Problem would be that if the US would get horrifically pissy if we moved into the Americas (Suriname, the Antilles). South Africa and Indonesia are pretty powerful nations in their own rights, same with Australia.

It sucks being on the lower tier...

That's why we need to go for West Africa.
http://www.joli-ecotours.com/images/westafrica_xl.gif
Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, and the coastal area from Senegal to Benin should be ripe pickings.

As Trade Commission Head, I would love to have those African resources to play with. Also, see if we can’t get in good with Egypt. Having the most stable and most powerful African nation on our side will be very helpful. Plus if we open trade with them then we can maybe get in on their textiles industry and help boslter our own.

What is the situation like in Darfur right now? We can easily spin that to our advantage by sending some of our highly trained troops and start defending the people from slaughter. We could play up the peacekeeping role and instead of declaring war or having a police action, we are there to keep the peace.

/edit: I say we should work on bolstering ties with Venezuala and Canada to get at the oil deposits so we don't have to be at the mercy of the Middle East when it comes to fossil fuel, while we work on alternate energy sources.

Fearless Leader? Are you there? :P

I notice the relations window you made up for the Iraq Attack deal...think you can show us how it looks for us?

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Conquering any western african nation is tempting, but the quite large distances involved would make it difficult to reinforce and even more difficult to get the resources we produce there back to where we need them.

It's not much farther away than anything in the Middle East or the Caribbean. And, depending on how the game is set up, if we treat the locals better than their own governments were, they'll defend themselves for us.

Sorry, been working and such. I'll be starting up the game momentarily, but I'm thinking of reverting to the save I have after the Syria and Iraq wars, but before I triggered the annexation. I'd rather have it as relatively realistic as possible for now. And in the real world, the U.S. is only occupying Iraq.

Also, I'm all for increasing relations with Venezuala and Canada, but I'd like to know your opinions on going for Finland first, as opposed to west Africa. Not that I would be opposed to going directly for Africa if you were to command me to. Also, Hawk's idea about attacking ourselves didn't sound half bad, now that we're talking invading Africa.

Still March 17, 2004

-At the request and, might I add, genius of Mac I secured an economic partnership and common market with Canada. Venezuala was a bit more resistant, but we still worked out a partnership and, luckily, a cultural exchange which we can later use to construct a common market for their oil. It is too soon to see any real effects of any of this yet.

-The wars are winding down. Syria was finally pounded into submission and signed a cease fire today. The U.S. has destroyed all of Iraq's conventional forces, and are now simply sitting their fleets in the Gulf and bombarding the region with rockets. This should also end soon.

And, at Flare's request, our current relations with the world. Just to put things in perspective, anything around a 20% is considered "very good" and could be used for military trespassing or other deals. At 40% you get more into the area where we can start forming alliances. I've given billions of dollars in grants to nations before just to ramp up that rating. I've even sold nuclear technology.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...enary/SP35.jpg

What is the stance on having a nuclear arsenal? I am sure we can design weapons on the QT, but are we pro or anti nuke?

Well, I'd really like to know who Finland's allies are, but if we can screw with them economically to piss them off while still appearing to be not total dicks, we could attack ourselves, pin it on them and invade.

As for Africa, Lybia sounds nice.

Finland has no allies as far as I can see, is in pretty good standing with the world, and has a mostly random group of nations as their top "friends". Russia and some of NATO. To screw them economically, I don't think an embargo would be wise. But, maybe some light sabotage...

[Edit] And researching nuclear tech would cost $25 billion, take three years to complete, and make us a little unpopular.