The Martial Unity

"You flatter me," Rui smiled.

"No no, I'm quite optimistic about your prospects of successfully completing this diplomatic mission based on our discussion up to this point alone," The man shook his head. "Coming back to the main point, as I said, you are correct about the means by which we identify how well a third party is able to fulfill primary interests such as food security. However, I did choose food shortage as hypothetical for a reason. It is, by far, the easiest to identify and recognize through the means that you have identified and more. However, identifying the degree to which other interests are fulfilled is not nearly as easy. Even other primary interests such as national security are more complicated than the hypothetical that I gave you, mainly because it is easier to hide."

Rui nodded. He was aware of this fact.

National security depended on factors such as the size of the military, the quality and quantity of militaristic technology, the Martial prowess of a nation; the number of Martial Artists it has, and its demographics as far as Realms went. These were far more difficult to estimate. For such complicated matters, it was safer and more reliable to directly rely on intelligence-gathering agencies and departments to directly gather such facts through espionage, surveillance, and infiltration among other things.

"However, this alone isn't enough," The man explained. "Yes, it's true that we can utilize a variety of means to understand whether or not a third party is able to fulfill a particular interest, it is also important to verify whether or not that particular interest is even an interest in the first place. Do you understand what I mean by that?"

Rui nodded. "I do. Not everybody will value all things equally. Still, there should be a broad intersection. Food and physical security are absolute. Even the secondary interests are largely universal."

examples that we have discussed earlier, for example. Technological sectors like communications, motorized transport, development and maintenance of complex infrastructure, and military and defense technology are all almost universal interests among all sovereign states on the Panama Continent. Yet there are examples of third parties that do not fall into this

knew what

was a somewhat isolated society that is devoid of technological development in most sectors? What if there was an ecosystem of parties that each led a lifestyle that is so deviated from what you and I are familiar with, such that technological sectors and industries such as communications, transport, and military tech are all entirely irrelevant to them?" The man smiled knowingly. "In this case, you would be dealing with parties with highly warped interests that fall outside of

their interests thoroughly before proceeding to levy the fulfillment of them to

Carl nodded. "I'm sure you've already figured out

ecosystem and have developed a highly warped culture and society that is highly divergent from modern civilization. For example, their little quasi-society has not developed any dependence on technology to sustain itself. This alone would be very rare

a certain extent. Their highly unique and warped culture and mentalities have rendered most of our negotiation chips, tactics, and capital to be useless. They reject our technology vehemently as they perceive it as a threat to their culture and way of life, as well as a primal aversion to what they don't understand. This is problematic because that means that they not only reject technology but also many esoteric natural

These insights matched those of his own. Diplomacy, trade, and negotiation were highly developed fields with rock-solid paradigms built upon universal traits and interests that everybody possessed. This led to a framework within which everybody operated. Diplomats and ambassadors were

reason to deploy Martial Artists as diplomats

are warped and are considerably deviated from expectations. As you promptly said earlier, we should learn as much about their interests as much as we can. In order to learn about