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Wednesday, Apr 12, 2023 - 22:03 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

One Got In Chancery

There's been the vibe of some tough choices perhaps to be made soon, with our Prime Minister returning from China with barely anything to show, save for the imperial Red bestowment of the "All-Round High-Quality Future-Oriented Partnership" title on Singapore (which I have to admit is a pretty funny riff on Uncle Sam's "Major Security Cooperation Partner[ship]", if conspiciously longer). The obvious contrast was the US$39 billion investment that Anwar has secured for Malaysia (1/2), which not-very-coincidentally has had the latter state that they have no reason to rely on the U.S. dollar while pushing for an Asian Monetary Fund, alongside Indonesia (also 1/2) speaking out against the exclusion of China's three ASEAN stooges, from America's IPEF initiative (as explained last May).

While I may not be an expert on the subtle signalling* that ancient Chinese culture is so fond of, the unspoken underlying message seems clear enough here: prepare for a new boss in these parts, or suffer the consequences - which, if Team Red does manage to secure the neighbourhood, in particular Malaysia and Indonesia, they will be very well positioned to deal out. To begin with, there's probably the funding (and operation) of competing (mega)ports and transport hubs, all the way down to "ship inspections" making normal shipping operations all but untenable. This is the eternal dilemma of smaller players in international relations, I suppose - one doesn't want to give up one's strategic autonomy too early, but wait too long, and one may find one's status changing from "sorta-valued junior partner" to "example to be made of", once Team slots get filled up - as also observed in the Liar Game.

France (4/3) certainly understands The Game, from how Macron has just declared that Europe should not be a U.S. vassal in Cold War II, this exact description which had been forecast here last October in Turn 12, Action Round 2 with CIA Created, referencing the very-sus Nord Stream sabotage (on which, by the way, the previous New York Times FAKE NEWS is crumbling again, with Sweden now convinced of the involvement of a state actor, rather than some 50-foot yacht). This had the French president mobbed by adoring fans at the Sun Yat-sen University (though I understand he prefers them more... mature), while leaving America fuming at the loss of another pawn valued ally, from their vaunted - but apparently shrinking - "network of alliances".

But a more in-depth analysis of that probably fits better in a future entry, and we have a representative from Team Blue strolling up to play their card for the Action Round, in any case:


Turn 13, Action Round 5 (Team Blue)

Team Blue plays The Compromised Five for 2 Ops, resolving the Event before Ops.


Digits on a shown hand
(Original sources: twilightstrategy.com, cnn.com, openclipart.org)


Well, this is slightly odd. Strictly speaking, this renamed version of The Cambridge Five would be played with no scoring cards left in hand, but the Team Blue representative is grinning as he exposes their Europe Scoring. Surely, it would have made more sense for them to just play the scoring card this round, rather than give Team Red a chance to respond next? The rest of the Team Blue members look puzzled as their nominee shuffles away, only to be held up by their security personnel who wrestle him to the floor after a short conversation... and, uh, the rubber face mask comes off. That disguise was extremely convincing, I have got to say!

Quite understandably, Team Blue is pissed and are insisting on the play being withdrawn, but the referees are having none of that - rules are rules, and without them we would be no better than animals, would we?

While the protest continues, we might as well delve into the history: the Cambridge Five refers to perhaps the most infamous British double agents/traitors of Cold War I, who fed information to the U.S.S.R/Team Red while in the U.K. spy service. In Cold War II, the "Five" then refers more to the Five Eyes Team Blue/Anglo intelligence cabal (and another of those pesky sticking points for France/Germany, after being left out), and of course indubitably the best-known five-sided building in the world, from which we (maybe) get our latest massive Team Blue classified document leak on the (perhaps not going as well as advertised in the mainstream media) Ukraine proxy war - including, supposedly, the true identities of CIA operatives in Ukraine, Belarus and Moscow. Seriously, what is this? Mission: Impossible - Cold War Reboot?

Team Blue's appeal fails - the info has been irrevocably leaked (if potentially somewhat altered), anyhow - and Team Red triumphantly adds 1 Influence to France (4/4; reflecting the developments already recounted above), which Team Blue immediately repairs back to 5/4. As it turns out, the leak also reveals that the U.S. has been spying on both "friends" and foes again - including possibly via Tesla - but yeah, basically no change since Obama tapped Merkel's handphone, then.

1 Ops: +1 Influence in Germany (4/0). The remaining Ops goes to the Germans, then, as Team Blue reasserts Control following Finland's accession to NATO. The U.S./Anglo faction of Team Blue has always been far more likely to find common cause with the Eastern European states under direct threat from Russia, and if France is not prepared to be overly cooperative, their traditional archrivals will have to do. Not that the Germans have much spare equipment to give away, but one supposes their pockets remain deep enough to provide funding - for a little longer, at any rate.

[*One of the most-storied examples of which is the suicide of Xun Yu, one of Cao Cao's top advisors, after receiving an empty box from the warlord; a part of me wonders whether some overworked food delivery guy had simply forgotten to pack lunch in this instance, which would have been embarassing.]



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Next: Not Such A Hard Drive


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