Its in large part about Public Relations. Alex dislikes us but we havent shouted it into the world that we seek to reunite the nation yet. That means we are lower in the to-do list than some other threats closer to home. But if we shout that out and gain legitimacy and political weight to plausibly start building up to that state we wil rapidly go up in the to-do list. And I for one am not certain we can weather Russian *and* Japanese attention well for the two turns needed for California to start revolting.
From my PoV the issue is this:
Across the world, and extending the period during which the Commonwealth is on the front pages worldwide, governments welcome Commonwealth diplomats to their countries. Russia and Blackwell's Loyalists, of course, are lodging diplomatic protests far and wide, and your diplomats will need to work quickly, but the foothold is there.You have made first contact as widely as possible, keeping the Commonwealth in the papers, restoring priceless access to the worldwide information network, and giving you a diplomatic foothold in the wider world. Russia and Victoria, naturally, are protesting your presence vigorously, but if your diplomats double down and keep up the pressure, you may be able to swing formal recognition and embassy exchanges. One of two successes complete.
Russia is out there trying to prevent us getting diplomatic recognition.
Not like, there is a nation with two rival goverments and they're both disputing who is the legitimate government, but actively preventing a new nation getting heardis something they're investing diplomatic effort in.
No one is that blatant without basically being at war.
For some idea of how serious this is, the North Koreans, considered international pariahs, have diplomatic relations with 164 different nations.
And visa-free travel to much of South East Asia. The US had an embassay in Managua while they were supplying the Contras and mining the entry to Nicaraguan port cities back in the 80s during Reagans regime.
They are already trying to smother us. I can't see any substantive change to Russo-Commie relations that they aren't already trying.
The issue is Japan.
But Japan is in the middle of the Pacific with it's puppets.
So fuck them.
As I see it, this is the heart of the problem with announcing we have the Declaration this turn. People have advanced very good arguments for why we should tell everyone that we have the Declaration, and I agree with all of them. But people haven't given me a convincing argument for why we should do it more or less immediately. What does doing it now get us that doing it later doesn't?
And I want people to be specific. To be blunt, patriotic rhetoric is nice, but it doesn't actually mean very much.
Because publicly declaring it's presence gives it protection by notoriety.
The same amount of protection that WE got by allowing in foreign observers and journalists near the ending parts of the Spring War, which was all that prevented the Russian Air Force from showing up to arrange supply airdrops for the Vic army.
Imperial Russia has always preferred to work out of the limelight of public scrutiny.
Publicity forces them to factor in whether they are willing to eat the PR cost of overt action in the glare of global attention, when surveillance electronics are cheap and increasingly widespread. And increases the risk that all they'll do is manage to create martyrs and blowback.
Once it's presence is known, they gain nothing by destroying it.
And doing so, or even attempting and failing, might simply backfire and send us more support.
Meantime, attempting to keep it secret or quiet while trying to recruit expertise from FCNY simply increases incentive for Russian!Solid Snake to infiltrate, destroy it and simply claim that we were lying, or had a forgery.
Then it's our word vs theirs.
And the secondary reason is, if we draw attention, we pull it away from California in their last year of preptime.
Which increases their chances of success.
