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Before we proceed, some heartfelt thanks from Singapore here, to our pals in Canada and the great United States of America; after our minor scandal concerning the Speakership, we have first seen Canada's House Speaker lead a standing ovation for literally a Nazi in their Parliament, because apparently nobody present realized the implications of "fighting against the U.S.S.R. during World War II", probably an indictment of the terrible state of history education these days. He resigned, of course, with said Nazi now facing extradition to Poland. There would be no such courtesy afforded American House Speaker McCarthy, who was forcibly ousted in what was the first such action in the American annals (although it was coming, all the while). Gee, that was mighty kind of them; our petty embarrassments sure feel insignificant now! But enough of that, here we have Karine Jean-Pierre stepping up, with Team Blue's selected card in hand! Turn 14, Action Round 1 (Team Blue) Team Blue plays An Evil Empire for 3 Ops. ![]() Gee Putin, what are we gonna do tonight? (Original sources: twilightstrategy.com, telegraph.co.uk) Propaganda, or "soft power", has been increasingly latched onto by the Team Blue wonks as the limitations of traditional hard power reasserts itself, and this has manifested as some... pretty overt accusations, in the local scene. Recall, we had reported last March on the wide gulf between our English (i.e. The State's Times, Channel 5 etc.) and Mandarin media (i.e. Lianhe Zaobao, Channel 8 etc.) in their presentation of the Ukraine war and other issues, which had seen no less than The Washington Post decry Zaobao as "echoing Beijing's positions". This would see Zaobao refute WaPo in claiming neutrality, a defence also employed by our ambassador to the States. However, the stickler here is not that Zaobao or The State's Times is or is not engaged in propaganda (because they clearly are), but that it is being so publicly called out, which must be considered a slight breach of etiquette, eh. This would build to the U.S. State Department broadening their suit against China to "global media manipulation" by late September, to which jaded netizens could only respond - kettle, meet pot. Frankly, it's not clear as to why the U.S. should have the moral high ground on this subject, given how they have been meddling with Wikipedia, Reddit and major social media platforms, and quite often towards distinctly devious ends. 1 Ops: +1 Influence in Peru (3/0). Team Blue solidifies Control in the South American country, with the intervention covered in Turn 12, Action Round 6 proceeding on schedule. American troops would be deployed in June despite the enabling resolution being passed by a Congress with just 6% approval and under an unelected President after a Coup, but frankly my dear, Uncle Sam don't give a damn when she's for him. The lack of outrage over such in Team Blue media might then be recognized as subtle (non-)application of propaganda. 1 Ops: +1 Influence in Haiti (1/0). The U.S. looks to be shoring up their backyard some, with the U.S. finally intervening to support another unelected puppet in Ariel Henry, who had been installed in July 2021 after the previous President had been assassinated by Colombian mercenaries. Note that Influence remained 0/0 before this, because nobody really gave a damn here either, due to Haiti being a gang-ridden battlezone. This in turn had its roots in French imperialism (extending to a demand for reparations extracted from the colonized Haitians), enforced by the invading Yanks between 1914 and 1934 as urged by corporate interests. The latest U.S. plan involves peacekeepers from Kenya (1/1) - probably to avoid the image of white former-colonial masters whacking the natives once more - which however has been observed to be a strange choice, given how Kenyans speak neither French nor the local Creole, with a number of other French-speaking African nations available... ah yes, some small problem with Coups there too, more on that next time. 1 Ops: +1 Influence in Lebanon (2/0). With Team Blue (i.e. American) Influence waning in the Middle East, securing some reliable outposts in the region must be a priority as hinted in Turn 13, Action Round 2, and the U.S. fortress-embassy in Beirut has to be regarded as a throwback to the marcher lord castles of old. Here, it might be admitted that there is perhaps a case for Lebanon being 1/1 Influence before this, from the presence of Hezbollah, but it got rounded down due to quantization considering how they have been suppressed in recent years, alongside American monetary Control. ![]() Lineup reshuffle, Iran and Belarus didn't make the cut (Source: nfscofficial.com) Back to the historical antecedent, "An Evil Empire" references former U.S. President Ronald Reagan's direct denunciation of Cold War I Team Red leaders the U.S.S.R. as one back in 1983, in casting the conflict as one between right and wrong, good and evil. Reagan's aggressive approach has recently been reapplied against China and their new Team Red pals, with Biden stating that "when bad folks have problems, they do bad things" in early August, leaving little doubt as to who he was addressing, having already termed Xi a dictator in June. Leaving aside where "bad" rests on the Nice to Evil scale, the speech gloating at China being a "ticking time bomb" due to a slowing economy would also hearken back to The Ronald's explicit trade war designed to bring the Japanese economy down in the Eighties, which might put The Donald's (and now mainstream media's) later campaign against the Chinese in context. Sadly, the U.S. doesn't have a communicator on the level of the Gipper these days, with their political leaders taking turns to freeze up on air, which has forced them into the faux pas of openly accusing Team Red of media manipulation - certainly not a sign of strength in the global media contest for hearts. The narrative over the apparent decline of the American Empire, and comparisons with Rome, seem to have hit particularly hard, with it now being a major point of contention with China on who is actually sinking first. The reason seems obvious - in the dog-eat-dog world of international geopolitics, countries are with few exceptions out to pin their ambitions to the mast of the winners, and the ability to present oneself as such (i.e. not in [relative] decline) would then be critical in assembling the stronger bloc, in the accelerating Cold War II. Towards this end, there has been a flood of Team Blue analyses on how dedollarization is likely to have limited success, and how China's economy is doomed to stagnate if not collapse, and in any case may never surpass America's. Even considering the iffy nature of data from China, however, this often involves quite some twiddling with metrics, such as the dismissal of purchasing power parity despite its recognized utility, all the way to inventing new metrics such as GDP times GDP per capita, to which one might wonder at the relevance of it all. While there may not in fact be full consensus on American decline in Beijing, however, this has got to be of little consolation to U.S. planners, who should well understand how worthless throwaway lines on "how China is not out to replace the U.S." are, from how even written and ratified treaties are trashed when convenient. It all ultimately returns to production and the ensuing resources to buy Influence, as again foreshadowed by the Liar Game intro, which has in turn been reflected in China's (dis)information footprint exploding both via homebrew technology (i.e. TikTok) and traditional influence-peddling (i.e. the purchase of time on commercial radio stations in Europe). This comes concurrent with a (probably deserved) precipitous decline in domestic media trust in the U.S., which must be complicating Team Blue's gameplan for cheap Influence gains in The Greatest Game! ![]() Don't hate the playa, hate the game (Sources: mangakakalot.com, usmint.gov, numismag.com) Next: Will Wonders Never Cease II
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