Broadcast message from [email protected] as Germany in fresh:

Game:    FRESH, USEF Judge.
Variant: Standard.
Outcome: E Win in 1910.
Power:   Germany 1907-1910.

Report from the Commission of Inquiry into the Loss of "Fresh"

Executive Summary
-----------------
Fresh was a case where a valid stalemate line was established by
friendly forces, yet the war was still lost. A Commission of Inquiry has
been appointed to investigate the circumstance of the loss, to recommend
improvements that will prevent such events from happening again, and to
do anything else it deems fit.

The Commission has reviewed the published history of the war,
interviewed witnesses, and subpoenaed all records of the diplomatic
communications by and to the German government. The Commission also paid
close attention to accounts of events in the foreign press, in particular
the English press. Attempts by the Commission to obtain testimony of
the events from Austria have been rebuffed.

While it may be tempting to dismiss the loss as a case of Austrian
treachery and to shrug it off as something which Germany was helpless
to stop if Austria was so inclined, the Commission refuses to accept
this as its conclusion. Instead, the Commission found serious
lapses in planning, security, mechanics, and oversight. Those lapses
have allowed warning signs to be misinterperted, security reviews to
be skipped, and a dangerous situation was allowed to develop into a
loss. It is the view of this Commission that the loss was avoidable.

The Commission recommends an overhaul of the Foreign Office and the
Analysis Section. In particular, the emphasis on critical thinking
should be re-introduced to the Analysis Section. Instances where
suspicions were raised and plans of actions were devised - but never
followed up on - dot this entire episode.

The Commission also recommends the establishment of an independent
institution for the study and systematization of diplomatic activities
and decision making. The institution, Academia Diplomica, would serve
as a backup to the government analysis operations and would be able
to alert the government to developing blindspots before they lead to
future disasters.

The Tactical Sections and Military Commands have been found to have
operated at optimal performance throughout the war and were cleared
of any blame. The fault lies entirely at the civilian level.

Historical Review
-----------------
Before the death of the previous Chancellor, there was a powerful
English-German alliance that was systematically defeating the
other nations of Europe. France was already defeated, Russia was down
to one unit (in Armenia), Italy and Austria were down to two each, and
Turkey to four. That alliance came crushing down with an English stab
of Germany. England was clearly making a play for sole domination
of Europe, but was not there yet. Shortly thereafter, the German
Chancellor suffered a heart attack and was soon to die. The minor powers
of Europe offered, in respect to the late Chancellor, to end the
war under terms of joint Anglo-German domination. They asked nothing
for themselves. However, England -- his sight set on sole domination --
refused. This is when the present Chancellor was sworn in.

The new Chancellor instructed the Tactical Sections and Military
Commands to find a stalemate line which would block England from gaining
sole domination of Europe. The line was to require as few participants
as possible to establish and the minimum allowance for risk while forming.
The Chancellor also asked the Foreign Office to open contacts with
all minor powers toward the formation of a joint front against England.
The Analysis Section was asked to create a profile of the leader of
each minor power. Particular interest was to be paid to identifying the
true objectives of each leader, and the ability of German diplomacy to
influence these objectives.

The Tactical and Military Sections devised a medium-risk plan to
create a stalemate line with Turkish cooperation only, and a low-risk
plan that would also depend on cooperation with Austria or Italy.
A zero-risk plan which required the cooperation of all three (excluding
Russia only) was also developed but not recommended.  Each plan required
that the non-participants be deceived for a turn or two until they could
be safely eliminated.  The Military Commands felt that the reduced
tactical risk would not have compensated for the increased political risk
of the larger alliance.

The Foreign Office, in what proved to be a controversial decision
amongst members of the Diplomatic Corps, insisted that the appearance
of fairness and generosity was the highest priority of German policy.
They prevailed in convincing the political leadership to adapt the
zero-risk military plan with the added provision that Russia would
also be allowed to share in it. The Foreign Office insisted that any
conspiracy with some of the minor powers against others would lead
them all to wonder if they are not being set up themselves.

The Analysis Sections backed the Foreign Office. Their profiles
of the minor power leaders have shown them all to be tired of the war
and willing to accept any deal proposed. As long as they felt they were
being respected and treated fairly, they would cooperate. The Analysis
Section went even further and suggested that the minor leaders may
be influenced to allow Germany to become the dominant power of Europe.
The Military Commands were asked to study what it would take to reach
such an outcome. The response was that naval power north of the
Gibraltar chokepoint was a prerequisite. The Military Commands indicated
that the chances of such an event were poor, but that allowances would
be made to exploit it should it arise.

Strict rules were established regarding all diplomatic communications.
All communications had to be addressed to the entire alliance forum.
Any private press might lead to conspiracy fears amongst allies. Also, there
was to be no communication whatsoever with England. Even the most harmless
of greeting note could be edited to appear menacing without removing the
distinctive stylistic markers of a genuine German note. The doctored
version could be leaked to the press or circulated amongst the allies
to create mistrust.

The combined plan was put into action. It appeared to be working despite
an uncomfortably large number of mishaps, poor communications, and errors.
Turkey would often take actions inconsistent with the plan, creating direct
risks of allowing England to breach the stalemate line perimeter before it
was secured. Russia and Italy were following instructions accurately, but
could not be counted on to continue doing so while Turkey was endangering
their supplies. It was an unstable situation that required much hand-holding
and reassurance by the Diplomatic Corps. The Diplomatic Corps did a
marvelous job in keeping all alliance members in line during those
difficult days. (Though they did not do a good job in conveying military
plans accurately.)

England seemed to be optimally defending against the official plan each
year, but not taking advantages of the unplanned openings that
Turkey was giving him. The intelligence community warned that there was a
possibility of a leak. They insisted that compartmentalization be employed.
Under compartmentalization, alliance members would only be told the
parts of the plans that concerned their regions of presence. All tactical
plans would be distributed under a strict need-to-know basis only.
The intelligence community noted that the Chaos war "EVERYONE" (USEF)
was won by an eight-way coalition despite some traitors and leakers
thanks to compartmentalization (and other security techniques).
The Foreign Office, still fearful of appearing conspiratorial, vetoed
that recommendation. The Analysis Section continued to insist that none
of the minor leaders fit the profile of a leaker, and that the
English actions must be the result of chance only.

The most serious mishap occurred when Austria retook Budapest in 1908.
This prevented the construction of a new German fleet that year and
effectively ended all hopes of German domination of Europe. The war
was now to be fought toward the sole goal of preventing English
domination. Only a major English error might re-open the door to
German domination.

Austria's 1908 actions raised alarms amongst junior officials at the
Austria Desk of the Foreign Office. They pointed out that such an action
was entirely inconsistent with the official profile of the Austrian leader.
A plan of action for the elimination of Austria and removing his ability
to further influence events as soon as possible was devised. A dual
channel of alliance communication was established for that purpose.
One channel to all alliance members, as before; and another channel to
all alliance members excluding Austria, in which channel plans to defeat
Austria were being discussed. That second channel was the one where true
plans were posted. The first step was for Turkey to take away an Austrian
center to prevent the latter from building any new unit. The second step
was to isolate Austria from his home centers to allow his other two centers
to be taken at once.

The Foreign Office later reversed the plan to eliminate Austria. It was
deemed that while separated from his home centers, the Austrian leader
no longer posed a security risk. This decision proved catastrophic.

In 1910, the stalemate line was fully established, and all hopes of
breaching the English defenses were also dashed. It was time to end
the war. The allies were again queried to assure they were still willing
to grant England and Germany joint domination of the continent. While
each was offered a position in the post-war peace, conditions of
peer pressure were established to prevent any of the minor powers
from insisting on a position. England was counted on to insist that the
number of powers in the final peace would be minimized. It seemed that
the war goals had been attained.

However, it was at this point that Austria supported England into a
position giving the latter total European domination in the Fall of 1910.
It was later revealed that Austria was indeed working with England all
along and leaking alliance secrets to him.

Austria's true motivations have never been revealed, and they remain
the subject of intense press speculation. Most notably, the English
press suggested that the power to decide the outcome of the war may
have motivated those action.

What Went Wrong
---------------
The Foreign Office fixation with avoiding the appearances of conspiracy
is at the root of many of the faults. The sound practice of minimizing
the number of allies was ignored. The even more fundamental concept
of compartmentalization in plans was not employed. Regular reviews of
security were skipped. When junior officials recognized the Austrian
danger and devised a plan to defeat it, the tactically-over-cautious
senior leadership quashed that plan. The ability of the Foreign Office
to dominate the national strategy to the exclusion of the Military Commands
and intelligence community allowed the fault to bypass all safeguards and
oversights that are meant to be in place, and to mushroom into a total
loss.  There was no excuse for the failure to employ standard sound
security techniques. There was no excuse for allowing one office to gain
unquestioned control of the national direction. Allowing this invited
the disaster of one office's blindspot becoming a national catastrophe.

The Analysis Section has also failed the nation. While the initial
profiles of the leaderships of the alliance members was as good as
one can hope for, given the information available, there was no effort
to revisit those assessments as the war progressed. When there were
clear indications that those profiles need a review, the Analysis
Section -- instead of redoing the profiles -- continued to present
assessments based on the outdated versions. Those false assessments
came to back the Foreign Office's misplaced confidence in the
validity of the plan they were following and the disregard of those
who criticized it.

The Tactical Sections and Military Commands performed well. They
professionally provided plans with mathematical accuracy and
deliberate precision. They have shown an ability to critically evaluate
the military situation and not to allow misconceptions to blind their
analysis. By law, and proper procedure, the Tactical Section is empowered
only to produce plans and present them to the political leadership, and
the Military Commands are empowered to execute those plans once approved.
They are not allowed to intervene in the decision-making process of
the civilian leadership. It is clear that the Tactical Sections and
Military Commands have been keenly aware of the dangers that were being
undertaken, but could not act upon those dangers. They are cleared of
all blame.

The Diplomatic Corps have avoided most political decisions and merely
conveyed decisions made by the Foreign Office to the allies. They have
done a good job in keeping the true allies in line. They have not done
a good job in explaining the intricacies of some of the tactical details.
Some of the errors and mishaps are the result of shortcomings of the Corps.
More fundamentally, the Diplomatic Corps failed to take an active role
in the decision making process, ceding this power to the insular
Foreign Office. The invaluable experience and insight of those who meet
foreign leaders was lost. The Diplomatic Corps should also have pointed
out the failure of the Analysis Section to update their profiles.

Recommendations
---------------
The Commission recommends that the Foreign office be overhauled. It is
suggested that the Minister of Foreign Affairs resign, or failing that,
be replaced by the Chancellor. The opinions of junior members should be
propagated to the decision making process. Every effort should be made
to avoid fixation on a particular concept of diplomatic relations.
Members of the Diplomatic Corps should be invited to present opinions
and assessments on a regular basis. The Foreign Office should continue to
have the power to veto suggestions made by the military and intelligence
communities, but should use that power extremely sparingly.

The Analysis Section should be overhauled as well. Since the head of
that section has taken an early retirement, any recommendation concerning
a change of leadership is rendered moot. Most importantly, procedures
to regularly update profiles of foreign leaders should be established.
In addition, all anomalies and actions which are inconsistent with
established profiles should be thoroughly investigated until a satisfactory
explanation is reached.

The intelligence communities, Tactical Sections, Military Commands, and
Diplomatic Corps are encouraged to make their opinions more clearly
known, and to ensure that the political leadership becomes aware of
dangers which are encountered when their views are ignored. While no blame
for the loss is pinned on these sections, their willingness to be
over-ruled certainly contributed to the loss.

The political leadership is not blameless. The argument that their
ability to make decisions is only as good as the information and
assessments supplied to them is not acceptable to this Commission.
The leadership has allowed a situation where the false estimates and
poor pocedures of the Foreign Office came to dominate the national
policy.  The responsibility for the loss, ultimately, falls on the
shoulders of the political leadership.

The Commission recommends that an independent body be established to
provide the government with untainted estimates and analysis. It is
suggested that this body be of an academic nature to encourage
independent -- even provocative -- consideration of the diplomatic
situation from a detached, critical, and scientific vantage. The
establishment of Academia Diplomica is hereby proposed.

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