One of the greatest challenges of leadership is recognizing that your actions will be judged in the light of history long after you’ve made them and daring to take those actions anyway.
Absolutely, this should simply be read as preemptive attack to secure the preservation of a Founding Partner to prevent our enemies having the opportunity to micro nova the local star in those culturally significant heart-land systems.
That this defensive action is commonly viewed as overtly aggressive is an issue with the scope of news reporting and poor political communications.
The degree of escalation that has occurred was preventable, but Aguard and the rest of the Federation disregarded the need to detain Leopold Villari after his exposure as at best, a Guristas spy, and at worst an FIO agent pretending to be a Guristas spy to directly attack the State alongside the traitorous Guristas Esri Hakuzosu.
The inability and unaccountability of the Federation in that diplomatic crisis is exactly why relations started deteriorating.
I agree and note that the Federal Senate Subcommittee on Caldari-Gallente Relations has opened an investigation. As someone with a vested interest in another senate procedure, I can only encourage you to have patience. It may take far too long but the system often (usually?) works.
Perhaps the en Villari affair could have been handled better but that doesn’t undermine my point that this was a situation in which the President had no good choices.
How far back do you want to go? Only Intaki have the patience for your obfuscations. We have a more incisive heritage and more explicit definitions than you seem to comfortably cope with.
I understand that promising diplomatic progress about the status of Intaki was jeopardised by this incident. What I am less clear about is the connection between the defection of Caldari Navy officers and the military disadvantage the Federation finds itself in after events in Athounon. Could you clarify?
I believe the point being made was that choosing inaction may have placed the president in a disfavorable position in some areas but inaction is what contributed to a rise in escalation after the en Villari incident.
Then action chosen in the Intaki incident escalated tension further.
At least, I believe that’s the point being made. I won’t comment on either point presently as it’s merely speculation on my part.