Pink Freud

Was having an argument with my dad about British foreign policy (as you do)
and the conversation turned to the Falklands. He was taking Argentina's side
and saying it was pathetic that we made such a big deal about such a small
thing.

My stance was different. I was kinda imagining that I was playing Civ4 and
some fucking bastard foreigner (no offence you foreign peeps, but, hey.)
attacked my cool little colony for no reason, even though I had been
basically a good guy the entire goddam game... and then I get a message
saying "Argentina has declared war on you!", and the next thing I know all
my riflemen are screwed and I've lost my colony.

My first reaction would be "I really don't think so". Maggie was entirely
justified on this one. Imagine the damage to a nation's reputation if you
*let it happen*. Ouch.

Who *ISN'T* gonna send the Battleships in from your main continent's waters?
They ain't doing much otherwise, are they?

What about vassal states? Interesting to think how an event like the
dismantling of the British Empire would play out in Civ 4. And what's the
odds for a Brit cultural victory under those conditions... might have to try
that one out.

Anyone else justify their country's foreign policy using Civ anecdotes? I
can see myself doing a Dubya for oil in my current game, pretty soon. What
do the Russians need oil for, anyhow?

Öjevind Lång

"Pink Freud" <somewhere@around.com> skrev i meddelandet
news:nLOdnX9MvsmyDp3YRVny3g@bt.com...

Basically, what it boils down to is that the Falklanders did and do not want
to belong to Argentina and their wishes should be respected.

Öjevind

Tim Skirvin

"Pink Freud" <somewhere@around.com> writes:


Absolutely. Though the oil thing has mostly come up in Civ III.
There were far too many games when I had to cross the oceans and beat up
the weakest enemy for oil, or uranium, or coal...

- Tim Skirvin (tskirvin@killfile.org)
--
http://www.killfile.org/~tskirvin/ Skirv's Homepage <FISH>< <*>
http://www.killfile.org/~tskirvin/projects/ Skirv's Projects

Fishman >

"Pink Freud" <somewhere@around.com> wrote in message
news:nLOdnX9MvsmyDp3YRVny3g@bt.com...

<SNIP>

Truth be known - ocean around the Falkland islands is probably rich with oil
& gas deposits.

Guest

Pink Freud wrote:

I don't think the smallness of the islands is relevant. If you use size
as a criterion for deciding what to defend, you're opening yourself to
losing everything you have, one small piece at a time.


Well, that's the key to it, isn't it: from Argentina's point of view,
they had a reason, and Britain had NOT been a "good guy" for the entire
"game". I can assure you, as a citizen of a violently-ex colony of
Britain, that it has not always been a "good guy". Take a look at
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereignty_of_the_Falkland_Islands>.
I'm not sure how accurate that description is; for all I know it was
written by the Argentine government. However, according to that
description, in the Nootka Convention Britain recognised Spain's claim
to those islands, but did not recognise Argentina as having inherited
those rights when it broke away from Spain. Britain siezed the islands
by force, without bothering to declare war on Argentina, and held them
thereafter by reason of Britain's superior naval power, not because of
the superiority of their legal arguments. Why Argentina chose that
particular time to retake the islands, I don't know, but it's not
something that popped up out of nowhere.

That England never officially recognised Argentina's inheritance of
those islands from Spain makes things legally debateable. However, in
my opinion, even if the Argentinian claims were entirely legally
justified, at some point there has to be a statute of limitations on
land grabs. If all of the perpetrators and all of victims and all of
the unjustly rewarded beneficiaries of a land grab are long dead, and
all that's left are the descendants of those people, what should matter
now is how the current residents of the grabbed land feel, and the
current residents of the Falklands are clearly loyal to Britain, not
Argentina.

I recognise that this "statute of limitations" concept rewards those
who grab land by force, if they can hold onto that land long enough.
However, if that much time has passed without them being successfully
dislodged, is the land ever likely to be reclaimed by it's original
owner? It's just recognizing de-jure what is already in place,
de-facto.

....

I would use Civ as a playground for applying my concepts in foreign
policy, not vice-versa - except that Civ never gives you enough
information. In the real world, it's often, but not always, possible to
tell who is the aggressor, and who is the victim, and I would
ordinarily want to ally with the victim against the aggressor (unless
the victim were as unsavory as, for instance, Saddam Hussein's regime,
in which case I'd just like to stay out of the conflict -
unfortunately, as a US citizen I wasn't given the option of staying out
of it).

In Civ, on the other hand, unless you happen to have observers along
the entire border between two countries, you have no way of knowing who
struck the blow that started a war; all you know is that war has
started. By removing the option of basing your foreign policy on moral
grounds, the game encourages a foreign policy based entirely on what in
your own nation's best interests. Some people have argued that it's a
mistake to let moral principles guide one's foreign policy, "morality"
is apparently only to be used in dealing with "real" people (i.e. one's
fellow countrymen). I disagree, vehemently.

Öjevind Lång

<kuyper@wizard.net> skrev i meddelandet
news:1157715737.920432.269240@h48g2000cwc.googlegr oups.com...

[snip]


In the 19th century, British naval supremacy was so dautnign that they would
simply have booted out the Argentinians, so it was wise of Argentinanot to
press a questionable claim. After all, no people from Argentina lived on the
islands at the time, so I don't think Argentina had an automatic right to
them just because the Spaniards had claimed possession of them. Furthermore,
France had at least as good a claim to the Falklands as Spain; it is a
complicated story. Anyway, what matters is what the people who live there
now want.

Ö. Lånh

Pink Freud

<kuyper@wizard.net> wrote in message
news:1157715737.920432.269240@h48g2000cwc.googlegr oups.com...

I agree 100%. Here, the principle really is what it's all about.



True.

Although, to be fair, I don't think that any civilisation that's still
around has always been a "good guy".

Whoever said "violence solves nothing" was wrong. Violence solves a lot of
things, or at the very least resolves them.



Thanks, that was interesting. My OP was quite lighthearted and you've
probably gathered I'm not 100% on the politics, by now.



Agreed. It's a pretty difficult call, to be honest.


Doesn't it indicate the original aggressor by saying "X has declared war on
Y"?

Pink Freud

"Öjevind Lång" <bredband.net@ojevind.lang> wrote in message
news:4mbji9F5gb0mU1@individual.net...

I agree with this poast, and I'd like to add I was making a joke about Civ
and foreign policy. No offence intended to anyone with links to the
Falklands.

Guest

Öjevind Lång wrote:
....
....

There must have been a peace treaty signed between Spain and Argentina
at some time after Argentina won it's independence. That treaty should
have specified which territories Spain was recognising as having been
passed to Argentinian control. Oddly enough, that Wikipedia article
doesn't mention what that treaty had to say on the matter.

According to that Wikipedia article, there was an Argentinian
settlement founded in 1826 that was still occupied in 1833 when the
British siezed those islands. At one point it says that the USS
Lexington destroyed Port Soledad, but it details later events implying
that the colony was re-established. I don't claim to know if that
article is correct - do you have an alternate source that says
otherwise?


I don't think so - according to that article: "As France was an ally of
Spain at the time, an agreement was reached whereby control of Port
Louis would transfer to Spanish control and Spain would repay the cost
of the settlement." France seems to have voluntarily given up it's
claim to those islands.


Agreed.