treasured groups, the country is reminded constantly how we have citizens, friends, and input into the decision making processes that rule the eWorld. And as a country, we are one of the few that has had citizens in the HQs of ATLANTIS (Dish, Hassan, GF) EDEN (yours truly, avec h0h0h0), Phoenix (Dish, Hassan, GF, Keers, Woldy), Terra (yours truly, Artela, Thatchykins), ONE (yours truly, Keers, Kravenn, Woldy, Thomas765?), TWO (yours truly, Keers, Kravenn, Thomas765, Bohemond4? and even that crazy ACroc).
Once there, our foreign policy is essentially incredibly easy to define. Successive Governments and Congress's, have since the dawn of time, trusted these vaunted 'few' to scope out a world view, and gently massage the country through upheavals and scandals. And this, is where the UK can stand tall and proclaim success; for a nation that has for years struggled to really make a difference on our own battlefields, we have changed the tide in countless world wars through co-operation with allies, or through running alliances. But what is in it for our country? Quite simply, those 'in the know' are responsible for ensuring that we remain in an alliance, or aligned to nations within that alliance, who we can rely upon absolutely, to reciprocate.
Few countries can hope to boast as many 'in the know' citizens as we have had over the years, and for that, it makes it incredibly easy for me to summarise and outline the changes that have taken place in the 'what' of our foreign policy, whilst at the same time showing that the process, the 'why' or the 'how', has not changed in over 4 years. It is not our foreign policy that changes, but rather, the world that foreign policy operates within.
Is this legit? For sure, let me outline one of the first big changes that took place, our move from PEACE-GC to Phoenix. Now some of you may say that I'm losing my marbles trying to refer to this as a change in the world, but hear me out. PEACE-GC was, by and large, an alliance reliant upon the brute force of Hungary and Indonesia. A strong PEACE, existed largely thanks to the strength of the armies of Hungary and Indonesia. But when that all crumbled down, the world was a hugely different place. Phoenix was founded not to be reliant upon Hungary and Indonesia, but rather, to harness the huge potential of the new big boys on the block, Serbia. So from PEACE-GC to Phoenix saw the first example of my eLifetime, where our foreign policy stayed the same, yet lead to drastic differences at the same time.
Why? Because our foreign policy is by and large, a result of using the connections we have somehow managed to keep 'in the know' to slowly move from one world power, to the next. We had little, if any real connections to Serbia: they were a newer nation, and an even newer world power. At that point, we arguably had a longer history with Croatia from our ATLANTIS days. How then, did a country we had no real knowledge, links or connection with at all, turn into our greatest friends and allies for years?
You'll notice a theme developing here: through our 'in the know' connected citizens within HQs. We went from hardly knowing the Serbs, to some absolutely insane guy lending them thousands of gold to ensure the heavily romanticised battle of Liaoning was won. Because we made a simple bet: a future close to Serbia, is a future full of victory. This is the exact same bet we made when leaving ATLANTIS to join PEACE-GC: a future close to Hungary/Indonesia, is a future full of victory.
So what, pray tell, does this have to do with anything? When we left Terra, we made another of these gambits, and again it was quite simple: a future close to Serbia remains a future full of victory. Except, things changed.
Serbia is udoubtedly, on measures of strength, unmatched across the world. When the country can unite, and everyone is supplying and doing their utmost, they can win what they want to. Except fractures appeared; disagreements and scandals took hold. Serbia on its day, was still undoubtedly unbeatable, except more and more often, there would be days when Serbia was not united, and thus, was beatable. And the point here is one which our most recent governments have been forced to accept; brute power is no longer an assurance of victory. With battle orders, campaigns of the day and non-government MUs, it is no longer the amount of damage which will decide a campaign, but rather, the direction of this damage. Serbia undoubtedly, would rule the world but for these features of eRepublik.
However, they exist, and that lead to the rise of a new world power.
The move from ONE to TWO, much like from PEACE to Phoenix, cemented the position of a new world power. One based not upon brute strength, but rather, a much more efficient, reliable and consistent force; Poland. And thus, our foreign policy continues; a future with Poland, is a future full of victory.
That is why we are where we are today; we are no longer aligned with Serbia. But that is not a result of a drastic change of our foreign policy; indeed our policy has always been consistent. Find a country which not only has the ability to win wars, but also, shows an absolute cast iron hunger to reciprocate.
This is not us choosing the big guys to win our wars for us, but rather, trying to choose the side that we know and trust to put our battles first, when things really matter. Consistently we have chosen wisely, and this time around I believe we have done so again. From my time spent in TWO HQ, it was clear to the world that the alliance may have relied upon the might of Serbia to dominate, but it relied upon the organisation of Poland to exist at all.
In regards to the recent comments about us backstabbing Serbia, Slovenia, I cannot disagree more. There is no animosity in our actions, nor is there anything against your countries. Both nations have been invaluable allies to the UK for some time, and as the aforementioned insane guy who handed over the BoE to Serbia to secure Liaoning, I believe I can easily show I have a history of being sometimes, too pro-Serbia. But the reality of our world forces our hand; every nation has, thanks to facebook ads at least two warring halves, to varying degrees of animosity. The 'bet' our foreign policy has made is that our chances are better off in countries which have managed to keep their military damage consistent even when Presidents, Congress's and Governments want to wipe each other out of existence.
tl;dr Our foreign policy is one based upon finding someone we can hide behind if we need to, but do our utmost to support when we aren't being hit for six just for giggles. There is a difference between treasuring damage, and reciprocity. And by and large, our foreign policy is centred upon this simple premise. We're more than willing to bend over backwards, open up the keys to our treasury (even disgusting swedes), accept time off the map or months on end with no congress, provided that our allies reciprocate these acts of faith by helping us when the time is right.
PS: On a final note in response to the Serbia/Kravenn argument, its an incredibly easy one to understand. The TWO split was not a surprise, indeed when I was SG of the Alliance I was only convinced at the last second not to dissolve it by a close friend. The splits in TWO were drawn many moons ago, and those splits were simple. Poland, Spain and the UK would go one way, Serbia and Slovenia would team with Argentina and go the other. These moves are not a surprise at all, and anyone who claims otherwise is trying to mislead, or has no idea about alliance politics.
So if Kravenn says Serbia didn't invite us, and Serbia says they did, it becomes clear, right? Sure they had to invite us, but they couldn't run the risk of a real invitation being declined (which we were always going to, and the Serbs knew that) Further, it would give us more of an insight into the intentions (in relation to recruiting allies) that Serbia just isn't willing to risk being leaked. So the result is here: both sides want to claim its the other's fault, when in actuality, the only fault is TWO's, for ruling the world for so long, that the only fights left for TWO nations, were diplomatic, internal ones.
Comments
inb4BAWWWWBACKSTAB
Not only backstab, but revisionist history, propaganda, insults, vulgarity and CHEATS
\o/
Would you want us any other way?
Can we leave real life out of the game please 🙂
hehehe
You take a FREE web based too serious.
I'm always super cereal
ofc, you need to be serious when you're going to be connected on internet.
go play offline games if you think like ' ah, this is JUST A GAME, i don't want to take it seriously'
Let me summarize:
"We're not backstabbers, we just team up with what we think will be the winner" 😃
"There is a difference between treasuring damage, and reciprocity."
Are we aiming to win? Sure. Are we joining Poland because we think they'll win? Who can even know what alliances will turn out to be. We're joining them because they've shown more interest in us, helping us, and generally just being likeable and reliable allies. If that means lots of other countries join and their alliance starts to win, thats not us choosing damage. Its lots of damage making the same decision that we made.
Jamesw, who are u thinking u're talking to ? 😁
What you say here is not what u said in this article:
"we join sb bcz they've been helping us, likeable are reliable allies": Wrong !
You say many times in your article: "our foreign policy continues: a future with country X, is a future full of victory".
So when I sum up your words by "We're not backstabbers, we just team up with what we think will be the winner" it is the truth.
It's just how UK does, Then people make its own feeling about it.
So you join alliances that you don't think will win? At the time, no-one knew if it was right: as I said, its a series of gambles. Everyone plays to win, whether you think sticking with the same guys all the time (note: alliances get new members to win), or joining new guys trying to win (note: alliances get new members to win), the net result is that people play eRep to win.
As if that isn't how all foreign policy is made. Why do you think ATLANTIS was formed, or ONE or TWO or pretty much every alliance ever? To win.
Ofc, we all wanna win. But there are different ways. AND there is a limit: normally when all you're friend are one side, and all your winning enemies are the other side, if you change for the others it can be considered as backstabbing.
Plus, when we are in new alliances time, it's not backstabbing to choose one or other, but it is when alliances still do exist, and you change nonetheless, just to win.
Weirdly, with those definitions, I could easily find few times when UK backstabbed. Strange isn't it ?
TWO has split up, the two super-powers of TWO have parted ways and we are following our friends, Spain and Poland, out. We have not changed sides, the sides themselves have changed.
And yes, we have 'back-stabbed' before, both in ATLANTIS and Terra, but please provide a list of countries that have stayed true to all their allies in the last six years.
tell us more about stealing money,it's what you are best at.
UK FA is simple:
1/ you take the strongest country in the world
2/ you do your b*tch job
3/ dog comes @master and junior whins when not happy
4/ kravenn does the unecessary dirty job (seems he likes it!)
5/ say gtfo old friends
Amazing,
You should be so proud (again)!
So no other countries in eRep want to win? Hmm.
Yes, Croatia wants too apparently 😁
I just believe there are other ways
but it requires higher mind, dignity and honor.
By this way, Cyprus and I win,
even without a single region...
For everything else,
I let you play 'My little pony' with other countries.
SPoland was the logical choice for the UK. Let me explain why.
1. They helped us three times in the last two years to protect us from wipe.
2. They are our geographical neighbours so going against them would be dangerous.
3. We have very close links with their government.
No matter what we did, we would have lost old friends. That's just what happens when two allies part ways, we have to go one way or the other or risk ending up in the middle with neither as allies.
Remember that time you lost London? My personal economy still has not recovered ;__;
I'm not arguing about your last choices (which seem logical, yes)
but about your behavior and those fake virgin articles.
It isn't backstab... I don't recalling that expect some individuals anyone in eSerbia sees eUK as country that did anything like that.
On other side this diplomacy you have... I also think that Spoland has same opinion on how diplomacy should be handled and that they will dump you at first chance when they see that you do more harm than good for them... And then depending on how other side was handled you might not even have place to go...
When we do more harm than good then we won't be good allies will we? UK is always welcome in the alliance because we are team players, flexible, don't start fights, don't hog damage or priorities and we try to act as mediators.
We don't have anything personal against the countries we're fighting. We don't have any enemies really. And when people call us names it just makes them look silly not us.
"More harm than good" was more to point out that even tho you are good ally you would still be dumped for the sake of securing better strategic position in eworld... When that happens your contribution to the alliance or to that particular ally will be put aside. It wouldn't matter how you play or what you do/did as that won't help anyone if they stay deleted...
I took it for granted that part of our foreign policy was to be good allies. I could edit that in I guess... But its very strongly implied 🙂
v
Yeah, I was involved in ONE during the bad phase until it's dissolution. Personally, I have no problem with the way our foreign policy is heading. I'm sure I can remain friends with the people on the now "other side" despite being diplomatic enemies, as can most other people who had friends in Serbia and Slovenia, notably.
I'm intrigued about what will happen to the rest of TWO, also what will happen with the 'other side'.
The only reason I mentioned Serbia and Slovenia was because we currently only have a vague idea where the rest of TWO are going.
Yay!!! eUK friends with all
All politics is local, and all politics is personal. It's amazing how much turns on the personal relationships of a few people in a few places (both in RL and ingame).
I'm not British by birth so I am in the eUK by choice. Why? I have always found the active players to be logical, passionate, and strategic. This article is a bit self-centred and has the classic JW boastfulness, but in general I agree with the message. I still like Serbia & Slovenia, just as I still like Macedonia and France and other friends of old. This is supposed to be a strategy game though, so we can still be friends and be on opposite sides!
Its like you dont know me at all!
v
hey, don't use my avatar...
damned if you do. Damned if you don't.
Siding with Serbia Slovenia would of called you backstabbers to SPoland the other way round anyway. Forget about what people say and continue with this game and hope to just have fun in the future.
You are damned old jamesw, but you are right.
Voted.