[SuperKnuckles]

Originally Posted by 4Tran

What do you mean by "meddling in foreign affairs"? The AEU had been attacked multiple times already - it's very much their affair.

Wow. Way to argue every single point just to make it through, eh? If AEU is attacked, THEN it is their affair. They clearly stated that they won't take action as long as it involves FOREIGN nations.

What do you mean by "lunging head first"? You are aware of the alternative approaches, aren't you?

Which entails more secretive ways beyond openly declaring war or public action. Like what they're doing now. I'm not exactly disagreeing with you on that they are free to take action. It's just not formalized in public.

None of these are even close to a declaration of war - which would be what a formal military response entails.

So? Why does formalization matter to you that much? Would a vague 'war on terror' do for you? The fact of the matter is that they are still pretty much in the mix with their proxy support of Moralia. That is all they need at this point. If CB was to be more threatening to AEU interests, then they will act accordingly. There is no major war, no major threat to AEU interests, no need to act brash with a war they may or may not win at this point with what little mobile suit development we've seen out of them.

That sounds a lot more like the idea of balance of power. Unfortunately for your position, balance of power is totally unrelated to the idea of a zero-sum game. I suppose you can try spelling it out, but I'm not sure how it's supposed to help you.

It's basically both. They're aiming for zero sum through balance of power, especially when CB is wreaking havoc and possibly throwing off the balance. Each faction playing with CB's wrath, then coming up with ways to profit off of it, then getting shot down by CB again, that pretty much sums it up.

My point is that you're mistaking what my argument is. Your statement, "And like you said, you plainly said before that if the ship couldn't be found on radar, it'd be natural for them to do so via visual contact" is totally missing the point since I'm just talking about the precautions that would seem to make sense.

I didn't mistake your point. I already said that the 'precautions' that you mention aren't definitely clear or maybe even sensible. You can't be sure the 'precautions' of just floating further in space would be better to throw off sensors and perhaps launching from further away would be detrimental to the ease of the mission. You're going by this from some dogmatic thinking that your alternative is the perfectly correct one. If so, then why would such a specialized group such as CB resort to using such tactics for months at a time with great success? Precautions, precautions, but that is not really answering the empirical argument of it.

Again, simply because an imprudent course of action has been successful for a period of time doesn't mean that it will be successful indefinitely. By the way, Furuya Tohru plainly said that it was four months since Celestial Being's public announcement.

When did I ever say that it'd be successful indefinitely? Whether it's perfectly safe or not, they chose to do that quite deliberately in a strategic perspective (really, it was never the visual contact that took them down, wasn't it? It was a communication field that did. Which could've been preventable as long as the crew was slightly more attentive). Don't put the onus on me every time for mentioning it because that is what the show is trying to portray.

Could it have been safer to go further in space? Maybe. But why would CB do it to begin with? You can't possibly convince me that they did it to jeopardize their mission. Their technology was able to deal with it in stride. They did not just go into lower orbit then get shot down. Even after getting 'caught', they were able to fight back pretty damn well.

Are you trying to claim that when an organization does something deliberately, it automatically means that it wasn't a mistake?

Again, I NEVER DISAGREED it was a possible mistake. Again, you're coming from some high and mighty view on this on how your tactic would've been infallible. That is not the point. Not only is that beyond proving as we can't know for certain, but they used that tactic for a purpose. It's not a matter of simple deliberateness. It was a strategic choice and CB, as unprofessional as its general conduct seems to be, never seems to do things out of pure whim.

Please explain exactly what it means.

And by the way, what do you mean by dogma?

Exactly what I said. If the major world powers can't simply track down CB visually for months at a time, then there must have been something done right for CB's tactical and strategic prowess. Their success isn't because of the three world powers' lack of prowess. It's BECAUSE of CB's overall prowess that they were successful. Likewise, when CB failed to go beyond detection, it wasn't the world powers' sudden prowess in finding CB alone. It was CB's lapse, and not some major strategic move that cost them.

And by dogmatic, I meant how you're thinking that the argument of taking it to the higher orbit = automatic safety. I understand your viewpoint. I really do. But that is not concordant to the actions the organization have shown all up till now, and it's not like HRL was the sole factor in finding them out. It was a mistake on CB's side that did it. I'm not exactly saying that I'm perfect right here because we'll never know what course of action would have exactly been the best. If the comm officer was present on the bridge when HRL was doing its mission, then we may never be talking about this at all.

Again, I never argued that CB did a lot of little things wrong. Just that taking one side and thinking their strategy was fatally flawed from the get go, that is just a vague argument.