The Mirage of Foreign Policy

I was listening to the piece live as it happened and this same sequence caught my attention, even as a non-political player and outsider:

CSP: "What are the foreign policy aims of this administration? Why are we talking about ambassador systems and foreign updates?"

Kuramia: "Probably because that's my foreign policy right now, and I haven't received any feedback as to what our foreign policy could be."

My first reaction was that along the lines of ambassadors and foreign updates are not policy, as you've noted.

My second thought was "why is the MoFA waiting around for feedback on foreign policy?" I don't know anything, so I'm speaking from a position of naivete, however, my perception has always been that the development of foreign policy was the job, under guidance and direction from the president, of the minister.

To me, she should've taken broad policy goals (if there were any) outlined at the start of the term and developed policies to achieve those goals. The job requires the minister to take initiative based on the guidance received.

So either Aex provided no guidance, or Aex provided guidance and Kuramia didn't act on it.

Or, that's all just off-base and I'm wrong about how it works. That's entirely possible as well.
 
Deepest House said:
I was listening to the piece live as it happened and this same sequence caught my attention, even as a non-political player and outsider:

CSP: "What are the foreign policy aims of this administration? Why are we talking about ambassador systems and foreign updates?"

Kuramia: "Probably because that's my foreign policy right now, and I haven't received any feedback as to what our foreign policy could be."

My first reaction was that along the lines of ambassadors and foreign updates are not policy, as you've noted.

My second thought was "why is the MoFA waiting around for feedback on foreign policy?" I don't know anything, so I'm speaking from a position of naivete, however, my perception has always been that the development of foreign policy was the job, under guidance and direction from the president, of the minister.

To me, she should've taken broad policy goals (if there were any) outlined at the start of the term and developed policies to achieve those goals. The job requires the minister to take initiative based on the guidance received.

So either Aex provided no guidance, or Aex provided guidance and Kuramia didn't act on it.

Or, that's all just off-base and I'm wrong about how it works. That's entirely possible as well.
That's exactly how it works - or at least is supposed to.

When I was MoFA for President Writinglegend, my main task was engaging with TNP to mend what was at the time a weakened relationship. That was WL's task for me, though he left me to the particulars. In addition, I (an individual that had no actual NS foreign experience before being named MoFA) had to espouse, promote, and defend Europeian independence and our agenda here & abroad.

WL wasn't particularly micro-managing, he set a couple of broad strokes and then expected me (and his other Ministers) to follow through/do the work needed to accomplish those tasks. He checked in on us, gave input where needed, but the onus was definitely on us to be doing our jobs.

When I was VP to President Kraketopia with CSP as our MoFA; we had clear and frank discussions. Kraken wanted more direct involvement/approval of FA actions, which sometimes led to debate but we ultimately always publicly moved together.

When I was President, i had a very inclusive FA chat system that included myself, Kraketopia (my MoFA), Calvin (VP), HEM (Founder), Mouse (my CoS and the WAD, and NES before we would go to the EAAC for even more scrutiny. Again, we prided ourselves on open communication - and while we sometimes debated our individual appraoches, publicly we worked together to pursue a singular Europeian focus.

That's how it should work at least.
 
I agree with everyone that has stated thus far that this was a great piece by Sopo.

As Trinnien alluded to in his own post, there are lots of ways to manage your team (as President) and to work effectively with your Foreign Affairs team - who may or may not all be in Cabinet/Tomlinson. I hope to see some serious questions asked of candidates, once standing opens, and I look forward to continuing this discussion in platforms of those that stand for election.
 
That’s about what I thought, Trinn. It’s really just a common sense approach.

I’m curious where the breakdown and failure occurred. Was it at the president’s level; i.e. did he not issue broad policy guidelines and objectives for Kuramia? Or does it fall to the minister, who received such guidelines and then failed to act on them?

Either way, it’s not a good look for Kuramia. Even in the absence of explicit guidelines from the president, initiative still needs to be taken by the minister to outline and propose policies that support the president’s implicit foreign policy objectives. Letting the ministry and Europeia’s foreign policy sit in stasis for an entire term is damaging to the region.

Running an ambassador system and publishing foreign updates are, to be honest, the kind of administrative work that should probably be left to deputies, leaving the minister to focus on strategic issues.

I just went back and read her mid-term report to see if I was missing anything, and it doesn’t appear to me that I have. I did see something that struck me, however. “I am passionate about how we communicate with our neighbors, how we receive information from them, and whether we have the time and energy to devote to getting to know them while also allowing them to get to know us,” she said in her remarks. I think this speaks to her prior successes in the Ministry of Communications, but also her shortcomings here in the MoFA. This isn’t a position that’s centered on communicating. This is a role that’s centered on advancing foreign policy objectives. Communication plays a role in that, but crafting messages (Foreign Update) and delivering them (through our embassies abroad) is not what the ministry should be focused on.

And I have no bones to pick with Kuramia. I think she has proven to be very capable in her previous positions to date. I think she probably missed a great opportunity this term as foreign minister to really accomplish something that could further her career and ambitions here in the region. She is still one of our most capable members, but this was not a strong term for her, imo. I’m sure she will take a lot from this term and apply the lessons learned in the future, and if nominated to serve in this position again, let foreign policy objectives drive her approach rather than taking a passive approach as an information distributor.
 
Drexlore Greyjoy said:
Rach said:
Cerian Quilor said:
I'm fairly certain whoever was behind that just google searched treaty signing.
Nearly all the picture searches for Non Aggression Pact are of Nazis & Soviets xD
They literally just picked the first result for non aggression! This is just......I have no idea.
Exactly. Most people wouldn't realize that that picture involved Nazis.
 
I'm quite tired so bear with me here:

I was listening to the broadcast on my phone while walking my dogs today, and something popped into my head that I think is worth considering. We talk about institutional memory and how one of the reasons the EAAC exists is to serve as that Foreign Affairs institutional memory; have we ever considered that some presidents may take a more lax approach to crafting a foreign policy since they may feel they can delegate that side of FA to the EAAC instead? Like, if worst comes to worst, they could put crafting FA policy on the backburner and delegate to the EAAC as various events, posts in GP, etc. come up throughout the term.
 
Lethen said:
I'm quite tired so bear with me here:

I was listening to the broadcast on my phone while walking my dogs today, and something popped into my head that I think is worth considering. We talk about institutional memory and how one of the reasons the EAAC exists is to serve as that Foreign Affairs institutional memory; have we ever considered that some presidents may take a more lax approach to crafting a foreign policy since they may feel they can delegate that side of FA to the EAAC instead? Like, if worst comes to worst, they could put crafting FA policy on the backburner and delegate to the EAAC as various events, posts in GP, etc. come up throughout the term.
I'd argue that we should also have a more visible presence on GP as we often allow other regions/representatives to set the narrative since it's the exception and not the rule when we have a FA voice posting there on even a semi-regular basis. Brun was good about keeping up with the CAIN thread, and when I have the time, I try to alert the administration when something is posted that we should be aware of ... however, I don't believe we're as active there as we should be.

There are reasons and explanations for said lack of inactivity, and perhaps this thread isn't the place for it, but I can't remember the last time we actually had a public discussion about the merits and concerns of upping our activity and posting habits there, outside of our Embassy thread.
 
I think that inherently all regions are naturally isolationist and that it is only due the efforts of a minority of interested people that regions play a leadership role abroad. So it is not that players lean on the EAAC but rather that the EAAC pushes players who do not have that interest. When you look at our greatest FA accomplishments as a region:

- Helping play a role in setting up Balder (Rach)
- Establishing WALL (R3n)
- Creating CAIN (Brun)

Each of those players has done an extensive amount of work outside of Europeia, have large presences abroad and continue to retain vast networks abroad. It has really only been those types of players who have been proactive about this, whereas people who are only invested in Europeia (which is not a bad thing) tend to be more reactionary or passive when it comes to FA. A perfect example is yourself Lethen, who was probably much more proactive when you were involved in other regions but have now become much more passive.

So in short, I do not think the EAAC encourages people to be lax but rather helps those who are passive. It's easy to forget how Europeia did not have a strong FA system before the EAAC and how much it helped.
 
Rach is very much in the right here. (as is DH, further up)
 
That's a fair assessment, Rach.
 
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