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Declaration of my Candidacy


As I mentioned previously, I will be putting out 4 articles, regarding Foreign Policy, Economics & Taxation, Military Organization, and Internal Affairs. This is the first.





courtesy of egobba.de


This is India, as of right now. We're the orange. The light blue inside of India, as well as inside of China and Thailand, is the US. That's China in the red to the northeast. Serbia is the dark blue to our west. Iran is the dark green to our west. Indonesia is the purple in the southeast. Pakistan is the light green to our west.

As you probably all know, we recently declared war on Serbia and retook Rajasthan, which they had been occupying. Iran swapped through Pakistan to attack us, however we are now on the counterattack. Indonesia is attacking US-held Southern Thailand, which borders India. Russia also recently attacked Xinjiang, China, which borders India.



So what does this all add up to? Looks to me like Phoenix is hostile toward India. Seems pretty clear. Why would they be? Well, we have leaned toward EDEN and the Brolliance lately. Our much-coveted high-iron region of Karnataka is rented out to the United State, as well as Andhra Pradesh which borders it.








India has, as long as I've been paying attention, been fiercely independent, and at least nominally neutral. A neutral country does not have to abide by the lines between the major alliances, and does not have to put anyone but itself first. This is pretty great. Unfortunately, much of Phoenix is hostile toward us. Presumably they want our resources, and to protect ourselves we have had to sign MPPs with Bro and EDEN countries. Phoenix: It does not have to be this way. We have been pushed in this direction for our very survival, but extend us the hand of friendship and we will respond in kind.



Let's talk about region-renting, because that's a major factor here. We have high-iron in Karnataka, and high-wood in Jharkhand. This is stuff nations want, and understandably. And we can't make truly good use of it all, because we're pretty small (more on the bit about us addressing the smallness to come in my Internal Affairs article). So region-renting makes sense. We get far more gold than we could make from these resources ourselves, and a big nation gets to use the resources. Awesome. Our current deal with the US has worked out pretty well. They've treated us respectfully, keeping on top of their payments and keeping up MPPs, to protect us as well as to protect their investment.

Will we renew the rent agreement with them? Maybe. Depends on if it makes sense to do so again. Renting one of these two regions while holding the other is about the best situation we can hope for. If the United States makes us a good offer, which will continue to fill our coffers as well as keep us safe, we may very well renew the deal. But we would be remiss not to listen to offers from other countries. However the list of nations with which we might deal is fairly small. We certainly are not going to negotiate with countries who are attempting to destroy us through military force or by PTOs. I'm looking at you, Serbia and Iran. There is a word for those who would attempt to conquer us: enemies. We are not going to give these enemies what they want, not least because we couldn't count on them to keep up their end of the deal. If you want Indian goodies, you will make peace with us, and then show that you mean it.

Now, some have said that we should keep all of our regions for ourselves. I disagree, for a couple reasons. Firstly, let's be honest, there isn't a chance we could make a couple hundred gold a week in tax revenue even with domestic high iron. We are a small country, with barely a couple hundred active players. If we can get hundreds of gold a month for a region, that's a more than a fair trade from our end. Secondly, let's look at the protection issue. As previously mentioned, we are not a big country, and so naturally, we must rely on friends for our protection, to a certain extent at least. It is somewhat naive to think that powerful nations will line up to defend us to the bitter end unless they have a stake in our survival. As such, until we are large and strong enough to stand alone, we must have a "big brother" to help protect us against other major world powers. And us renting them a region plays a large role in this.








So, alliances. Should we join one? Well, let's think. We're surrounded by Phoenix, so I think it's fair to say that openly joining EDEN would be a bad call unless we want to be on the receiving end of a massive multi-front war. Should we join Phoenix? After various Phoenix nations have been trying to invade and PTO us for months? I should hope not. So what then? Should we join Sol, or the Brolliance, or something else? These aren't questions I can answer without a full view of all the facts, which really only the president would have. But I will say that remaining officially nonaligned has done pretty good things for this country. None of the drama with every alliance having its own agenda, like in EDEN, or the big nations bullying around the small ones like in Phoenix/PEACE. And we don't open ourselves up as 'fair game' by joining another smaller one. As I said previously, the facts on the ground will determine any course of action we take, but we will not leave our current course unless it has a clear benefit for India.


I'm sure I missed a topic or two, I'll definitely edit this article if something worth saying comes to mind. Beyond that, if you have any other questions, feel free to shoot me a PM, or say hi on IRC (#India on irc.rizon.net).


Stay tuned for my next article within a few days, regarding Economics & Taxation policy.