I figured first I’d answer something flippant to Lok’ri here about the principle of attack, withdraw, rebuild, repeat, something like, say “been there, done that, got the tattoos?” but I figure the issue is larger than that.
I am not part of the Admiral’s organization and may all good gods keep me from ever being so. But here I do agree with them. Diplomacy is the art of saying ‘nice dog’ until you find a bigger stick.
An aggressive nation on your borders - or, even, inside them - that stops its aggression cannot be assumed to have stopped it forever. Even if they tell you they will, they cannot be trusted, not before a long time passes, with zero signs of an aggression recurring. CONCORD is not a peace treaty. It is a cease-fire until someone finds a bigger stick.
It is the nature of our world that we have for about a century been in a deadlock. The major powers of the cluster are about the same technological level, with not the same but similar enough strengths that an actually serious war - like what my compatriots simply call ‘the Big One’ - would have a cost higher than anyone in power is willing to pay.
(And at the risk of being accused of ‘tinfoiling’ I’ll add that there are forces in the cluster who work to keep anyone from finding that stick. Attempts by any one nation to withdraw, rebuild, and repeat are often conveniently foiled by surprise developments that force their hand and tie resources into a suitable sink so disproportional growth is stymied.)
The Triglavians add one more nation to this mess. They started out aggressive. And unlike the rest of us, they have, maybe not bigger sticks since they did stop, but different sticks. We have allowed out our technological discrepancies to come a standstill, but we have not - not yet? - done that with the Triglavians.
Diplomacy is well and good. But anyone engaging in it had better remember what diplomacy is, in the end. And anyone watching others engage in it should remember that too.
Diplomacy does not happen between friends, it happens between rivals at best, enemies more often than not. Be it with CONCORD or with the Triglavians, if we call it diplomacy, we are not trying to be friends. We’re looking for bigger sticks. And while we haven’t found one, we’re hedging our bets, saying ‘nice dog’ and hoping it holds off disaster.