Kalistani Major History

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His Imperial Majesty discusses Kalistani issues
Conversation covers the Economy, Foreign Affairs, and upcoming Naval exercises
Kaliburg, Grand Duchy of Ananto
April 7, 5549


His Imperial Majesty sits down with reporter Monica Torrance to discuss Kalistani Affairs

The Republic's Monica Torrance was granted an exclusive interview with His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Fredrick II Ananto. The conversation took place at Wilson House in Kaliburg.

(The Republic's) M(onica) T(orrance): Before we begin, I am required to note for the record that His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor Fredrick II Ananto, has offered me special dispensation in this particular instance to dispense with the rule of Protocol regarding direct reference to His Imperial Majesty with personal pronouns.

(His Imperial Majesty) E(mperor Fredrick II Ananto): We have indeed permitted it. Won't you please have a seat, Ms. Torrance?

MT: Your Imperial Majesty. It is truly an honor to be invited to this personal audience with you.

E: It is a rare occasion that we have the opportunity to entertain unofficially. We are pleased with the opportunity to meet you and speak with you for your readers today.

MT: I'll get right to the questions then. My paper recently reported a trade deficit. Can you give my readers some idea of what Kalistan intends to do about that?

E: The trade deficit is certainly a matter of great concern for our Nation. But we have asked our Minister of Trade to draft several policy options for us to consider with regard to a response. We are leaning at the moment toword trying to both increase our exports while limiting the amount of imports. Our Consumers will feel some pain in the stores, but we are advised that the pain will be limited to specific sectors of non-essential consumer items, and any shortages our consumers experience in foreign imports will be covered by domestic equivalents. Essential items and items made in the Empire will not be affected at all.

MT: Do you expect prices to increase, Your Imperial Majesty?

E: We expect that as supplies of certain foreign items dwindle, prices should naturally increase. The upside is that, while people will not be able to find the things they have grown accustomed to over the last few years, which they see as prestigious to have, higher foreign prices will make Kalistani products more attractive. That will stimulate our own producers, and should lead to more jobs and higher revenues. Some foreign producers will likely feel a pinch, but that is well outside of our concern. The health of our economy comes before either the desire to purchase unnecessary luxury items from foreign countries, or the health of those countries' industries.

MT: Is there some possibility that Kalistan will increase exports to offset the trade deficit?

E: It is a non-zero possibility. However, the data the economists used discussed where we at the time. There isn't a large number of additional buyers for Kalistani Products. Those things we produce for ourselves everyone seems to desire to produce as well. Of course we can't blame them: Kalistan strives in all things to be as self-sufficient as possible. We should always assume that, to the degree that Kalistan does things as a reasonable nation would do, others would do that too. So we build planes, and other nations build planes. We build ships, and other nations build ships. We build cars, and other nations will build cars. We build microprocessors and consumer electronics and clothing and steel and food stuffs and computers and telephones and movies, and of course, as this is what a nation seeking to develop its economy does, other nations build those things too.

Kalistan always aims to import those things it cannot produce at a comparative advantage. Some nations have the lead in things we won't ever make ourselves. These and the foreign prestige items represent the sum total of our imports. But this is the problem: Kalistan doesn't produce much that others cannot or will not produce for themselves. It seems that nations claim to be "liberal" and claim to support free trade, but in reality, they merely do exactly the same thing that Kalsitan does, which is not trade, but produce as much locally as they can so they do not have to purchase it from ephemeral friends in other nations. So instead of buying things from countries who produce them cheaper, they devote significant sums of money to build their industries from the ground up. They do what we see as reasonable, but it is only reasonable for us to pursue autarky because we are not a liberal nation. We are only open to free trade where it benefits us, to allow us to acquire things that we don't produce ourselves.

But what makes sense for us shouldn't make sense for liberal economies, and those economies that call themselves liberal know that, yet they pursue autarky too. A free trade treaty does not make a free trader. Especially when you buy nothing and try only to sell. We get it: We pursue autarky, to the farthest degree possible, because we do not endorse capitalism or market economics, and therefore, let our national interests alone drive our economic decision making. But, because others do too, that decreases their desire for our products. Our option is to either find new trading partners, or to decrease imports from the nations we do trade with. The options are stark, but this is what we have before us.

MT: This seems to be a retreat back to autarky then, Your Imperial majesty.

E: Indeed it is. If other nations are not in line to buy Kalistani products because they are too interested in producing their own versions of those same items, as we would reasonably expect any nation seeking to free itself from the pernicious and capricious forces of the market and international commodities speculation, then that is fine: we aren't under any obligation to help them keep their positive balance of trade even as they feel no obligation to help Kalistan maintain ours. Our goods are available. If people want to buy them, they know how to get ahold of our exporters. While we wait for all these new trading partners to line up to buy our exports, we still need to look to our own economy.

MT: Thank you, Your Imperial Majesty. Can we discuss where Kalistan is sitting in international relations?

E: You may ask yes.

MT: We are interested in Kalistan's Seleyan relations first. Where do we stand in relation to other Seleyan Nations?

E: We look forward to resuming our progress of cooperation with Lodamun. Not too long in the past, we began a close cooperation with Lodamun regarding creating a large scale intelligence sharing network over the entire Northern Anantonese Ocean. We were also looking into extending that network into the Central Anantonese. Both of these areas are of key interest to Kalistan's national security, and cooperation with other nations in our region on maintaining a close eye over the comings and goings of foreign nations in these regions is key to maintaining this security. There are also the first signs of interest in cooperation from the new Government in Likatonia, We would look forward to the opportunity to visit Likatonia at the earliest opportunity. There seems to be some more opportunity to work together for the furtherance of regional security.

MT: And the nations to our south?

E: We have not had much contact with the Government in Baltusia. There doesn't seem to be an interest in Baltusians working with Kalsitan. We are keeping an eye on them--They had a real Captain Queeg situation going on there for a little while--but now it seems that they seem sort of stuck in internal affairs. This is good news in that their navy won't pose a serious threat to Kalistan, but we would much rather have a partner in that nation than a rogue state. Gaduridos is empty, and we have never had much to do with Tukarali.

MT: And nations south of there?

E: These nations are well off our radar. Southern Seleyan Nations seem to be well culled by Lourenne and Canrille. They pose no threat, nor do they seem interested in any way of offering the North any sort of opportunities or cooperation.

MT: Speaking of Canrille, what is Your Imperial Majesty's position on the Canrille Empire?

E: On balance, Kalistan has an affinity toward them. Kalistan does its own thing and we work together where it is mutually profitable. Kalistan and Lourenne, and therefore, by extension, everyone that trades with and in Lourenne, including the Canrille states as well, indirectly, as those others who are locked into the health of Lourenne's economy through their usage of the Franc, trade with one another. The AESA allows Lourenne unfettered access to Kalistan's Markets and vice versa. This relationship is obviously very positive and profitable for Kalistani producers and brings a lot of diversity into our stores locally. We don't get in their way. And we feel we have come to the point of peaceful co-existence and consonance over a lot of issues where we can, and where there is no overlap of interests, we remain independent of one another. This relationship has worked for hundreds of years, and there is no push from either side of the Meridia Strait to change it.

MT: What is Your Imperial Majesty's position on the new surveillance satellites that Lourenne has recently launched into Space?

E: If we may correct you, those satellites were upgrades to the ones Lourenne already maintained in space. As such they didn't bother us. It is not in our interest to hide anything from Lourenne, certainly. As a matter of fact, it would be more in our interest for them to know exactly what Kalistan's capability was. We make an effort to broadcast it, including troop locations, strengths and strategic and tactical doctrine. Not only are we proud of our activities, but we feel that deterrence involves announcing precisely what sort of thing any nation who wishes to attack Kalistan will experience, so they can make a reasonable calculation to decide not to bother. That, in our estimation, and we may add, in our strategic doctrine, is far better than encouraging some wild nation to gamble and think they have better odds if they simply attack and find out what they are in for when they get here. It is more important that they know precisely what they are in for.

Kalistan can not win in a regular war against Lourenne. We know this. Nor do we build as if it was a possibility that we could possibly match them man for man, gun for gun. Lourenne has so many aircraft carriers that they have to transfer some to their colonies to keep from ruining their economy. That's absurd: It is exactly as irrational as a nation that maintains enough nuclear weaponry to destroy the world ten thousand times over. It makes no sense. But we would like Lourenne, or any potential adversary to know that to take Kalistan they will either have to irradiate it, or invade it, and if they invade it, our goal will be to slaughter as many invaders as we possibly can, with whatever means we have available, before we are finally completely depopulated as a nation. Invasions into Kalistan are meant to be unbridled carnage, for both sides. And then whoever is left will end up being a hostile population that is perpetually at war with whoever invades, making it impossible for the occupiers to ever sleep, let alone administer the country. The strategic doctrine is designed like this, and announced this way because we don't want anyone to ever think it is a good idea to invade. No sane person would. It is far easier to let Kalistan live in peace and work with us than to threaten force, because we know we will lose, so there is really no reason to ever hold anything back for a future peace. There will be no peace when someone else breaks it.

Lourenne, we think, understands this, to all of our benefit. There may be some other nations that do not understand this, but it is lucky for Kalistan that they are inert with regard to capability. Lourenne's military capabilities do not worry Kalistan. They are not pointed at us.

MT: Do you feel that there is any opportunity to cooperate with Lourenne, Your Imperial Majesty?

E: Where we can cooperate, we are certainly interested in doing so. It is our belief that lots of other nations in the world are so amazed by Lourenne's preponderance of power that it is easy to overlook Kalistan's role in this relationship. Underestimation serves us as well. Meanwhile, Lourenne has made no moves toward alteration of the Status Quo in the region, and we have no interest in doing so either. We would welcome talks with the Lourennais foreign Office at some point. Besides our obviously close commercial ties, the last things our two nations cooperated over seems to be bio plastics and bio fuels.

MT: I believe we may be running long, Your Imperial Majesty.

E: We are indeed. You are very kind to speak with us though. So we are happy to indulge you.

MT: I'll ask one more question then in that case. There have been rumors of Naval Exercises in the Ananto Strait. Now that Your Imperial Majesty's Government has ordered the Strait opened, do you think that this will cause any issues with foreign militaries?

E: First, We can confirm, there are to be major exercises in the Strait. It was our aim to invite others to those exercises: The Strait has been off limits to foreign military shipping for so long that it is possible that there is a whole generation of foreign naval officers and enlisted men and women who have never sailed through the Strait. But the Strait offers an excellent training area where ships may conduct full range live fire exercises in an environment which is a lot like the open ocean, but can be contained a lot like known distance courses. We have the greatest opportunity to practice naval combat in hyperrealistic simulations in the Strait. So we would have liked to invite others to join our war games there. But otherwise, no, we won't be anywhere near the normal shipping lanes though the Strait. Those lanes are perhaps a hundred nautical miles outside of our normal firing range, and there is no chance of civilian foreign ships becoming involved in the exercises.

MT: Your Imperial Majesty, what will the exercises cover?

E: Much like the Lourennais, we look to integrate our surveillance with surface activities. We have been constantly developing our submarine detection capabilities, both air and surface bound. We are also looking into an idea that Dolgava had developed some centuries ago of creating a passive sonar buoy network to detect submarines as they drift through our National Waters. Even the so-called "silent" ships, like our own Ontiveros Class Submarines, which do not use diesel electric engines, and therefore have a sound profile which is very difficult to detect, or nuclear vessels which claim to be undetectable. Nothing is undetectable. One merely has to know what one is listening for. These exercises will be primarily for hunting and escaping--We will pit the submarine force against our surface and air ASW weaponry to find the gaps in our detection abilities. It will give us vital data to hand to KMC to develop the next generation of anti-submarine weaponry and detection capabilities. That and we want to do large scale wargames as a readiness examination for our naval crew. We intend to have elements of all three fleets in the Strait, and whoever wins the wargames will be commended.

MT: It has been a pleasure speaking with you today Your Imperial Majesty.

E: The pleasure was all our own. We thank you for your accurate and honest work and would invite you to stay for some brief refreshments. However, we are late for our weekly meeting with the Chancellor, and we are certain she will not be pleased with that.

MT: Oh, my apologies, Your Imperial Majesty. Would you please tell her I am sorry for keeping you so long?

E: We shall, however there is nothing to worry about: The meeting cannot start until we arrive. She will be fine. Thank you Madam for your time.

MT: Your Imperial Majesty...

With this, the Interview ended, and the Emperor excused himself.

Author's note: This reporter found the Emperor to be a thoughtful young man who seemed far more mature than his age suggested. He was very soft spoken, which was certainly not what I expected; he had a good sense of humor about not only his office, but also many world events that many other nations take very seriously. I was asked to keep a lot of discussion off the record, but the topics of discussion included his recollections of his mother, the late Empress Nicolette II (it made him very happy to speak of her: He clearly loved and missed his mother, who died when he was a child), whether it was true that he was going to be married soon, and other sorts of personal things.

This reporter got the sense that he was very guarded, but as the interview progressed, he let some of that guard down and showed a much kinder side, one that smiled easily, one that enjoyed puns and etymology and languages, and one that was far more human than the multi layered and impenetrable rules surrounding protocol allow anyone else to see. He lit up when I asked him about car racing in Reynoldia, for example, but then as quickly as he was to smile, the joy faded and he simply said, "We regret, there is simply no more time for those childish hobbies any longer. You would think that We, the Sovereign of this great nation would have all the time to do whatever he likes. In fact, this reign requires constant attention. We cannot even turn so much as a socket wrench any longer without having to have it on a schedule six months in advance. Perhaps when it is time to retire..."

Though I asked personal questions of the Emperor, and he answered candidly, I believe, he asked me to refrain from printing them, as he is concerned about his image outside of Kalistan. His Imperial Majesty told me to print what I felt was useful and true, and leave the rest to the gossip columnists: "We believe, Madam, that you are better than the tabloids. You do not need to shrink to their level." I feel like my time with the Emperor was well spent.