Remove ads

East Africa 1930: An ORBAT Quest

Reader mode
[X] Accept some of the demands - Write in which
-[X] Reparations to be paid to the Japanese government in steel and rifles.
--[X] 25% of all rifles made during the next year
-[X] Offer repatriation of the bodies and a fair trial for those involved in instigating violence.

Promising them a fair trail and the bodies of the death is as far as i am willing to go save a limited amount of rifles enough for the Japanese to feel respected but nothing more then that.
 
So, I know people are going to be excited about independence uber alles and so on, but we are not in a strong position here. Also we're in a gross economic downturn, so I'm wary of a big financial commitment. So what I'm thinking is this:

[X] Plan: Matters of Courtesy
-[X] Both sides of this have already suffered enough: offer repatriation of the bodies and a fair trial for those involved in instigating violence.
-[X] Accept some of the demands - Write in which
--[X] The ability for Japan to establish a secure community for its citizens in Kismayo.
---[X] With a strict, low limit on how many Japanese military personnel can be stationed there, instead employing private Reewiin guards and in cooperation with a Carabinieri police unit.
--[X] Reparations to be paid to the Japanese government in steel and rifles.
---[X] Specifically, the ability to buy up to 30% of our rifle output at cost and halved government fees on steel exports (both for two years).

or

[X] Plan: Matters of Courtesy (No Reparations)
-[X] Both sides of this have already suffered enough: offer repatriation of the bodies and a fair trial for those involved in instigating violence.
-[X] Accept some of the demands - Write in which
--[X] The ability for Japan to establish a secure community for its citizens in Kismayo.
---[X] With a strict, low limit on how many Japanese military personnel can be stationed there, instead employing private Reewiin guards and in cooperation with a Carabinieri police unit.
 
Last edited:
sunrise said:
[X] Accept some of the demands - Write in which
-[X] Reparations to be paid to the Japanese government in steel and rifles.
--[X] 25% of all rifles made during the next year
-[X] Offer repatriation of the bodies and a fair trial for those involved in instigating violence.

Promising them a fair trail and the bodies of the death is as far as i am willing to go save a limited amount of rifles enough for the Japanese to feel respected but nothing more then that.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I like this approach the best, though I think we should cut the fair trials. I doubt we could conduct one (most developed nations struggle with this) and I think we will need to concede on everything to keep boots off the ground.
 
What's the expected endgame of those plans where we allow Japanese soldiers into Reewiin? Japanese sailors start a riot, there's bloodshed, we pay Japan and give them a small slice of Reewiin on which they can station more soldiers. Chances are, the sailors who were involved get treated as heroes when they get home to Japan. If you're one of the soldiers stationed in the Japanese Concession in Kismayo, it seems like it'd be a great idea to find any excuse to say you were attacked and then start shooting at locals - after all, you're acting in self-defence, and you'll be celebrated for it when Japan gets even more money! As a reminder, this just happened in Shanghai:
en.wikipedia.org

January 28 incident - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
Trying to haggle on an international settlement doesn't make Japan happy while also creating a gigantic problem for us in the future.

Meanwhile, we have a great chance to call Japan's bluff. They don't have access to Manchurian steel yet (it was just conquered), but are trying to build up their military; losing access to Reewiin's iron mines for the next few years would set them back significantly. They just burnt a huge amount of international goodwill in Shanghai and Manchuria, and a trans-oceanic invasion would spook the great powers. Britain would likely freak out; an outright Japanese colony in the Indian Ocean threatens the critical supply lines to Singapore. The Army's busy garrisoning the Chinese border and pacifying Manchuria. This also isn't an ultimatum; we've been told refusing all the suggestions "will be looked upon poorly". The worst thing they could do short of invasion is say "we'll stop buying steel from you", but they're isolated from the international community, who else are they going to turn to?

Instead, I propose we take advantage of this situation. Japan's economy is growing, and they have a crippling addiction to guns and steel. Meanwhile, we want to boost our on economy and our domestic arms industry. If we offer concessions in arms, it gets our foot in the door to directly compete with Japanese domestic arsenals. Even if we offer 100% of rifle production at cost (i.e., no markup for the government), that's still keeping the people who work in our mines, foundries, and munitions factory securely employed. That will grow the steel industry in a period of time where most countries are struggling, and when the Great Depression ends, we'll have a huge industry (for a small African country in the '30s) and a Japan who's hooked on Reewiin guns that now have the government markup.
 
Last edited:
[X] Plan: Matters of Courtesy (No Reparations)

I'm hoping the lack of reparations won't be a sore point for Japan. I think with our economy the way it is and us still industrializing I'd like to keep as much resources as possible.

I really like the idea of playing as a Japanese protectorate in Africa. Not sure if World War II will make that tenable, but if possible I think it would be really fun.
 
perhaps it would just be prudent enough if we just execute some examples to satiate the need for vengrance amongst the japanese
 
I just fundamentally do not believe we are in a position to scorn Japan. If we manage to fight them off and win, or just hold out until they withdraw because of other issues, all we achieve is a brief moment of independence before we have to deal with Italy or Britain and the problem is renewed but we've lost access to outside support on top of any damage we took in the process. More serious autonomy requires grinding up more domestic strength, and possibly just changes to the international system.

That's not to say there's no risk of salami slicing from them - I don't think giving them some stuff here is going to be sunshine and roses! We will face problems down the line. But we will face problems down any line, and I don't think our military is quite ready to stand on its own.
 
Last edited:
[X] Plan: The First Hit's Always Free
-[X] Both sides of this have already suffered enough: offer repatriation of the bodies and a fair trial for those involved in instigating violence.
-[X] Accept some of the demands - Write in which
--[X] Reparations to be paid to the Japanese government in steel and rifles.
---[X] Specifically, ten percent of production of domestic- and Japanese-designed weapons for free, the ability to buy up to eighty percent of our production of domestic- and Japanese-designed weapons and ammunition at the same cost the Reewiin government would pay, and halving government fees on steel exports, all for a period of three years
 
Last edited:
Honestly the best time to break away from japan is in the late 1930's or 1940's before japan drags us into a war with britain
attempting to directly fight the british in my opinion is a recipe for destruction
 
I think we should try make a deal to appease Japan that does not forgo sovereignty that could be viewed as a good deal and one they'd look like greedy upstarts to refuse. Meanwhile we send a delegation to Britain about the situation and basically put our cards on the table that we don't want to get dragged into Japan's crazy land but are in tough spot mind giving us some leg to stand on or we will be be forced to make further concession likely in the future.
 
While I'm sure we're all well aware of the danger of giving the Japanese a foothold, Rewelin isn't exactly in a strong position here. We may well want to eat some crow rather than have them forcibly explain the reality of the situation.
 
[X] Plan: The First Hit's Always Free

Letting IJA troops in to 'guarantee security' will just guarantee further incidents
Having an IJN base is weirdly tempting, but will also guarantee further incidents.

Selling Japan the weapons and steel they're addicted to does sound like a good way to keep our economy humming and keep the angry men with bayonets from coming to visit us
 
We also should reach out to Britain, keeling over too much to Japan might ruffle their feather which is equally bad, besides which we need some leverage they may give us some.
 
Potato Anarchy said:
I just fundamentally do not believe we are in a position to scorn Japan. If we manage to fight them off and win, or just hold out until they withdraw because of other issues, all we achieve is a brief moment of independence before we have to deal with Italy or Britain and the problem is renewed but we've lost access to outside support on top of any damage we took in the process. More serious autonomy requires grinding up more domestic strength, and possibly just changes to the international system.

That's not to say there's no risk of salami slicing from them - I don't think giving them some stuff here is going to be sunshine and roses! We will face problems down the line. But we will face problems down any line, and I don't think our military is quite ready to stand on its own.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
How does Matters of Courtesy (No Reparations) scorn Japan less than First Hit's Always Free? We're both giving in to one demand to some extent while saying "that sucked for both of us, let's have justice be done and not repeat it". Not wanting to have Japanese soldiers stationed in Reewiin causing more riots != sending Japan some choice words over this matter.

I also don't think giving the Japanese guns is a problem, but instead an opportunity to corner the market. Yes, it delays the delivery of those guns to Reewiin's military, but our current production is very low (only 1100 guns a year!) and the first guns will likely have teething issues anyways so they're not as valuable while still being symbolically important. An IOU is also significant in that it means Japan wants us around to repay it, and thus will commit to keeping us around until the cost of it is greater than the debt owed, so they hopefully won't withdraw their guarantees.
 
Yeah, let's nto give the IJA a convinent beachhead to invade us from.

[X] Plan: The First Hit's Always Free

Or, if we're feeling ballsy, we could go for one of those:

[X]Plan Calling their bluff
-[X] Communicate that Japanese troops started the violence, and reparations should instead be paid to Reewiin.

[X]Plan Calling their bluff, Cossack style
-[X] Give Japan an explicit and extremely detailed instruction on just when, how and where exactly they can shove their demands.
 
C_Z said:
How does Matters of Courtesy (No Reparations) scorn Japan less than First Hit's Always Free? We're both giving in to one demand to some extent while saying "that sucked for both of us, let's have justice be done and not repeat it". Not wanting to have Japanese soldiers stationed in Reewiin causing more riots != sending Japan some choice words over this matter.

I also don't think giving the Japanese guns is a problem, but instead an opportunity to corner the market. Yes, it delays the delivery of those guns to Reewiin's military, but our current production is very low (only 1100 guns a year!) and the first guns will likely have teething issues anyways so they're not as valuable while still being symbolically important. An IOU is also significant in that it means Japan wants us around to repay it, and thus will commit to keeping us around until the cost of it is greater than the debt owed, so they hopefully won't withdraw their guarantees.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It doesn't especially. That was me making a general statement about what's at stake, not comparing those two plans. As a sidenote: I think it's actually about two demands each, because the trial+repatriation is itself one of the demands.

I think that as an underdeveloped small country, the financial outlays of reparations are a significant risk, and what it means for the factory specifically is it being several years further away from growing solvent - if we want a domestic arms industry rather than a domestic arms plant, we need it to grow actual returns on investment.

And likewise I think that you overrate the risk of allowing the Japanese a secure enclave. I don't think the restrictions I've put on it are a panacea, but with plenty of Japanese citizens in country already for trade and business there's already considerable opportunities for nefarious Japanese manufacture of "incidents," and it's a much smaller troop presence then a full naval base. Meanwhile it's more consumers for local markets, more interaction between our people, and a bunch of other fringe benefits that we aren't paying for beyond committing some Carabinieri.
 
Potato Anarchy said:
It doesn't especially. That was me making a general statement about what's at stake, not comparing those two plans. As a sidenote: I think it's actually about two demands each, because the trial+repatriation is itself one of the demands.

I think that as an underdeveloped small country, the financial outlays of reparations are a significant risk, and what it means for the factory specifically is it being several years further away from growing solvent - if we want a domestic arms industry rather than a domestic arms plant, we need it to grow actual returns on investment.

And likewise I think that you overrate the risk of allowing the Japanese a secure enclave. I don't think the restrictions I've put on it are a panacea, but with plenty of Japanese citizens in country already for trade and business there's already considerable opportunities for nefarious Japanese manufacture of "incidents," and it's a much smaller troop presence then a full naval base. Meanwhile it's more consumers for local markets, more interaction between our people, and a bunch of other fringe benefits that we aren't paying for beyond committing some Carabinieri.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
While it would delay solvency, it guarantees us cash flow at a critical time. We're just starting out, but the Great Depression has killed both the local and most international markets. If we want to keep the production line running, we need orders, and nobody other than Japan is buying right now. We do this, we grit our teeth, and in three years we've got the same amount of debt but we have machinery with the rough edges filed off and a skilled workforce.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top