View Topic

I agree that the discussion about the 'rules' for being involved in military operations belong somewhere other than the application forum, so I am attempting to move it here.

Point Breeze specifically asked, "I've never heard of National Sovereignty applied to military organizations.  Interesting."

And I would like to answer that: that's because NS really does not reflect real world practice in that regard.

In the real world, The USA, The UK, and France are all part of NATO: NATO is a good example of a Regional Military/Defense Organization.  When NATO decides to engage in an action (such as the Kosovo intervention), the *nations* that are involved come together and discuss how to proceed.  *NO* nation is expected to engage in an action against their will (and in fact, some don't).  *NO* nation who is a member of NATO is told that they can not also be part of ANZUS (which the US is part of.)  Nor, does the regional defense organization concern itself with potential conflicts (The US also has independent Defense agreements with the Philippines and Japan, for instance.) 

What makes NS odd in this regard is that most Regions operate under a 'default game culture' whereby they act more like Unitary Nations, then like Regions, and the military organizations are operated more like a Nation's military than as a regional defense organization.

In my mind, the perfect Regional Approach would be to acknowledge the independence and sovereignty of each Nation...and then, when an action is recommended, nations simply move their WA where needed and endorse the appropriate nation....or not, if they need to oppose the venture.  And if the Regional Military does not choose to intervene (such as the Rwanda Massacre), any individual WA ought to be allowed to do so without fear of reprisal or 'discipline' which is what happened when the UK sent troops to the Falklands, with no repercussions from the US, even though the US had a mutual defense treaty with Argentine since 1947.

Anyway, those are my thoughts....Regions in NS generally take on the Personna of Nations, and Nations often take on the Personna of....well....fiefdoms, at least insofar as Military Actions are concerned.

I agree that the discussion about the 'rules' for being involved in military operations belong somewhere other than the application forum, so I am attempting to move it here.

Point Breeze specifically asked, "I've never heard of National Sovereignty applied to military organizations.  Interesting."

And I would like to answer that: that's because NS really does not reflect real world practice in that regard.

In the real world, The USA, The UK, and France are all part of NATO: NATO is a good example of a Regional Military/Defense Organization.  When NATO decides to engage in an action (such as the Kosovo intervention), the *nations* that are involved come together and discuss how to proceed.  *NO* nation is expected to engage in an action against their will (and in fact, some don't).  *NO* nation who is a member of NATO is told that they can not also be part of ANZUS (which the US is part of.)  Nor, does the regional defense organization concern itself with potential conflicts (The US also has independent Defense agreements with the Philippines and Japan, for instance.) 

What makes NS odd in this regard is that most Regions operate under a 'default game culture' whereby they act more like Unitary Nations, then like Regions, and the military organizations are operated more like a Nation's military than as a regional defense organization.

This is because the way raider's conquer in NS is far different than in the real world. In the real world, I can not drag my nation to a new region, or take some neighbours with me. I also can not take control of a region and go so far as to eject nations from a region by gaining endorsements. Even then, if more nations in a region are outside of the UN than in it, it's unlikely that a regional delegate would have any real power, and certainly not the power to remove nations.

I also have a hard time believing that the members of NATO, or any other defensive pact, are able to indirectly attack a fellow member nation without reprecussions. For instance, the US was almost drawn into the Falkland War. Or for another example, look at World War I.

I will be interested to see what happens if a region follows the National Sovereignty path, as I can see it leading to serious conflicts of interest. Just like in RL, if a group poses as one of the good guys but harbours bad guys, the organization will lose credibility. Similarly, it will pose a conflict of interest for the organization as a whole. If an organization enters a defensive pact with Lazarus, but then allows members to join a separate group which conquers Lazarus, what good is the defensive pact? I think for this to work the whole organization has to be cross-regional, not based in one region, and functioning through something other than delegates and endorsements.

In my mind, the perfect Regional Approach would be to acknowledge the independence and sovereignty of each Nation...and then, when an action is recommended, nations simply move their WA where needed and endorse the appropriate nation....or not, if they need to oppose the venture.  And if the Regional Military does not choose to intervene (such as the Rwanda Massacre), any individual WA ought to be allowed to do so without fear of reprisal or 'discipline' which is what happened when the UK sent troops to the Falklands, with no repercussions from the US, even though the US had a mutual defense treaty with Argentine since 1947.

Anyway, those are my thoughts....Regions in NS generally take on the Personna of Nations, and Nations often take on the Personna of....well....fiefdoms, at least insofar as Military Actions are concerned.

What your asking for is for individual members to be able to join multiple military organizations, but then only support the organization they've joined under certain conditions. How will one determine which group is a defensive and which is a raider org? The fact is you can't, one day a group will raid and the next it will defend. Imperialists, Communists, Fascists, Libertarians, and founder led regions have all been observed both raiding and defending.

On a broader scale, I suspect that there are two reasons why regions haven't succeeded in the "national sovereignty" approach. The first is that it would severely limit what regions could do, since any 'regional government' would just be an administrative caretaker tasked with collecting and then implementing the decisions of the nations on any issue...a direct democracy or anarchy, depending on how you see it. Such a government would not have any purview to build a regional culture, to conduct foreign affairs in any cohesive manner, or to build and maintain a credible military. It reminds me of the American government under the Articles of Confederation...a weak and ultimately unworkable government that required the consent of the states to do much of anything, and even then states could opt out.

The second reason is the fact that most nations in each region do not participate in the game other than to answer their daily issues. This would result in a core group of more active nations eventually coming together and forming a more centralized government...either to better provide for their region or to consolidate their power over the region, depending on how cynically you want to look at it. I doubt a government based on the principles of national sovereignty would last very long for that reason.

More specifically regarding the military, given the current state of defending, there's no compelling reason anyone should need to join more than one military. Outside of TITO, no defender region or organization can successfully do many defense operations on their own, so regardless of how many or which military you join you will probably be doing the same missions...and most regions allow people to opt-out of missions they can't or don't want to do as it is, either because they can't be online or they have an issue with the operation, as is often seen in defenses of Nazi regions, for example. As far as I'm aware, nobody is punished for not participating in missions, as long as they're active in the military in general. In short, the experiences and mission sets won't change by being part of another military, because everyone has to work together to achieve results.

On the other hand, there are many reasons to restrict membership in the military...it's beneficial for Wintreath to be able to field a military of people that are not part of or can be influenced by another region, as even defender regions have different goals, principles, and directions. Wintreath has defense treaties with regions other defender regions may not have, we certainly have different views on the concept of regional sovereignty, and other regions may prioritize available missions in a different way. It wouldn't be good if we couldn't fulfill our treaty obligations because most of our military decided to go with another military they were a part of.

Additionally, opening up membership presents a slippery slope. It seems fairly safe that we would allow people from other defender forces to join, but what about forces that both raid and defend? Or forces that exclusively raid? That's a serious question, too. At one point when I was President of Spiritus, I had to deal with accusations that we were discriminating against non-defender Citizens over a proposed rule to prevent people in raiding organizations from joining the regional military. Requiring that our troops not be in any other military removes the need to even consider that slippery slope and other related issues that it calls into question.

Finally, in my experience, the vast majority of people join multiple militaries not to be able to defend more or out of loyalty to the regions they're in, but to better position themselves to collect shiny positions and titles as they come open in any particular military...which they usually end up not anything with because they're so stretched. I don't believe that was your goal in wanting to join TITO and the HR, but that is why many people attempt to join every region and military that they can. I don't believe that's something that should be encouraged, particularly in a region partially guided by the concepts of regionalism.

Ultimately, real-world examples don't hold up well in NationStates because of the separate realities of the game. Out in the real world, nations have millions or even billions of people behind them, while in NationStates they only have a single person who has exclusive authority over what that nation will do. Outside of roleplay regions, these people usually identify as an individual rather than their nation or even a representative of their nation. Additionally, that single person can much more easily join multiple regions in NationStates than they could become a Citizen of multiple nations in the real world. Those two facts alone make the nation-style region all successful regions have much more practical to have than a faux-alliance of nations who are really individuals that present themselves as such. In order for the alliance of nations approach to work, I suspect you'd have to fundamentally alter how people think of and play the game.

Interestingly enough as an aside, there are alliances of regions like there are real-world alliances of nations like NATO, such as the Founderless Regions Alliance (FRA) or the late Sovereign Confederation (SovCon). Everything is based on the idea of a nation being one person, it seems.

I have read both responses...and am chuckling to myself, because it clearly brought out an immediate reaction from vested interests, the first being a XKI member of TITO with eyes and ears in Wintreath.  Fascinating.

In fact, I do not accept any of the arguments presented for strong regionalism: what they boil down to is *not* issues of conflicts of interest or collecting shiny medals - they all boil down to issues of control and power at the Regional level, and the inability to maintain that control is disturbing to those in positions of authority. Defender organizations ALL have the same basic philosophy, all oppose the Black Riders, all defend founderless regions.  The appearance of conflict  is far more 'theoretical' than actual.  And if there are conflicts - then I maintain that Nations, not Regions, must exercise their own Sovereignty.

Politically, I am a libertarian, and it truly is a study in sociology to see how quickly individuals run into the "we-must-have-order-or-chaos-will-prevail!" mode.   And so, what is basically Fascism "behind the curtain" installs itself as the political norm, even while the out front, public picture is one of happiness and silliness (as long as you're discussing tacos and word games and 'non-serious' stuff) - just like fascist regimes (and I include the US in that) do in the "real world." 

It is the fear of loss of control that actually is in the driver's seat of the Region-centric approach to militarism. There is absolutely nothing - and I mean NOTHING - that prevents the leader of a Region - even one without a military organization - from announcing "XYZ is under threat, please move to XYZ and endorse ABC, thanks!"

The operative phrase from an earlier post is that the "US almost got drawn into the Falklands War."  The point is that we did NOT - because, despite the US's presence in defensive treaties with the UK, we could not be drawn in against our will - no could we be forced to support either the UK or Argentina.

Anyway, I don't expect anything to change..I just thought it better, as Govindia suggested, to transfer the conversation here...and to possibly use this instance as a great learning tool in class as to how the natural predisposition of Power, is to Maintain and Secure Power and fear Liberty.

And NONE of what I've written is meant as a criticism of Wintreath, the Hvitt Ridderal, or its Founder and Lord - this is really a sociological observation from someone who has served in high US Government positions (including the White House) and the US Military for four decades now....

Remember, remember the 5th of November :-)

Oh Myyy.

The reason the defender militaries are organized the way they are, is they respond to threats on the regional level. As much as I admire libertarian ideals, until the control of regions shifts from delegates to natives, I can't see the military structures change. Is it a desire to maintain control? I guess - though not necessarily with ill intent. The responsibility of control has been placed on the Delegates and Founders  by the game mechanics, because those are the only positions in the game that can infringe on the rights of a nation (other than the WA as a collective body).

True national sovereignty applied to the R/D mechanic would be the option of becoming an "independent" nation and not residing in any particular region.  Since the game prevents that, the next best option would be a loosely organized band of nations that share ideologies, but contribute nothing in terms of regional government. 

There's no reason why a nation cannot join the WA, refuse to endorse the regional delegate, refuse to seek citizenship, and participate in military operations independent of the established regional military.  This nation's residence in the region would be considered "convenient," and no third party could possibly construe the independent nation's actions as representative of the region.  However, when this nation chooses to directly associate itself with the region through citizenship and supports the regional delegate, that nation is now bound to the customs and laws of the region.  That's how citizenship works.  If the citizen-nation wishes to participate in military actions under the banner of the region, they are honor-bound to support the region.  This is not a mechanism of "fascism" or a way for delegates to circle-jerk the size of their armies at each other.  If a nation wishes to enjoy the benefits of citizenship in a region, and if they wish to participate in military gameplay in the name of the region, they have a civic duty to obey the orders of commanding officers and regional leadership. 

Lol, this is something that I do with Latrovia, I won't go to any Osiris War since I am not needed there, just to show that Wintreath is doing it's part? And frankly I am not really sure how many troops we've sented on that harmless war. Both sides since the beggining are defending perfectlly, so it might even be an endless war. Just because we have a pact with them, it does not mean, that we have to go hostile to Osiris, we never know what might happen in the future... In the other hand Lazarus has kinda an unstable Goverment, people resigning some sort of communistic model.

I believe that Wintreath should not had engaged any troops there, so soon. Since the war is just words and not actions, we should have looked at this matter on a delicate point of view.

Defender organizations ALL have the same basic philosophy, all oppose the Black Riders, all defend founderless regions.  The appearance of conflict  is far more 'theoretical' than actual.  And if there are conflicts - then I maintain that Nations, not Regions, must exercise their own Sovereignty.

This is incorrect. Moral defenders have the philosophy of defending because it's the 'right thing to do' while people who defend for fun couldn't care less about what's right and just enjoy fighting raiders, and the two groups tend to not care much for each other...thus, they actually have very different philosophies. Moral defenders will argue that all founderless regions should be protected by principle, while more moderate defenders will argue that regions that have no active native community aren't worth defending...this is why many regions do not bother to defend or to liberate The Black Riders' tag raids except perhaps as practice. In fact, many defenders consider the Black Riders little more than a nuisance, and wouldn't oppose them as strongly as, say, the United Imperialist Armed Forces (UIAF).

That doesn't even take into effect the circumstances of the individual regions which I alluded to in my last post. The fact of the matter is, disagreements between defenders are not just 'theoretical'...they are very real.

Politically, I am a libertarian, and it truly is a study in sociology to see how quickly individuals run into the "we-must-have-order-or-chaos-will-prevail!" mode.   And so, what is basically Fascism "behind the curtain" installs itself as the political norm, even while the out front, public picture is one of happiness and silliness (as long as you're discussing tacos and word games and 'non-serious' stuff) - just like fascist regimes (and I include the US in that) do in the "real world."

Tacos? Isn't that a XKI thing?

It is the fear of loss of control that actually is in the driver's seat of the Region-centric approach to militarism. There is absolutely nothing - and I mean NOTHING - that prevents the leader of a Region - even one without a military organization - from announcing "XYZ is under threat, please move to XYZ and endorse ABC, thanks!"

And exactly how will this leader announce this operation without alerting raider and imperialist spies, or even legitimate raider and imperialist Citizens? Even Wintreath has raider and imperialist Citizens, and simply announcing such a thing will guarantee that raiders and imperialists will move more forces to the region, or reinforce it with pilers if they already control it. Also, this would not work at all for defenses, where you may only have seconds to react after raiders have moved into a region before it updates. For that you need dedicated people in a real-time chat at the very least.

This method could only work for sending pilers to regions that defenders or a native delegate already controls, which is only a small subset of defender operations.

And NONE of what I've written is meant as a criticism of Wintreath, the Hvitt Ridderal, or its Founder and Lord - this is really a sociological observation from someone who has served in high US Government positions (including the White House) and the US Military for four decades now....

I certainly hope that you don't view Wintreath as fascist, but the fact of the matter is that is how you described military practices which we and many other regions follow, before dismissing my initial post as being from a 'vested interest' and then claiming that the leaderships of all regions with a military fear losing power, which would presumably also include Wintreath since it falls in that category. Minus the tacos reference, you could just as easily be talking about Wintreath as any other gameplay region. =/

I believe that Wintreath should not had engaged any troops there, so soon. Since the war is just words and not actions, we should have looked at this matter on a delicate point of view.

Are you stating that you believe Wintreath should have violated a treaty it signed in good faith?

Article One: Recognition and Defense
1.The signatories agree to recognize the legitimate governments of their respective counterparts as outlined in the preamble of this document.
2.The signatories agree to come to the defense of their respective counterparts if requested to do so by the legitimate, authorized leadership of the asking party.
3. Defense can entail sending nations who are involved in the army of the respective regions to supply in-game endorsements on requested nations and/or verbal declarations of support by the Heads of State (or Foreign Affairs Official equivalent) of the two regions in question -- this only applies if the regions in question are undoubtedly sovereign territories. The legal Heads of State of the signatories shall be the only ones authorized to request such defensive support.

Yeah I have read the points of the pact, I am just saying that we should not have engaged so soon, before we see how the war is going

The treaty specifies that the parties will come to the defense of each other at the request of their leadership. It does not provide for any leeway to 'see how the war is going', because it correctly presumes that the parties will want to defend each other regardless of the state of the war. Refusing the request would not only have been a direct violation of treaty, but would also have been extremely dishonourable.

And even if we didn't have a treaty, to turn down such a request would have made for horrible foreign affairs policy. It is in the best interest of Wintreath for it to prove itself a reliable and worthy diplomatic partner, as I believe we did with our actions in assisting in the defense of Lazarus.

Yeah I understand that part, but the treaty was not formed properly. Funkadelia resigned, right? So we have a new Lazarean Goverment that we need to accept first, in order to follow the diplomatic pact

Funkadelia did not resign...he played a prank for a few hours that he was resigning, but that's all it was. And even if he had resigned, it does not change anything. The treaty is between the Frozen Realm of Wintreath and the People's Republic of Lazarus, and applies regardless of who the leaders of our regions are...in fact, Milograd was Chairman of the PRL when the treaty was drafted and ratified.

Funkadelia did not resign...he played a prank for a few hours that he was resigning, but that's all it was. And even if he had resigned, it does not change anything. The treaty is between the Frozen Realm of Wintreath and the People's Republic of Lazarus, and applies regardless of who the leaders of our regions are...in fact, Milograd was Chairman of the PRL when the treaty was drafted and ratified.

Well who makes a prank while being on WAR?!
I give you only one, the pact between WTR and TRR, because I am the Ambassador there